Business model innovation: Learning from a high-tech-low-fee medical healthcare model for the BOP

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that expands business model innovation literature by including a social goal, the emerging markets (EMs) environmental characteristics and adopting a bottom-up perspective.

This paper draws on a single-case study. Sistema Ser/CEGIN (SER–CEGIN) is an Argentine social business that offers high-quality medical healthcare to BOP users.

The paper presents a new conceptualization on business model innovation that includes three dimensions: firm-centric, environment and customer-centric. The framework incorporates to the traditional framework on business model innovation, the social profit equation, the general and task environment and the end-user, as well as the dynamics between them.

While the authors acknowledge the importance of studying the components of the business model operating levels (economic, operational and strategic) to determine the type of business model innovation (revenue, enterprise and industrial), the framework incoporates the environment and customer-centric dimension. The suggested framework opens new streams of research both for the innovation business model literature as well as for the EMs – bottom of the pyramid (BOP) literature.

To achieve economic and social goals, particularly in the BOP, firms need to adopt a bottom-up approach to understand the components of their business model that need to be modified.

The paper proposes a novel business model innovation conceptualization which is useful for both researches to better study business models in the BOP and for firms to successfully operate in the BOP.