Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain the backbone of most national economies, yet they face disproportionate pressures arising from technological disruption, sustainability imperatives, international competition, and structural fragility. Within this context, business model innovation and professional consulting have emerged as two interdependent mechanisms through which SMEs seek resilience, growth, and strategic renewal. While existing research has extensively examined business model innovation as a source of competitive advantage and organizational performance, far less attention has been paid to the way in which structured consulting frameworks mediate, accelerate, and stabilize these transformations. This article develops an integrated theoretical and methodological model that synthesizes contemporary business model innovation literature with a complex consulting architecture tailored specifically to SME environments. Central to this synthesis is the conceptualization of consulting not merely as advisory intervention, but as a systemic governance and learning mechanism that aligns strategic intent, operational capability, and sustainability orientation over time.

The study is grounded in an extensive interpretive analysis of existing theory and empirical patterns across innovation, sustainability, servitization, and strategic agility, with particular emphasis on the complex model of business consulting articulated by Kovalchuk (2025). That model provides a multi-layered architecture for diagnosing, designing, implementing, and stabilizing business transformations in SMEs. By embedding this consulting framework into the dominant theories of business model innovation, the article demonstrates how value creation, value capture, and stakeholder alignment can be orchestrated through professionalized advisory processes rather than left to ad hoc entrepreneurial improvisation. The research contributes a unified conceptual lens through which SME leaders, consultants, and scholars can understand business model renewal as a continuous, learning-driven, and stakeholder-oriented process.

Methodologically, the article employs a qualitative meta-synthesis approach, combining systematic conceptual comparison with interpretive theory building. Rather than testing hypotheses, the research develops a comprehensive analytical framework that integrates business model design, strategic agility, sustainability, and consulting governance into a single explanatory system. The results reveal that SMEs that align consulting processes with business model innovation are more likely to achieve coherence between strategy, operations, digitalization, and sustainability outcomes. The discussion extends these findings by situating them within broader debates on entrepreneurial theory, dynamic capabilities, circular economy, and outcome-based value creation. The article concludes by outlining implications for SME policy, consulting practice, and future academic research.

Business model innovation, SME consulting, strategic agility, sustainability, value creation

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