Derek F. Abell (born 1938)[1] is the founding president and Professor Emeritus at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin.
He is a published author of books and academic journal articles, mostly in the fields of strategic marketing, general management, leadership, and executive responsibilities.
He became a professor of strategy and marketing at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1981 to 2003.
Prior to Abell’s model, it was common to define a business either through its resource capabilities or its programs of activity, such as with a product/market grid.
[3] According to his book, Defining the Business, Abell suggests the previous two-dimensional definitions were insufficient, and instead created a three-dimensional analysis.