Maistrenko O. Business modeling of the weakly structured enterprises

The thesis is dedicated to the research of the models and methods used for the business modeling and enterprise modeling. This thesis provides a system definition of the business/enterprise model, and a method for creating business models using this definition. The authors present an improved formalization of the term «view» («representation») on the system. The view is defined based on the system's features and allows analyzing enterprises taking into consideration the requirements from the stakeholders expressed as features. The thesis defines core elements of the metamodeling theory using the systems theory. The relation between the model and the metamodel (instantiation) is defined using the features of the system. By means of the instantiation relationship it is possible to build a three level hierarchy of the enterprises. The system definition of the business model states that the business model is a system of views on the enterprise. Such definition allows stakeholders to explore existing business and enterprise models, and learn the best practices in them. The thesis provides some examples of such studies for popular business and enterprise models. The authors propose a business modeling method for the weakly structured enterprises. The method allows choosing its components including the features for the business model, the business profile (defines the entities of the general enterprise, «entity» level), the ontology of the branch (defines the entities of the branch, «class» level), the implementation process (defines the steps for creating the business model), and the modeling instruments. The selection of these components, and namely the features, allows creating the business model of any enterprise according to the requests of its stakeholders. The method is based on the principles of the systems analysis and systems engineering, and thus it has a formal foundation. The proposed method has been used for developing business models of real enterprises working in different branches, namely: an academic institution (Educational-scientific complex «Institute for applied system analysis»), and a patent agent (Ukrainian center of innovatics and information services).