Creation and Implementation of a New Business Model: a Disarming Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show through a case study the inherent difficulties in creating and implementing a new business model in an existing firm. This research is based on a study of Valtis, a French security transportation firm whose CEO helped to introduce onto the market an innovative system based not on securing goods but on removing temptation: money is no longer carried in armored vehicles but is placed in secure containers, transported by unarmed men traveling in unmarked cars. The article shows that as well as demonstrating technological innovation, this is in fact a radically new business model. It also highlights the double loop learning needed to create it and also the difficulties encountered when two business models (the old and the new) coexist during and after the strategic experimentation phase. More generally, the article aims to show how the notion of the business model opens up the question of strategic regeneration.