How to analyse business models?

Right, maybe a dumb question. Currently sit in the product (M&A) group of a BB and after a slew of sell-sides have recently found myself advising on buy-sides as a junior associate.

My question is how best to understand business models, value chains of different businesses across sectors? Most CIMs are written to be flashy marketing docs, CDD / commercial reports are often overkill with directly relevant information not easy to weed out. Any tips on how to extract the relevant info? Mostly interested in strategic / commercial / business ops perspective rather than just the numbers side (model / FDD). Want to understand what the business actually does to be ale to pose the correct questions. Thanks!

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Hey Analyst 1 in IB-M&A, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I'm here since nobody responded to your topic! Bummer...could just be unlucky but one of these topics will help shed some light:

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Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.

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