According to Timms (The New Generation of Business Model, the authors Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur), business model is the basic logic of a series of business elements, including customers, value propositions, channels, customer relationships, income sources, key resources, key activities, partners and cost structure.

The business model describes how an enterprise or organization creates value and how to obtain economic or social benefits from creating value. Timms's viewpoint has also been widely recognized and applied, and has become one of the important thinking foundations of business model research.