Business Models (BM) and their recent evolution have shaped the way in Business Strategy. It is widely accepted that the formulation and implementation of business strategies, and the need for the development of competitive advantages, is directly related to BM. Within this context, a variety of theories, approaches, and tools has emerged with significant impact on both academia and the business world. Despite the plethora of important theories and approaches, the important questions that have arisen after many years of research and business activity have not yet been answered. The main issue has proven to be the dispute on the general view of what success means and how can be measured. The profit models/formulas that are incorporated in every Business model and have been used extensively to measure BM success, as well as the overall business success, raise ambiguity over the results of such measurements. Moreover the profits, and profit based valuations, are criticized, on the basis that they fail to capture the long term dynamics, and the long-run success perspectives of every Business model, and thus incite the overall success of the Business Strategy employed. New approaches are more concentrated on the mechanics and the dynamics of the processes utilized to create and capture value and not in the ways that this value is turned to profits.
The need for a new approach, based on the processes of creating and capturing value, is more evident for Greek Companies. The special characteristics of the Greek economy, and its developments in the last 12 years, along with the inherited inability of Greek companies, to create and implement appropriate BM, and overall Business Strategies, constitutes the perfect environment for research in an effort to address the issue of processes based vs. profit based, BM. In this economic and business environment, that had a significant impact on the characteristics of Greek companies, the mechanics and dynamics of creating and capturing value can be seen as key-features in the construction and implementation of BM. In such a case, processes can be defined as a key measurement of business success, while the profits pursue turns to be misleading and biased, constituting a totally wrong approach in formulating and implementing an overall business strategy.
The analysis is based on an extensive literature review putting into perspective the concept of BM and its evolution, as well as an extensive overview of the models used by Greek companies, resulting on conclusions about whether they need to construct and implement processes-based BM, highlighting the process of creating and capturing value, instead of concentrating on the fallacy of profit-based BM. Finally, the study suggests directions of further research.