Components and Dimensions of Business Model of Iran Freight Transportation Companies and Determining Interaction among Dimensions Using ISM Method

Companies in a competitive environment are constantly need to generate new offers to their customers, so they have to constantly change their business model or accept to loss their market share to other competitors. In this regard, rail freight companies are no exception and need to upgrade their business model with new ways. Since the country's vision document has set the transportation volume for freight sector equal to 91 million ton on the horizon of 1404, it is needed that the business model be constantly redesigned to achieve this goal. To redesign the business model, it is necessary to fully identify the dimensions and components of the model, which is dealt with in this regard. After literature review, 9 general and 7 special interviews were held with the experts. The content analysis method was followed and then open/axial coding done and 122 components were extracted for the business model of the freight railways companies. Instead of conducting selective coding, by examining the literature, different business models were extracted and, taking into account the components of the research, 10 dimensions were chosen to cover all the components. Due to the high number of components, two Delphi stages were performed by using 7 internal and external specialists and the final components were obtained by consulting to them. CVI and CVR are also calculated using 8 other experts and the total number of the components is reduced more. Finally using 6 other experts from the field of rail and using the ISM (Structural Interpretation Modeling) method, an interactive model has been obtained among dimensions.