Who Is Yves Pigneur and Why Should Entrepreneurs Know?

People talk a lot about “business models” and “value propositions” these days. No-one understand what that means better than Dr Yves Pigneur.

So… Who is Yves Pigneur?

Dr. Pigneur has dedicated his life to helping start-ups get ahead in competitive markets. With the help of his colleague, Alexander Osterwalder, Pigneur devised the Business Model Canvas. This tool along with strategies exploring customer wants and demands as well as what to watch for in competitors were published in the 2010 bestseller "Business Model Generation". This book serves as a kind of holy grail for new entrepreneurs and startup founders.

Dr. Pigneur is a computer scientist from Belgium. He works as a professor of business and the Head of Information Systems Institute at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He has held professorial chairs all around the world, including at Georgia State University in Atlanta, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

According to Thinkers50, Pigneur has moved up the ranks of the “most influential management thinkers” from 15th to 7th in 2017. This honor is given out every two years and is considered by The Financial Times to be equivalent to that of the Oscars. While many senior business people self-describe as “thought leaders”, this award acknowledges Dr Pigneur as someone who actually is.

He is the former editor-in-chief of the academic journal Systèmes d'Information & Management. Dr Pigneur, has had numerous publications dating back to '83 and has continued to share his knowledge through books and article writings for over three decades. He has broadened his knowledge base across a multitude of subjects – he’s worth listening to and keeping an eye on.

By studying Yves Pigneur's ideas about mapping and reworking your business model, you can create strategies tailored to fit into the present, actual needs and demands of your customers. Dr. Pigneur provides you with the tools to create your own unique business strategy. The market is ever-changing and ever-growing, and for your startup or business to keep pace with it, you need innovative new techniques like those of Dr. Pigneur.

We’ll be publishing more about his ideas and his work with Alexander Osterwalder over coming weeks.