The value chain is a widely used framework for industry and firm analysis. To our knowledge, the conceptualisation of value chains is so far guided by “soft” criteria like intuition of experts rather than clearly stated methods with regard to the value chain boundaries and the granularity as...

The value added created by a firm is a widely used figure. Major elements of a firm’s strategy and business model deal with how the firm creates value and brings it to the customer. This paper focuses on a particular measure which has been broadly applied to measure the degree of vertical...

As the information load grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to follow-up new trends in business and management. However, new developments in technologies and markets pose threats and open up opportunities to firms. Especially the software business changes continuously and profoundly. It is...

This paper analyses business models of software firms. The underlying framework comprises eight variables derived from a comprehensive software industry business model conceptualisation. Using this framework, we classify the business models of the global top 100 software firms based on their...

The value chain concept disaggregates a firm into the various activities it performs. Abstracting from the firm-level this concept has also been applied to industries as a whole. In this paper we conceptualize a software specific value chain and provide a first proof of concept. Our approach...

The goal of the German Software Industry Survey is to investigate the current state of the German software industry on a yearly basis. Conclusions are made based on grounded data and empirical findings. We hope that this type of research will contribute to the work of both, practitioners and...