The company of the future will not have the same characteristics as today! Among the many levers of change, the business model is a recent concept familiar to practitioners and academics. They have a strong interest for it. The business model is a mental framework that describes how the business works, specifically how the company created and capture value (Teece, 2010). Technological innovation is also a lever that sometimes requires business model innovation (Chesbrough 2002). When technology is at an embryonic stage, the entrepreneur faces uncertainty. He does not know yet what will offer its technology deployed. On the academic point of view, the literature has focused on the components ant its mechanisms of evolution. However, as a mental framework, the business model is a model (Baden-Fuller and Morgan, 2010) and a model used to think (Le Moigne, 1999). Returning to the basic goals it serves, we ask the question: how do we reason in the process of designing business model? The research follows the principles of a science research organization design (Hatchuel 2001, Romme 2003; Morhman 2007) around a single case study and a mode of collaborative research. The management instrumentation combines several methods (brainstorming session, technique of narration, setting the value network card and financial modeling). To answer this question, we set up a methodology in which we collected the speech process instrumented business model scenarios at Schneider Electric. Calorie case is a case of valuation of an innovative technology that can achieve energy savings on production machines cold. This case is of interest because it is a real problem of business model. Through the dominant business model of the group, the technology is not valued at fair value. This case was the opportunity to design two scenarios of innovative business models in partnership with a team of Schneider Electric innovation. We analyzed the patterns of reasoning process using an analytical framework that we built: the model modes of reasoning. The results allow us to show quantitatively the contribution of each of these modes of reasoning and their evolution during this process. In a narrative style, we also offer a qualitative interpretation. The academic contribution lies in the fact that we hope to have given the keys to understanding the design process of a business model with the model of reasoning we have provided the scientific community. Moreover, we show that the design of business model is primarily a systemic approach. For practical contribution, this work proposes a method for practitioners to design functional business model scenarios.
