On the Application of UML to Designing On-line Business Model

Abstract

The applicability of UML is not restricted to software development, but can be extended to other process modeling tasks. This chapter introduces a framework for designing an inter-firm, on-line business model using UML. The framework comprises such principal elements as value, business players, and relationship among players, with each specified in terms of representative attributes and related notations. The business model is then visualized by value diagram and structure diagram. An illustrative case is employed to show how the proposed framework is applied. By nature, the current research is exploratory; therefore, for the purpose of illustration, it deals with a rather simple business form. As a result, extension and elaboration of the framework may be required to accommodate the complexity and diversity of a real world business.