Master the Fundamentals: Why 10 Frameworks Are Enough

I wrote the first edition of The Business Models Handbook more than five years ago. It was based on 25 frameworks that I frequently used and valued in my job as a market researcher. As a market researcher, I was presented with data galore from which I had to make sense. I discovered that frameworks were often the best way of bringing the data to life. They structured the data, made sense of it, and pointed to a course of action.

You will be familiar with a good number of the 25 frameworks included, such as the AIDA model, SWOT, the Brand Bullseye, the Four Ps, etc. The book received good reviews and sold well—so well, in fact, that Kogan Page, the publisher, asked me to produce a second edition.

The second edition required some tidying up of the case studies used to exemplify the first 25 frameworks, but the major addition was the inclusion of further frameworks. Some of these additional frameworks were suggestions from readers who asked why I had not included them in the first book. I also added other frameworks to bring the total up to 50 models.

This second edition has also sold well, to the point that I have once again been asked to produce a third edition. This has presented a real problem. Certainly, I can include revisions to the case studies attached to each framework; however, these would not be major changes and would be insufficient to justify a third edition.

The difficulty lies in finding new frameworks. It is not that there are no more frameworks; rather, the new ones that people propose are often minor variations on those already covered in the two editions. This led me to reflect. It is said that there are only 20 to 30 different themes for jokes in the world. Humour relies on a limited set of story structures (eg the pun, the misdirection, the "walks into a bar" joke) but the combinations are infinite. Because humour is a dynamic part of human interaction, the number of jokes is constantly changing., with everything else being a variation of those jokes.

So it is with business frameworks. There are only around 50 core frameworks or business models. People are not discovering brand-new frameworks that are revolutionising business strategy. Instead, they are adapting existing frameworks to new circumstances—making them suitable for the digital world or for a world with changing supply chains.

This should, perhaps, come as a relief to business students and managers. We do not need to keep reinventing the wheel. The fundamentals of business have not changed and are unlikely to do so. Get to grips with the key frameworks that suit your business, and you will probably find that no more than ten of them truly matter.