In Research and Development (R&D) projects, Business Model Innovation (BMI) is a challenging issue given the high degrees of uncertainty regarding technologies, products and markets. The purpose of this research is to investigate how business model exploration is facilitated with the use of business model tooling and what are the gaps in the current business model repository in supporting business model exploration as part of the BMI process. These gaps can be addressed in the design of future business model tooling. We do so by supporting the business model exploration within a specific complex setting, introducing changes in the business models, and evaluating their effects. For 12 months we actively participated in an R&D project funded by European Union focused on building a digital service that will improve mobility safety. We observed that business model exploration is an indispensable process when the value offering is not clearly defined, or when there are new business opportunities. Based on the observations, our recommendations regarding business model exploration are: (a) to start with an initial business model even if the final offering is not clear, (b) to create alternative business models and explore their potentials, and (c) use tools or practices that can contribute on the decision making regarding BMI.

Business model innovation (BMI) is becoming increasingly relevant for enterprises as they are faced with profound changes like digitalization. While business model thinking in academia has advanced, practical tooling that supports business model innovation for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is still lacking. In this paper, we design, implement and evaluate an online platform with ICT-enabled tooling that supports business model innovation by SMEs. Based on interviews with ten SMEs and SME helpers, we define requirements for the BMI tooling platform. The implemented platform offers downloadable tools, decision support for finding the proper tooling, and interactive features for building communities of SMEs. Evaluation through log data analysis and informal interviews shows that the platform is usable and provides a relevant overview of BMI tooling, although several improvements are still suggested. As next steps, we will (1) create prefilled tools and templates to speed up the process of BMI; (2) create educational videos on how to use the tooling; (3) define paths on how to move from one tool to another; and (4) enhance the community features on the platform. The paper contributes to understanding how academic conceptualizations of BMI can be transferred into practically valuable artefacts for SMEs.