Introduction

Business modelling is a vast arena of research and practice, which has taken on considerable importance over the past few decades. The ability to utilize advanced computing technology to model, analyse and simulate various aspects of ever-changing businesses has made a significant impact on the way businesses are designed and run these days. This book is a festschrift to Professor Andrew B. Whinston (currently Hugh Roy Cullen Centennial Chair in Business Administration at the University of Texas, Austin and formerly a faculty member at Purdue University, University of Virginia and Yale University), a pioneer in business modelling, who has inspired many multi-disciplinary approaches to problem solving in the business environment.