SDI Convergence - Nederlandse Commissie voor Geodesie - KNAW

model (see Figure 3). The four components should be addressed in balance with each
other. The starting point is the service domain which addresses aspects such as type
of service, intended user group and the value of a service for meeting customer demands.
The service domain serves as a guide to the technical design. Some of the aspects
addressed in the technical design are architecture, infrastructure, accessibility
and payment mechanisms. To develop and market a successful service often requires
organisations to collaborate. Collaboration can be as simple as one organisation wanting
to launch a web service and needing financial backing from a bank or it can be different
organisations bundling information into one web service. The organisation domain
describes the value chain required to realise a specific service. A value chain
consists of actors with specific resources and capabilities that interact and work together
to create value for customers and to realise their own strategies and goals
(Faber et al., 2008). The organisation domain has to address the network and actor
aspects as well. The last component to be addressed is the finance domain, which is
the bottom line of any business model with revenues on one side and investments,
costs and risks on the other side.
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Figure 3: STOF model (Bouwman et al., 2005).
Osterwalder and Pigneur (2002) note that a business model can only be successful if it
includes the following three elements: (1) revenue and product aspects; (2) business
actor and network aspects; and (3) marketing specific aspects. In their view, a business
model should be based on the following columns:
– Product innovation;
– Customer relations;
– Infrastructure management, and
– Finances.