An e-business model shows why and how an e-business case works from an economic perspective. Furthermore, e-business models frame the business requirements that IT systems and networks must satisfy. A mixture of informal textual, verbal, and ad-hoc graphical representations usually represents the models. This limits a clear understanding of the e-business issues that confront various stakeholders and perpetuates the gap between business executives and IT developers who must deliver the e-business information systems. The authors present a rigorous conceptual modeling approach for e-business called e3-value. A key aspect is that it is value-based, since an e-business model defines how economic value is created and exchanged within a network of actors.