Business model design and ecosystem Iinnovation: a method for visualizing interactions

In this article, we consider the existing literature in business ecosystem design and business model design to propose a method called Bifocals. The method aims to align the two ecosystem and business perspectives. We illustrate how to use Bifocals by describing how we supported the creation of a new service, which adapts to recent evolution in the business ecosystem of nursing homes. The access to the field for the instantiation of the method is provided by an ongoing research project, which is mainly addressed to managers of nursing homes. Indeed, recent events have obliged nursing homes to redefine the interactions among stakeholders in their business ecosystem. In the end, we claim that our method (a) allows representing in greater details the niche ecosystem where the firm is located, (b) it offers a more structured way to respond to an ever-evolving ecosystem, and (c) it underlines a coherent way to build and test new business model features to restructure the firm, in response to its ecosystem.