Business Model and Intellectual Capital. How to Release Intellectual Capital from SME's BM's?

When practicing business model (BM) innovation releasing intellectual capital (IC) strategically from SME's BMs through the innovation process can be extremely difficult and complex to carry out especially to small and medium size enterprises (SME). There are so many opportunities and resources in SME's Intellectual Capital - but how to release them? Design/methodology/approach - The paper provides a case study of BM and Intellectual Capital (IC) in practise in US and European SME's. It shows different methods carried out to release intellectual capital in SME's BM. We examined the SME's through a framework model, which we call the BMIL strategy canvas. The research approach is action research carried out over 4 years. Intense study of US and EU SME's and their different BM's form the empirical background. The findings represent learning and characteristic of BM and Intellectual Capital with reference to theory in BM, Business Model Innovation (BMI) and IC. Mapping our findings in the BMIL strategy canvas enabled us to get a better picture off SME's BMIL strategy and challenges to release Intellectual Capital. This was supported and followed up by some clearing questions so it was possible to register the BMIL strategy process and register also the output and impact of the SME's BMI and BMIL strategy. Originality/value - The research reveals that SME's focus often on very classic strategies and methods of releasing intellectual capital related to BMI. They focused in most cases on reactive "inside in" and reactive "outside in" methods and IC release strategies. SME's are at management level often primarily focusing on meeting needs and demands of an inside out pre chosen set of defined value proposition and user or customer group or reacting to a specific customer or market demand. Value proposition proposed and chosen are not always equivalent to values, wants and demands by users, customers and other "stakeholders" in the BM - and even own business. Practical implications SME's struggle with releasing highly potential and valuable IC because they cannot often see and sense their own values and IC together with the values demanded and IC offered by stakeholders and how to full fill them and release them. Common themes related to releasing IC among SME's specifically are 1) SME's carries out and try to release IC in very different ways 2) Some SME's are very structured about their release method and strategy - but most not 3) SME's focus in their BMIL on very few and often the same methods - often regardless of the actual specific BMI task and context 4) Potentials of BM's are therefore often left behind, often not found and IC are not capitalised upon 5) SME's lack BMI skills related to releasing IC in their BM's The outcomes of the application is an overview of different methods Strength, weakness, opportunities and threats related to releasing IC in BMI processes.