THE TRIPLE LAYERED BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS IN SMART AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF EVJA STARTUP

In recent years, the studies of Business Model Innovation (BMI) and Circular Economy (CE) have been issues much debated in the literature. Moreover, the sustainable development enhanced by the Green Economy (GE) and by smart technologies represents a huge opportunity for generating profit in a new and environmentally way. Actually, was not widely investigated in academic literature, what is the impact of the Sustainable Business Model (SBM) in terms of competitive advantage for the firms, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) beyond big companies. The main research question was: “There’s a sustainable or circular business model in the literature that can be used in the smart agriculture industry?” Moreover: “How the emerged managerial model can be applied to the case of an Italian firm?” The research design is based on the following phases. Firstly, give a literature review of significant and emerging studies on BMI and SBM. In a second step, access to a conceptual and managerial model, in order to compare it in the scientific community and expand the debate on sustainable development also in managerial perspective. The proposed conceptual model has been tested on EVJA company, a leading Italian innovative start-up operating in the smart agri-food industry. The methodology adopted was a qualitative analysis. Earlier, starting with a deep literature review in order to identify and classify the main contributions on the topic of sustainable and circular business models. Later, by in-depth interviews and focus groups to a firm’s key informants (namely the CEO and Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of the firm) and on experts and practitioners deriving from the academic and managerial community including the smart agriculture industry. Lastly, the desk research on the case study was enriched by the recurs to primary and secondary sources on the topic of smart technologies and sustainable agriculture. The final aim is to suggest a managerial tool, namely the Triple-Layered Business Model Canvas (TLBMC), in the reference framework of the circular economy, to support the farm manager to figure out an appropriate course of action to promote energy-saving and reuse practice for fighting climate changes. In a managerial way, this could provide better services and products in terms of value for money to the customers. The TLBMC tool in agri-food industries can foster the SMEs to capture value by evaluating the potentials of SBM and producing in a more economical and responsible manner. In a holistic vision, that would involve its customers, suppliers, employees, and communities, as well as its shareholders.