Business Model Innovations started with the purpose of reaching customers in the early 1900's. Gottlieb Duttweiler's startup company Migros's Ford Model T trucks filled with basic supplies such as coffee, rice, sugar, noodles and soap started to roll all throughout the villages of Zurich. Gottlieb had identified a huge group of customers' problem, which was reaching to the market back in those days. The quality stuff was only available in the central areas of big cities and the people who lived in remote locations had an access problem.

The value proposition of Gottlieb Duttweiler was bringing the market to the customers. Advertising opportunities in early 1900's was consisted of newspapers, directories, radio and out-of-home channels, while marketing activities were at lowest due to the low numbers of manufacturers so the competition between brands was barely becoming a subject, however competition between suppliers of products was at its highest. This is the reason why innovations started to be implemented or the products of innovative thinking was focused on improving or creating new key activities in the business models.
 

Majority of the consumers on the other hand, had little or none factor(s) affecting their purchase decisions, their buying behaviours were based on stocks, covering their basic needs. So analyzing customers' purchase decisions or buying behaviours wasn't needed at all. Manufacturers sold whatever they have produced through their suppliers. Industrial markets were monopolyzed, semi-finished product manufacturers had little or none maneuver chances.

More manufacturers were entering the market and as results of this high numbers of manufacturers, customers started to feel the need to compare and decide between the products. Most of the decision making processes were influenced by word of mouth and experience of the people in their close surrounding.

Availability of more products in the same categories, together with that new TV screens that invading homes, first marketing and then branding functions added to the business processes by the manufacturers in order their products to be differenciated by the consumers. This competitive environment caused manufacturers to focus on advertising, marketing and most importantly for consumers to purchase their goods, improving their key products in their business models. So, innovations or innovative thinking was focused on key products.

     
While the new trend of innovations was to focus on key products in the physical product sectors; service sector was yet to welcome an innovation from Illinois U.S., this time based on customers' liking for the first time. Established by McDonald brothers on 1948, Mcdonald's visited by a mixer seller, Ray Kroc on 1954. Ray Kroc was fascinated by how McDonald brothers eliminated the middle man, reduced the costs and yet their delivery speed was extraordinary.

As the culture opposed, people had their meals or dinners usually at home with their family, altough there were F&B services outside like, restaurants, dinners, cafes and others; family time at home was cosy, eating at home was practical and changing this routine needed to be triggered by special occasions. Ray Kroc, aware of the quality of both the products and the service of McDonald's; opened his first franchise on 1955. In his business model he focused on key customers and his key customers were Baby Boomers, the new, rebellious, freedom liking, fast living youth generation. He based his innovative thinking on his key customers and delivered products by the services in their likings. In this value proposition, Ray Kroc did not provide a solution to a problem, instead; he kept the traditional values and offered a joyful, delicious, cosy and practical out-of-home meals to a new customer segment.

In the following years, in order to sustain the processes such as; procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, product quality, logistics, marketing, financing and competitiveness, companies in physical production sectors focused their innovations on key management functions. In B2C services sector; Finance, Banking and Insurance companies adopted this innovative thinking and focused on innovations in their key management functions, in hospitality sector on 1970's Hilton adopted this innovative thinking and centralized their management in order to keep their service quality at the same line in all their hotels.

Today; as we are all somehow exposed to very similar legal and bureaucratic barriers, as logistics are far from being a problem, as we are all connected and massive data of markets' and customers' are available, by using advanced analytics we are able to analyze market trends, customers' needs or in another words, we can analyze buying behaviours, even somehow influence purchase decisions, perfected our managerial functions at least as processes. In order to sustain our businesses we should rapidly adapt to disruptive changes and in order to grow we should be innovating and the most feasible way of innovation in the established companies in today's world is to focus on what the company already has - Core Competencies and Key Resources.

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