Business Model Canvas Examples
How to use the business model canvas
The business model canvas is a tool used by business owners and managers to plan their strategy and business model. This tool can be used to plan any sort of business, from niche to mass markets. In this article, we have prepared some business model canvas examples using our template .
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There are nine main building blocks in the business model canvas template:
- Key Partners: The strategic relationships your business creates with other companies or people.
- Key Activities: Activities or tasks that are integral to operating your company.
- Key Resources: Assets that are required to operate and deliver your company’s value proposition .
- Value Proposition : The fundamental need that your company is trying to fulfill for its customers. Why your company exists.
- Customer Relationships: The type of interactions your company has with its customers and the level of support it gives.
- Channels: Different methods that your company uses to deliver its products and value proposition to customers.
- Customer Segments: The different groups of customers that your company interacts with.
- Cost Structure: How a company spends money on operations. The key costs and level of cost-focus for your company.
- Revenue Streams: Your company’s sources of cash flows .
The following are some business model canvas examples for different businesses and industries:
#1 Automobile Company Example
The first of these business model canvas examples is for an automobile company. The company that is portrayed in this example is a company with a focus on safety, reliability, style, and mass appeal. For example, a company like Honda or Toyota would fit the description of this business.
#2 Amazon Example
The second of these business model canvas examples is for an e-commerce company. This business model canvas example will be a simple look at Amazon , one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world.
CFI’s Advanced Financial Modeling & Valuation Course takes a deep look at Amazon’s strategy, business model, and financials. Check it out if you want to learn how to apply advanced valuation techniques to one of the largest and most complicated companies in the world!
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10 Best Business Model Canvas Examples For Your Inspiration
- Author Author: tu Twitter
Have you ever listed out all important aspects to consider while launching a product or strategy? You must find that this process quite challenging since one paper is not enough to show all this information as well as the connection between them.
Luckily, there is still an effective way for you to focus on your product's most strategically important elements, which is Business Model Canvas . Many famous brands around the world have made use of it successfully.
In this post, we will bring about all things you need to know about Business Model Canvas as well as 10 Best Business Model Canvas Examples For Your Inspiration .
Let’s dive in with us!
What is a business model canvas?
Before digging into the best examples of Business Model Canvas around the world, let’s find out how the Business Model Canvas was designed.
Generally speaking, the Business Model Canvas is a summary that tells how the key drivers of a business fit together. It means showing the strategic details necessary to help a business get success within the market.
One important thing is that this summary's length is within one sheet of paper. Imagine when you include all this down in a document, and it turns into many pages to capture all information. This will make you hard to remember as well as waste time opening pages over pages.
When it comes to the Business Model Canvas, you have a smart and clear way to read and describe any company with any scale ranging from the largest business to just a small one with some staff members.
While the categories or buckets included in a canvas can be adjusted according to your wishes, there are nine elements or building blocks that make up the canvas.
Each building block represents each key drivers and segments of a business. To fill in these blocks, you need to answer the following questions:
- Customer segments : Who do you target as customers?
- Value proposition : What are your strengths to make customers buy from your business?
- Channels : Which channels do you use to deliver your products or services to the market?
- Customer relationships : What are your strategies to get, keep, and build up the relationships with your customers?
- Revenue streams : How will you make money?
- Key resources : What are the special strategic resources that you own as well as a need?
- Key activities : What will your business do to deliver your value proposition?
- Key Partnerships : What are the non-key activities that you do to help your company focus more on your key activities?
- Cost structures : What are the biggest costs that your business earns?
There is one thing to note before finding out what these elements detailedly are. That is the connection between the left side and right side of the Business Model Canvas. If you notice, all elements on the left-hand side of the canvas show the business's costs, while those on the right-hand side represent revenue generated for the business.
Now, it’s time to discover the definitions as well as meanings of 9 elements:
Customer segments
The first building block you should look at is Customer Segments . Here is where you will add in all the different customer groups that you will target. Besides naming these customer groups, you can also build one or more personas for each segment your company serves.
If you are confused about the information you should include when it comes to a persona, it is just a detailed description of each customer group you list. They can include what motivates your customers to buy products, what problems they are suffering that you can help, and perhaps the essence of who they are.
Many businesses make a mistake when assuming that customers exist for themselves to serve. In fact, businesses exist to serve their customers instead.
Depending on your business’ goals, you can have one customer segment or more. Many companies target only one customer group, but many serve two or even multiple. For example, the giant SEO company serves two customer segments, which are those performing searches and those working as advertisers.
In case you want to break down the advertiser customer group into many personas, there will be various kinds of advertisers that you can examine.
Value proposition
The second building block refers to Value Proposition . It means the values that your company or your service can bring to each customer segment. Before filling in this building block, question yourself what problems you can solve for each customer segment are as well as what needs you can satisfy. In other words, the value proposition means the reasons why customer segments buy from you but not from others.
If you still find it difficult to define, here are some of the most common value propositions:
- The performance quality
- The ability to customize depending on customers’ wishes
- The designing
- The pricing plans
- The cost reduction
- The risk reduction
- Convenience
Next, let’s come to the way your products or services are given to your customers. It is Channels . It is about how you sell your products and how your customers want to be approached. Consider the way your company is reaching them at the moment before adding in the Channels building block.
There are two types of channels that you might concern which are having your own channels and having partner channels with someone else.
When it comes to the first type, having your own channels means a combination of all shops you belong to, all sales staff you are employing, or all your websites .
In terms of having partner channels with someone else, you have a wide range of choices, from using Google Adsense to sell your services to using a wholesaler or even partnering with affiliates to advertise your products. You can promote your product with a blog post, social media mentions, a viral video campaign, or a live stream (here is an example of simple streaming software , you could start with).
Customer relationships
The following building block is about Customer relationships . Here you will enter the way you get, keep, and grow your customer base.
- How you get your customers refers to the ways audiences find out about you and decide to buy things from you. It may be via advertising on Google or posts on social media.
- How you keep your customers looks at the customer service that you offer or discount programs appreciate and help your customers who buy from you.
- How you grow your customers means the way you start to make your customers continue buying and spending money on your company. A very common way is sending a newsletter every month to customers so that they can be informed about the latest campaign and consider buying more.
In order to enter details in this building block, you should understand your customer journey clearly. Question yourself on how your customers find out about you, how they decide to buy your products, how they purchase them, and how they manage after purchasing.
Revenue streams
Revenue streams building block refers to the sources where the money comes from. Here you will need to enter where your revenue is generated. Perhaps, this building block is the most confusing on the right side.
It is because you will need to find out the strategy as well as the campaign you will start to generate the most value from your customer base.
It looks at multiple aspects. You might consider a monthly subscription fee or a one-time fee for your customers. You might also think about giving away products for free so that your customers will decide to upgrade to the paid premium product.
Take Advertising on Google as an example. In order to be displayed in front of users and customers, advertisers need to pay Google money and send it their buying intent together with ads information. As an audience, only when you search for something with purchasing intent will you see ads. On the other hand, you probably will not see anything related to advertising if you search for something without purchasing intent.
As you can see, we have gone through all building blocks on the right side which are related to customers. Now, it’s time to work on the building areas to the left of the Value proposition which shows the costs to the business.
Key resources
The first building block to concern when it comes to the left hand is Key Resources . That means the main strategic assets that are needed to enable your business model to work.
There are four categories of resources, they include:
- Physical resources : They can be cars, machines, buildings, or distribution networks.
- Human resources : They are your staff members who make your business work in real life. Human resources take an indispensable part in every business. When it comes to creative and knowledge-intensive industries, they seem to be the most important resource of a company.
- Intellectual resources : They are specialist knowledge, documentation, patents and copyrights, partnerships, customer information, or brands.
- Financial resources : They are lines of credit, cash balances, and so on.
Key activities
The next building block is Key activities which refer to the most important strategic things you Must do to make your business model work. Remember that the Key activities block should be completely relevant to the value proposition block.
Check to see whether your Key activities are relatable to your value proposition or not. If they aren’t, then something must be changed. There will be one or more activities you regard as the most important but generate no values or revenue.
There are three main types when it comes to key activities. They are:
- Production : The first one looks at the delivery process of your products. Businesses tend to do this with a high number and high quality at the same time.
- Problem solving : Do you work with consultancies and other service organizations to bring about the best solutions to solve the problems of each customer segment.
- Platform or Network : They can be networks or software platforms as long as they can work as a platform.
Many businesses go in the wrong direction while listing all the activities that are done by their businesses. Prevent yourself from that by only entering activities that are main to delivering your value proposition.
Key Partnerships
Key partners building block is quite similar to the previous one. You also list the activities which you view as important. However, they are not done on your own but by working with suppliers and partners to make the business model work.
Take Spotify as an example. The company let updating its platform be the key activity. Nonetheless, Spotify cannot produce the music it provides. Therefore, the company needs to list its deals with record labels and publishing houses in the Key partners building block.
If you are wondering why your business should create a partnership, it is because of economies of scale. What’s more, that can help prevent yourself from risk and uncertainty which leads to crisis. Finally, it brings about the acquisition of resources or activities.
Cost structures
The last building block is Cost Structure in which you map key activities to costs.
One thing to keep in mind is making sure all the costs you list are related to your value proposition.
Additionally, Cost structure should be the last building block you fill in. Therefore, after defining your Key Resources, Key Activities, and Key Partnerships, it is necessary to find out the most important costs as well as the most expensive ones.
Why might you want to create a business model canvas?
You might wonder why creating a business model canvas is crucial and how you will benefit from this canvas when starting your own business. There are various answers to your questions but here are the three most noteworthy:
Roadmapping rapidly
A canvas can be handled in a short time, even with the sticky-notes. You do not need to make every effort to put down everything about your product plan, you can simply list out the features, the necessary content.
However, it will be useless if you just stop at these highlights. The next step is to convert the canvas into your roadmap with your product’s details.
Time saving
Before the business model canvas appeared, people who wanted to get their product to market were familiar with the old structure of citing a business model. On the other hand, the issue with this traditional method was that it was hardly accurate by the time the writer completed the draft.
It is also accessible to explain this situation as this model consisted of important elements such as detailed cost estimates, revenue projections going years into the future, and permanent plans for growing the staff, which are all changeable in just a short period of time.
When it comes to products, these plans are considered MRD (Market Requirements Document). This particular paper is lengthy, intricate, and can barely be true as soon as it’s finished.
Luckily, a canvas is here to help you overcome these obstacles. You can quickly combine a canvas that is capable of showing your strategy and your brand’s current status. And in case there are changes, you will need less effort and time to edit.
Easy to swivel
It is so evident that the market is at no time stable. There are always new things adopted and some old ones have to be eliminated, which require you to be ready for any changes, to swivel due to reality.
Therefore, a canvas should be your priority. It is so sharp and top-level that you can easily adjust if needed rather than MRD or traditional business plans. With the length of just one page, a business model canvas plays a vital role in your brand guiding strategy.
Moreover, you can instantaneously and rapidly update your approach or any features due to your market observation.
10 examples of business model canvas in different industries
Example #1: a lemonade stand.
A lemonade stand can be a great example of your initial approach to a business model canvas. It is likely the most understandable model for one's first experience with starting a business.
In this model canvas, you can clarify your customer segments, possibly your neighbors, walkers, family, and friends. However, they are not limited to your customers; they can be your partners, suppliers, resources as well.
Therefore, you need to write down the proper ways of reaching customers in the Channels building block. And Facebook groups, booths, or stands are considered the most suitable choice for a lemonade stand. Turning to revenue streams, it is quite simple with a lemonade stand because they mostly come from a finite price for a drink.
Example #2: Skype
As can be seen, Skype provides users with 2 value propositions: free Internet & Video calling and cheap calls to phones. These propositions correspondingly help Skype attract 2 customer segments: free users and users who want to call phones.
In Skype’s model business, there is a majority of users who make free calls via the Internet, and just 10% of users choosing the prepaid service. We can explain this business model by looking at key partnerships, key activities, and key resource building blocks.
Key partnerships, key activities, and key resources are the three elements that allow Skype to offer low-priced and free calls. Unlike other traditional telecoms providers, Skype does not have to build and manage a huge and complicated infrastructure to work effectively, Skype just relies on backend software and the servers hosting user accounts, which is called the freemium business model.
Example #3: Gillette
In Gillette’s case, their business model follows the business model pattern called “Bait & Hook”, the pattern that is followed by many SaaS (Software as a Service) companies.
Gillette gives their customers a cheap or even free of charge original offer, a razor handle. This offer is the bait that enables customers to experience and get acquainted with Gillette's products and makes them more likely to buy related products, the blades.
In the above diagram, the size of the arrow is in direct proportion with the revenues generated. All Gillette’s revenues are from just one customer segment, which mainly depends on Frequent Blade Replacements.
Pay attention to the left corner of Gellettes Business Model Canvas, it will demonstrate the consistent relation between all major costs and the value proposition. For instance, Gillette strengthens its brand by spending money on marketing and assures the brand’s uniqueness in the blade and handles technology with R&D costs.
Example #4: Google
When it comes to business model canvas, we will not want to miss the outstanding example of Google.
Google’s business model is many-sided, which means their customer segments are not exclusive. Google has separate groups of customers, but these groups are related to each other.
In Google’s model, it is a platform whose customers are search users and advertisers. If there are no search users, there will not be advertisers and vice versa, search users will not be able to freely take advantage of this platform without advertisers.
As we can see, Google displays ads in search results or on web pages which costs advertisers an amount of money. With this money, content creators are paid and search users can browse free of charge.
Google’s kind of business model creates a network, which means the ads it displays to web users are directly proportional to advertisers and so as the content owners.
In terms of key resources, Google.com, Adsense (for content owners), and Adwords (for advertisers) build up Google's search platform. Hence, managing the existing platform and its framework must be Google's key strategic activities.
It is clear that one of their key partners is content owners, without whom there would not be search users or advertisers. Another partner of Google is OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers).
OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) provide Google with mobile handsets that allow this huge platform to operate its system at no charge. And to give back, when users of these handsets surf the Internet for information or entertainment or whatever, they choose Google’s platform by default. This process will consequently lead more web users to the ecosystem, meaning that more revenue will be raised.
Example #5: Airbnb
Another example is Airbnb, a widely-known online marketplace that lets people rent out their properties or spare rooms to guests and then Airbnb takes 3% commission of every booking from hosts, and between 6% and 12% from guests. And now, it is time to figure out its business model canvas.
It is clear that Airbnb has 2 separate customer segments: guests and hosts, but they can be divided into other small categories with particular characteristics. Airbnb's value propositions also follow the same pattern: they give their customers more affordable choices than traditional hotels and provide customers with deluxe or fancy services.
About Airbnb’s revenue, as mentioned above, their main revenue is from the fees that they charge both guests and hosts.
Example #6: Uber
Our next business model canvas is Uber, the world's largest taxi company, which owns no vehicles. Uber is an excellent illustration of a business model canvas as it is an outstanding business with such representative innovation in technology.
As can be seen, Uber’s customer segments include 2 big categories: drivers and riders. In drivers, Uber targets 2 particular groups: unemployed drivers and drivers looking for part-time jobs, which consequently lead to their corresponding methods of approaching customers. It means, for example, to attract unemployed drivers who are likely to live in areas with high unemployment rates, Uber has to use Word of mouth as a channel.
Example #7: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the online platform that enables you to find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and also learn the skills you need to succeed in your career. It means LinkedIn provides users with diverse services as shown in the Value propositions building block.
Therefore, in their business model canvas, LinkedIn pointed out 3 big customer segments: recruiters, professionals seeking to network, and marketers.
Turning to LinkedIn’s revenue streams, LinkedIn’s revenues mostly come down to these 3 sources: freemium business model, hiring solutions, and marketing solutions. And as a result, they have to consider developing the platform as the most important activity.
Example #8: Amazon
Amazon’s business model canvas is an example that we should not miss in the e-commerce field. Amazon's model's most remarkable element is its key activities, which help Amazon stand out among many competitors.
As we know, time and money are important to every buyer and so is Amazon.
Hence, Amazon’s key activities are quick fulfillment processes, in-time delivery, and shipping systems allowing for Amazon Prime to deliver orders within 1-2 days, and R&D to streamline and improve the efficiency of fulfillment centers and other projects (e.g. Amazon Grab & Go stores) to lower costs.
About Amazon’s customers, there are two main groups that use Amazon’s products and services: business clients and retail clients, which means they have to develop strong and complicated ways of serving their customers.
Example #9: Netflix
Many companies compete against Netflix, such as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO, Hulu, Vevo, and Youtube. However, Netflix is still doing well and developing its business worldwide with such a unique and effective business model canvas.
Netflix uses 6 key resources: brand, apps, platform, employees, filmmakers, and prizes, to attract its customers. Recently, Netflix's content production activity shows its strengths as Netflix series are welcomed by large audiences and are gradually dominating the film market.
Example #10: Tesla
Tesla is a business model that chooses technology as a benefit. As shown in the business model canvas, one of Tesla's customer segments is the green buyer which directly leads to the corresponding key activities. They have to concentrate on research and development, design, electric power technologies, car manufacturing, and also charge point infrastructure to provide customers with synchronous solutions and services.
If you are about to start a business, make sure that you will not forget about the business model canvas. The business model canvas, which consists of 9 elements will help you determine what is crucial for your business regardless of whether your business is big or small.
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The 9-Step Business Model Canvas Explained (2023 Update)
Written by Raquel Alberdi
Business | entrepreneurship, 0 comments(s).
Blog » The 9-Step Business Model Canvas Explained (2023 Update)
“A major mistake made by many start-ups around the world is focusing on the technology, the software, the product, and the design, but neglecting to ever figure out the business . And by “business” we simply mean how the company makes money by acquiring and serving its customers”.
-Reid Hoffman
After meeting with hundreds of entrepreneurs and business owners over the years I believe the LinkedIn co-founder and Blitzscaling author Reid Hoffman’s got it spot on.
People tend to focus on specific parts of their business, such as which software packages are being used, which is the cheapest supplier, how to optimize internal processes…?
They get so bogged down in the details of the day-to-day running that they lose the overall vision of their business.
Without this vision they are unable to scale, they make marginal profits, miss opportunities, struggle to innovate, and end up running “just another” business.
Another handy metaphor in understanding this common mistake is the soldier in the trenches .
Every meter of ground gained comes at a heavy cost, mistakes are made, and progress is hard-fought and slow…a day-to-day experience for 99% of entrepreneurs and businessmen.
But when you do have that 360 vision you see the entire battlefield. Decisions are much clearer, fewer mistakes are made, and progress is fast and methodical.
Fortunately, a business model framework exists that gives you both vision and clarity .
The Business Model Canvas provides entrepreneurs, business owners, and strategists with a tool to analyze, structure, and evolve a business while always keeping the bigger picture front of mind.
So let’s take a closer look at how it works.
Table of Content
What is the Business Model Canvas?
Customer segments, value propositions, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, key partners, customer segments, value proposition, strategyzer, business model canvas tool, would you like to learn more about business models.
Created by Swiss entrepreneur and Strategyzer co-founder, Alexander Osterwalder, the Business Model Canvas is a visual representation of the 9 key building blocks that form the foundations of every successful business. It’s a blueprint to help entrepreneurs invent, design, and build models with a more systematic approach.
Why is it so popular within the business community?
Its simplicity. The business model canvas allows us to carry out a high-level analysis without drilling down and getting lost in the details. You just draw out the 9 building blocks on a blank canvas, fill them in as each concept relates to your business, and hang it somewhere everybody can see.
It’s a visual overview of your entire business on a single canvas.
While the Business Model Canvas is an extremely fluid concept and hyper-specific to individual companies, each canvas is still broken down into these 9 key building blocks:
When laid out on the canvas the model will look something like this:
While you’ve probably come across each of the 9 building blocks before, the attractiveness of the Business Model Canvas is that it confines them to a single page , not a traditional 42-page document.
This makes it a lot easier to digest, as well as assess existing business models or map out new ideas.
How do I fill out the Business Model Canvas?
To start your Business Model Canvas you will need to breakdown and analyze each of the 9 building blocks.
A good way to approach this is to gather the heads from marketing, sales, operations, finance, and manufacturing (if product-based) and pencil-in a morning where you can all meet together.
Then, after drawing a mock canvas onto a whiteboard, proceed to dissect and discuss each of the 9 building blocks as they relate to your business. You can use sticky notes to better organize your thoughts around the canvas.
If you are an entrepreneur or new business owner working alone and don’t have a team to bounce your ideas off, not to worry. You can still carry out your analysis before sharing it with a like-minded entrepreneurial community or forum, like those found on ThePowerMBA , to get useful, insightful feedback.
Whichever way you decide to approach it, I recommend you complete each block in the following order:
- Cost structure
For continuity, I’m going to use the fashion retail giant Zara when analyzing each of the 9 key building blocks.
If you’d like to skip to another case study similar to your own business, navigate to the table of contents at the top of the page and select one of the other business model canvas examples.
The first block of the Business Canvas Model is about understanding who is the most important customer(s) you’re delivering value to. Or, in other words, who are they? What do they do? And why would they buy your product or service?
Not a single company exists without its clients, making customer segments the best block to start with while drawing out your business model canvas.
A great exercise to define your customer segments is to brainstorm and create your company’s buyer persona (s) .
Buyer personas are fictional depictions of an ideal or hypothetical client. Typically when brainstorming a buyer persona you’d want to define certain characteristics (age, demographic, gender, income, industry, pain points, goals, etc.)
However, remember at this stage we want a snapshot of our customer segment. There’s no need to jump into great detail just yet.
In the case of Zara, there are three distinct customer segments to whom they offer different products.
The products created for each of these customer segments (clothing, shoes, and accessories) are not trans-consumable. That is to say, a woman’s dress is highly unlikely to be worn by a 7-year-old child.
Once we know exactly who it is we are targeting, it’s time to look at what we as a company have to offer.
The second phase is about figuring out your company’s value propositions , and importantly, your UVP (unique value proposition). The “what” that makes customers turn to you, over your competitors? Which of their problems are you best at solving?
Each value proposition consists of a bundle of products or services that fulfill the needs of a buyer persona from your customer segment. It’s the intersection between what your company offers, and the reason or impulse customers have for purchasing.
Some popular questions to ask while determining your UVP are:
- Which specific customer pain point are you trying to solve?
- What job are you helping customers get done?
- How does your UVP eliminate customer pain points?
- What products or services do you provide that answer this specific pain point?
So let’s try and apply this to Zara. Why do people choose to purchase from them, over their competitors?
Zara’s principal value propositions are fairly clear. They offer various ranges of stylish men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing and accessories at an affordable price.
But there’s more to it than that.
If we dive a little deeper we see Zara’s value propositions are more complex, which are behind the success of the brand:
Fast fashion
Zara adds new clothes and designs to its collections every 2-3 weeks, both in its stores and online. It keeps the brand updated, fresh, and modern while maintaining its all-important medium price point
Great eCommerce experience
Once you enter Zara’s online store you’re presented with a clean, easy-to-navigate, and high-end feel. The customer segments are visible on the left navigation bar with a search tab to further aid customers with their online experience.
Localized stores
You can find a store in nearly all major retail locations (shopping malls, retail outlets, airports, etc.) meaning accessibility is not an issue for the majority of consumers.
Flagship stores
Zara demonstrates its aesthetic evolution to customers through its flagship stores. The recent opening of their Hudson Yards , New York City flagship is a great example of this. Customers shop around its vivid, minimalist layout offering them an experience aligned with the brand’s deeper, eco-friendly values.
Zara Hudson Yards, New York
The next step is to ask yourself how you are reaching your customers, and through which channels ?
This includes both the channels that customers want to communicate with you as well as how they’ll receive your products or services.
Is it going to be a physical channel? (store, field sales representatives, etc.) Or is it a digital channel? (mobile, web, cloud, etc.).
Zara has 3 primary channels in which they communicate and deliver products to its customers:
- Direct sales through their stores
- Online (both app and website)
- Social media
Customers can go to a traditional “bricks and mortar” store to browse, model, and purchase different items of clothing at one of their retail stores.
Alternatively, they can shop online or through their mobile application and have the product delivered straight to their door or nearest store. The choice is completely up to them!
So that covers Zara’s commercial channels, but what about how they communicate with customers?
While they do communicate through their mobile app, their predominant channel is social media.
What’s more, they’re really, really good at it.
For example, did you know that Zara invests less than 0.3% of its sales revenue into advertising?
This is only possible due to an A-rated social media presence . Customer queries are not only dealt with quickly, but recommended re-works are sent back to HQ, forwarded onto in-house designers who then apply the feedback to future collections.
This customer-first approach through fluid communication channels has saved them thousands of dollars in marketing, strengthened their brand, and created a loyal customer base.
You should only step away from this building block once you’ve decided how each of your customer segments want to be reached.
Once you have acquired customers, you will need to think about how you can build , nurture, and grow those relationships.
Now, this can be automated and transactional like large eCommerce brands Amazon or Alibaba. Or, it could be at the complete opposite end of the scale and require a more personal relationship you’d typically have with a bank or your local bike shop.
Zara’s relationship with its customers is threefold, and lies somewhere in the middle of transactional and personal:
- Salesperson at store
- Brand through social media
- Sentimental attachment to a product
Yes, you have the initial transactional touchpoint at the store or online, something relatively impersonal and for many the only interaction they’ll have with the brand.
However, customers (especially in the fashion industry) are encouraged to continue to interact with a brand through social media platforms.
As we mentioned before when discussing channels, Zara has a very effective communication system in place. Not only can people instantly get in touch with the brand, but also engage with new posts, images, and collections uploaded to social media.
This personal approach to customer relationship building can, in some cases, lead to the natural growth of brand ambassadors and communities .
An attachment can also develop between customers and particular garments or accessories from one of their collections. The sentimental attachment to these products also creates another potential form of brand loyalty.
Now that you’ve described how you are going to create real value for your customers, it’s time to look at how you plan to capture that value.
What are your revenue streams? Is it going to be a transactional, direct sales strategy ? Are you going to consider a freemium mode l, where you give a portion of your product or service away for free with the idea of converting later on down the line?
If you’re a SaaS company such as SalesForce or Strava , then it’s likely that a licensing or subscription revenue model will be more appropriate.
At Zara, it’s extremely simple. They make their money by selling clothes and accessories either at a store or online.
As you can see, we’ve filled in the entire right-hand side of our business model canvas. We touched upon:
- Value propositions
- Revenue streams
- Distribution channels
Now it’s time to move over to the left side of the business canvas model and look at what we need, internally , to deliver our value propositions.
To start with, let’s take a look at key resources.
The key resources are all things you need to have, or the assets required to create that value for customers.
This could be anything from intellectual property (patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc.) to physical holdings (factories, offices, delivery vans, etc.) right down to finances (the initial cash flow perhaps needed to start your brand).
Another key resource every company needs to consider is its human capital . Are you going to need highly specialized software engineers? Or field-based sales teams?
They are relatively capital-heavy resources that need to be factored into your business model.
In the case of Zara, they are going to need a number of key resources if they hope to deliver their propositions:
- Stock management
- A large, interconnected network of physical stores
- A strong brand
- Logistics and supply chain infrastructure
Stock is vital for both online and offline customers.
If they are unable to supply their range of products and meet customer demands, satisfaction levels fall and they have a serious problem on their hands.
A large distribution network of brick and mortar stores combined with a strong brand name help mitigate these factors, as well as reinforce any ongoing marketing activities and communication efforts.
Finally, an efficient logistics process within Zara is critical, especially when you consider the complexities involved with such a large-scale operation.
They will require the necessary technology to analyze data on inventory, storage, materials, production, and packaging, with the staff to execute each of these stages and manage the delivery of the final products.
The next step is to define the key activities – the areas you need to be good at to create value for your customers.
To mix it up a little let’s take a look at a slightly different business in Uber .
Their key activities can be broken down into:
- Web and mobile app development
- Driver recruitment
- Marketing: customer acquisition
- Customer service activities : drivers’ ratings, incidents, etc.
They need a fast, clean UX for their customers using the app, drivers to carry out their service, and the ability to both market the product and deal with any customer queries.
Zara’s key activities will differ to those of Uber. Some of the things they need to consider would be:
- Manufacturing
- Retail process (point of sale and 3rd party management)
- Distribution channel / logistics
Design is a key activity as Zara’s value proposition is to provide stylish garments at an affordable price. Their collections need to be constantly updated to follow the latest fashion trends at the time.
To produce their collections Zara will also require manufacturing capabilities. Now Zara doesn’t own their own factories (we will get to that in the Key Partners section) but they still need to be involved in the garment manufacturing process.
Everything from fabric selection to pattern making, to detailing and dyeing affects the outcome of the final product which of course they have to then go on and sell.
The effective management of the retail and distribution channels (online, offline, shipping, and communication with providers) is also key. A breakdown in either of these activities, such as a poor relationship with an important provider will have serious consequences for the business.
Most modern business models now require brands to build out and work with various key partners to fully leverage their business model.
This includes partnerships such as joint ventures and non-equity strategic alliances as well as typical relationships with buyers, suppliers, and producers.
A great example of a strategic partnership would be between ThePowerMBA and Forbes . In exchange for exposure of our brand to the magazine’s global audience, we provide expertise and content on high-level business education programs.
As we touched upon when discussing key activities , Zara requires strategic partnerships with many different providers if they are to design and produce their collections.
Another key partner is their major holding company, Inditex .
Inditex has several subsidiaries including Massimo Dutti , Pull & Bear , and Oysho . Being a subsidiary of Inditex means they share a consolidated balance sheet, stakeholders, management and control, and various legal responsibilities.
While as a subsidiary Zara is afforded certain freedoms when it comes to design, delivery, and the general running of the company, the overall strategy will need to be aligned with Inditex and its other subsidiaries.
The final step of the Business Model Canvas is to ask yourself, how much is it going to cost to run this model?
This includes some of the more obvious needs such as manufacturing costs, physical space, rent, payroll, but also areas such as marketing activities.
If you are unsure of exactly what to include in your cost structure take a look at a Profit and Loss statement ( P&L ) from a competitor or company in a similar industry to yours. You’ll find many items overlap such as research and development ( R&D ), cost of goods sold, admin expenses, operating costs, etc.
Once that’s done you should prioritize your key activities and resources and find out if they are fixed or variable costs .
As Zara is such a large, corporate business they are going to have both fixed costs (rent, payroll, point of sales personnel) and variables, such as costs associated with the fluctuating sale of goods, purchase of materials and, manufacturing costs.
Once you’ve completed these 9 steps, your Business Canvas Model should look something like this:
Business Model Canvas Examples
Hopefully, you were able to get a good feel for the effectiveness of the business model canvas with our run-through of Zara.
However, if you found it difficult to follow due to the stark difference between your industries, I’m going to quickly go through 3 more companies to demonstrate the tool’s flexibility:
- Netflix (Media service/production)
- Vintae (Vineyard)
Even if these business model canvas examples don’t align exactly with your industry, I honestly believe that studying different models gives you a competitive advantage in your professional career regardless.
If you’re currently employed by a company, you’ll better understand how your specific role helps the company achieve some of its “long-term” goals.
Alternatively, if you are a business owner yourself (or perhaps thinking of starting your own business) you’ll have a better understanding of your business and where potential opportunities lay.
I’m sure you’re familiar with our next business model canvas example candidate, Netflix .
The global media company offers an online streaming service of various movies, documentaries, and TV programs produced in-house or licensed 3rd-party content. Their success sparked a revolution in the online media world with the likes of Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO, and Hulu all rushing to launch their own online video streaming platforms.
Netflix started life as an online DVD rental company, basically a web version of the more popular (at least at that time) “bricks and mortar” Blockbuster.
Co-founder Reed Hastings predicted as far back as 1999 that the future of media was in online streaming, saying “postage rates were going to keep going up and the internet was going to get twice as fast at half the price every 18 months.”
It wouldn’t be until 2007 that Hasting’s prediction would become true when Netflix, as we now know it, was born.
So let’s take a current look at their business model canvas:
As you probably know, there are very few people out there who haven’t subscribed, watched, or at least heard of Netflix. There is content for everybody: wildlife documentaries, sci-fi movies, rom coms, action-thrillers, you name it – it’s there.
That’s why their customer segment can be classified as a “ mass market ” as the base is just so diverse.
All people require is a computer, TV, internet, and/or smartphone and they’re good to go. For most developed markets, that covers just about everybody.
Whether on the train to work, sitting in the car (if you’re not driving!), or relaxing at home in front of the TV, you can consume their online, on-demand video streaming service.
They also have a huge library of content for consumers to choose from, ensuring that people keep coming back, as well as increasing their mass-market appeal.
They also produce high-quality, original content to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Most people access Netflix either through their website or mobile/TV App . Another popular channel that you may have picked up on is their affiliate partners .
You’ve perhaps signed up for a mobile, TV, and internet package where the provider offers Netflix as an extra to sweeten the deal, so to speak.
That would be an example of an affiliate partnership between Netflix and mobile service providers.
I doubt many consumers have had direct contact with Netflix unless it’s to resolve a subscription issue or general query. It’s very much a self-automated service – you download the app, select the program you wish to watch, and hit play.
Very simple, very effective.
Again, this doesn’t need much embellishment. Netflix generates money from the different tiers and packages put together in their subscription services.
This varies depending on the region to account for local markets, but on the whole, it’s sold at a low price point.
Originally, Netflix’s Key Resources would have been their unrivaled DVD collection combined with a cost-effective mail-order system.
Nowadays it’s undoubtedly the rights to stream online video content. Netflix has brokered deals with some of the biggest production studios worldwide.
Combined with their huge library of in-house productions , it’s more than enough to encourage customers to renew their subscriptions.
To help sustain interest in their product, Netflix understands they need to serve-up relevant content for each sub-sector of their mass audience. Therefore their machine learning algorithm selects content for consumers based on streaming habits (what they watched, at what time, etc,.) to personalize the customer experience.
This explains why over 80% of all content streamed on Netflix was cherry-picked by this algorithm, making it a Key Resource for their business model.
Also, Netflix accounts for a whopping 12.6% of global bandwidth usage . The literal capacity to stream their services must be met meaning bandwidth must also be included here.
Content procurement is arguably their biggest Key Activity. They need to find people to produce and deliver their original content, including actors, studios, writers, etc. as well as secure the licensing and streaming rights from 3rd party producers such as Sony, Warner Bros, and Disney.
Finally, they need a fast, easy-to-use application to host their online streaming service. This needs to be available for both TV and mobile devices if they are to deliver their “on-demand” value proposition.
K ey Partners
Seeing as Netflix’s entire business model is largely based around streaming 3rd party content, key partnerships need to be built with production studios . No content, no Netflix!
Also, as we touched upon earlier Netflix is one of the largest consumers of bandwidth worldwide. If the speed and delivery of their streaming service are to be continued then deals will also need to be made with internet service providers (ISPs).
Netflix’s biggest expenditures come from both their in-house content procurement and 3rd party licensing agreements . The high-quality standard of video streamed on Netflix is only possible due to the speed and performance of its online platform and application , which has additional costs of staff, software, etc.
To show you just how flexible the business model canvas can be, I wanted to throw in a slightly leftfield example. Vintae is a Spanish wine producer who, after a detailed analysis of the business model canvas, was able to innovate and disrupt one of the world’s most competitive industries.
As some of you may know, the wine industry is extremely competitive. It’s also steeped in history and tradition , making it very challenging for newcomers to grab market share, let alone think about year-on-year growth and revenue.
However, CEO “Richi” Arambarri looked at the traditional “ bodega ” business model and saw a chink in its armor.
A “small” innovation in the business canvas model helped them to become one of the region’s most important winery groups, with over 10 installations and a presence across all regional denominations (Rioja, Priorat, Rias Baixas, etc.) with year on year growth of 30% – practically unheard of in such a competitive industry.
So how did Vintae analyze the business model canvas to find a niche in their market?
To answer that question, we must first look at the traditional winery business model .
As you can see, the wine industry has historically been patrimonial. Vineyards and estates are passed down through generations with the winery responsible for all phases of production, clarification, and distribution.
The traditional winery business canvas model suggests you must be the owner of the winery/vineyard where the wine is “manufactured”, meaning physical assets are a key resource of the business model.
So, if you wanted to start producing a Rioja, for example, you’d have to set up your vineyard in the region.
This is monumentally expensive as you need to:
- Purchase the land
- Plant a vineyard
- Absorb set-up and installation costs
- Deal with maintenance costs
It’s here where Vintae saw their opportunity.
What if we move vineyard ownership across the business model canvas from key resources to key partners ?
By leasing the equipment and space of large wineries (of which there was plenty), they could still produce their wine but reduce the cost and exposure associated with land purchase, crushing equipment, huge storage tanks, vineyard maintenance, and their bottling line.
This enabled them to focus on their sales, marketing, and distribution channels to create a better brand experience for their customers.
Also, it afforded them more flexibility when creating new wines as they were no longer confined to the limitations of grapes grown on their vineyard.
The lightness of this new business model eliminates maintenance overheads, channels energy into personalizing the customer experience, and allows for unprecedented levels of growth in one of the world’s most competitive industries.
Business Model Canvas Software
Although I did mention starting with a large whiteboard, sticky notes, and a pack of colorful sharpies there are several options in which you can digitize the business canvas model production process.
While I still believe the aforementioned process is extremely valuable (it gets your entire team’s input in a single hour-long session) you may decide it more viable for each member of management to pool their ideas digitally before sharing with the rest of the group.
If that’s the case, then take a look at some of the following software tools for creating your business model canvas.
Created by the founders of the business model canvas Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur , Strategyzer offers a range of business model canvas templates for you to get started with.
If you opt for the paid model (there is a 30-day free trial period) they offer a series of various classes that teach you how to build and test different value propositions and business models.
A real-time built-in cost estimator analyzes the financial viability of some of your business ideas, identifying alternative areas you may wish to explore with your model.
All-in-all, it’s a great resource to play around with and test some of your business ideas, with the option to dive into further detail if you see fit.
Canvanizer is a free, easy-to-use web tool that allows you to share links between team members who are brainstorming ideas for a business model canvas, but working remotely.
Like Strategyzer, there are several business model canvas templates provided to help you get started with your analysis. The strength of this platform is its accessibility. Much like a Google Doc., several people can brainstorm on the same canvas simultaneously with changes being synchronized automatically.
A ThePowerMBA alumni, impressed by the simplicity and effectiveness of the tool, went ahead and created the free application Business Model Canvas Tool .
It’s an incredibly intuitive, and easy-to-use tool that allows you to create templates simply by clicking the + button in each building block.
Each business model canvas created can be downloaded and shared as a pdf. with the rest of the team.
If, after going through our 9-step guide on how to use the Business Model Canvas you’d like to learn more about different business model analysis tools , take a look at our alternative MBA business program .
As you’ll see, the course gives students a 360-degree view of business and management practices – such as engines of growth, segmentation and targeting, and value propositions.
I highly recommend you go check it out.
Regardless, I’d love to hear what you thought about this guide. Was it helpful? Would you like to see additional business cases analyzed from your industry?
Let us know in the comments below.
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Home Blogs Business Model Management Business Model Analysis with the Business Model Canvas
Business Model Analysis with the Business Model Canvas
- Business Model Management
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In an earlier blog post, we introduced the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder, 2009) as a useful tool for describing how a business captures, creates and delivers value. In this blog, we will elaborate on Business Models, introducing the subject of Business Model Analysis. We will present several possible analytical techniques, using the case of Nextpresso, a virtual coffee-cup company.
Business Model Analysis
Analyzing your business model can help to determine whether a venture is, or will be, viable and valuable. After completing a Business Model Canvas for a current or future business model, designers often ask the following questions:
- Where are our revenues coming from?
- What value is delivered to which markets?
- What costs are involved in delivering that value?
- Are our perceived key activities and key resources as important for gaining revenue as we think they are?
- If we change our model in a specific way, what are the effects?
This requires insight into several elements of the business model, attributes of these elements and the relations between different elements. Analyzing these elements will provide the foundation for business model change and innovation in an organization. You can analyze a business model from several different perspectives. In our example, each possibility is analyzed from a different perspective, and answers a specific question.
Case and tool introduction
Using the Nextpresso example, we will present different possibilities for analysis on the Business Model Canvas. To provide some context, the Nextpresso machines brew espresso from coffee capsules, a type of pre-apportioned single-use aluminium container of roasted coffee in a variety of flavours. Nextpresso initially operates in the Dutch coffee market and intends to “cuppify” the traditional coffee world from there.
Using a tool for Business Modelling is useful since the model is created and stored in a central place, reducing the risk of miscommunication and maximizing the effect of collaboration. Furthermore, communication is made easier through publication functions (html, word, pdf-posters), making the business model more accessible. Needless to say, this is quite important for models that describe how your company creates value. Especially in the case of Business Model Analysis, tooling can help identifying strengths and weaknesses through relating building blocks, and providing insight in cash flows by calculations. Finally, tools help you to work your way “downstream” from your high level business model, to more detailed implementation views e.g. process models, customer journey maps and enterprise architecture models.
Business Model Canvas for ‘Nextpresso’
The Canvas below presents the current business model of Nextpresso. Nextpresso provides “Great espresso experiences at home and at the office”.
Business Model Canvas made for Nextpresso
Comparison of business models
If we enter a new market, how will this affect our revenues? If we stop providing certain services, will we decrease our costs? Why is our competitor’s model more successful than ours? Comparing different business models is useful in addressing such questions. The Nextpresso case provides a good example of such an analysis:
New Business Model Canvas Nextpresso
The Canvas represents the business model of Nextpresso according to the situation before the value proposition ‘Great espresso experience at the office’ was added. At first Nextpresso provided machines and cups for households only. You can see the differences in Customer Segments, Channels, Customer Relationships and Revenue Streams. When elements from the other business model are removed, these elements should be indicated in red. By knowing these differences, Nextpresso can calculate the differences in revenues and costs before and after this change. In the next example, we will present an example of calculating these costs and revenues.
Typical usage of business model comparison addresses questions regarding GAP-analyses (difference between as-is and to-be models), analyses on optional changes to a business model and comparison of alternative business models for the future. (Note: the feature to compare business models canvasses is available on BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio).
Analyzing Revenues and costs
What value do we deliver to which markets and what costs are involved in delivering that value? Where are our revenues coming from? What prices generate what sort of revenues? The ‘Costs and revenues’ function provides a useful way of addressing these questions. Organizations get a simple and clear view of the size of the markets they operate in, revenues per revenue stream and costs per cost structure.
Costs and Revenues. Business Model Canvas Nextpresso
Detailed costs structure. Business Model Canvas Nextpresso
For an overview of revenues and costs, specific information per Cost Structure and Revenue Stream serves as input:
Marketing. Business Model Canvas Nextpresso
Analyzing the customer relations
In the Nextpresso case, management might ask: Do we have different operating concepts for our segments ‘Households’, ‘Office users’ and ‘Companies’? Why? How many? An answer can be found by using the Customer Relations Landscape Map in Enterprise Studio:
Detailed marketing. Business Model Canvas Nextpresso
Analyzing the channels
Channels. Business Model Canvas Nextpresso
This Channels Landscape Map may be extended by mapping the Channels on different phases a customer is in (e.g. orientation, comparison, purchase, usage, complaint)
Presenting your business model
Communication to various stakeholders in your organization requires view mechanisms and various presentation options. BiZZdesign Architect provides many presentation options which we will discuss in a next posting.
Conclusions and next steps
We described types of analysis and we zoomed in on analysing the Business Model Canvas. Analysis of business models answers the question why and how a venture is, or will be, viable and valuable. Based on questions that represent perspectives on analyzing business models, the Nextpresso case shows different possibilities for conducting analysis. Tooling is a useful aid in business model analyses, making calculations and communication easy. Feel free to share in your thoughts and suggestions on alternative analyzes from your practice.
More about BiZZdesign’s Business Model Management services and a reference to recent webinars on this subject can be found here .
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As discussed in the introduction of this blog series, the maturation of the business architecture discipline makes the role of…
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Business Model Canvas Explained with Examples
In this article:
In this article, we’ll examine the nine steps needed to create your first business model using the Business Model Canvas. We’ll also look at the business models of Google, Uber, and Gillette to bring the theory to life and integrate all nine steps.
Before we jump in and look at the Business Model Canvas, let’s take a moment to define what we mean when we use the phrase “business model”.
What is a business model?
A business model is defined as:
Now if you think about writing all this down in a document, then it’s obviously going to require multiple pages to capture all of that information. Now think about trying to get all of this information into your brain at the same time and its easy for business models to overwhelm us.
Advantages of the Business Model Canvas
Using the business model canvas.
The first thing to notice is that there are nine elements or building blocks which make up the canvas:
We’ll look at each building block of the canvas in more detail shortly, but briefly, each segment tries to answer the following questions:
Left/Right Split
Broadly speaking we can say that those elements on the lefthand side of the canvas represent costs to the business, whereas elements on the righthand side generate revenue for the business.
With that, let’s dig into each of the nine building blocks in a little more detail.
1. Customer Segments
One really important point to get across here is that customers don’t exist for you, but rather you exist to serve your customers.
If you think about breaking down the advertiser customer segment into personas, then there are many different types of advertisers you might identify. For example, Fortune 500 companies such as Nike with massive advertising budgets might be one persona, whereas small one-man businesses might form another.
2. Value Proposition
The value proposition describes the value that you deliver to each customer segment. What problems do you solve for each customer segment? What needs do you satisfy? The Value Proposition answers the question, “why will customers buy from us?”.
3. Channels
Broadly speaking you can either have your own channels or partner with someone else.
Your own channels might include any combination of stores you own, a sales force you employ, or your website.
4. Customer Relationships
The Customer Relationships building block answers the question of how you get, keep, and grow customers.
The easiest way to define all of this is to walk through the entire customer journey in detail. That is how do customers find out about you, investigate whether to buy your product, purchase it and how are they managed after purchase.
5. Revenue Streams
Where does the money come from? In this building block, you state where your revenue is generated.
This might sound super simple but it isn’t. You’re actually trying to figure out what strategy you’ll use to capture the most value from your customers? Will customers simply pay a one-time fee? Will you have a monthly subscription fee? Perhaps you give away your product for free like Skype and hope that some portion of customers upgrade to the paid premium product?
Taking a Step Back
If you look at what we have done so far we’ve filled in our Value Proposition and the building blocks to the right of it.
Now we need to work on the area to the left of the value proposition. We need to build our infrastructure to be able to best provide the value proposition.
6. Key Resources
Broadly speaking resources can fall into one of four categories:
7. Key Activities
The Key Activities are the most important strategic things you must do to make the business model work. Key Activities should be directly relatable to your value proposition.
If your Key Activities are not relatable to your Value Proposition then something is wrong, because the activities you view as most important aren’t delivering any value to customers.
8. Key Partners
In this building block, you list the tasks and activities that are important but which you will not do yourself. Instead, you will use suppliers and partners to make the business model work.
Let’s look at Spotify. Spotify’s key activity is updating its platform. However, as it doesn’t produce its own music one of the key partnerships of Spotify will be the deals it strikes with record labels and publishing houses, without which it would have no music!
9. Cost Structure
In the Cost Structure building block, we want to map key activities to costs. We also want to ensure that costs are aligned with our Value Proposition.
Business Model Canvas Examples
So let’s look at three different examples of the Business Model Canvas so you can see just how useful it can be.
Example 1: Google
The first thing you should know about Google’s business model is that it is multi-sided. This means that it brings together two distinct but related customers.
The Business Model Canvas for Google is shown below:
Google’s Key Resource is its search platform including google.com, Adsense (for content owners) and Adwords (for advertisers).
The key strategic activities that Google must perform are managing the existing platform including its infrastructure.
OEMs are companies who produce mobile handsets to whom Google provides its Android operating system to for free. In return, when users of these handsets search the internet they use the Google search engine by default, thus bring more users into the ecosystem and generating even more revenue.
A Word on Color Coding
Example 2: skype.
In the diagram below you can see the Business Model Canvas for Skype.
The channels Skype uses to reach its customers are its website, skype.com, and partnerships with headset brands.
Looking at key partnerships, key activities, and key resources together, the main thing to notice is that Skype is able to support its business model of offering cheap and free calls because it doesn’t have to maintain its own telecoms network like a traditional telecoms provider. Skype doesn’t need that much infrastructure at all, just backend software and the servers hosting use accounts.
Example 3: Gillette
Gillette’s business model is based on the “Bait & Hook” business model pattern. This model is characterized by an attractive, inexpensive or even free initial offer that encourages ongoing future purchases of related products or services. With this business model, the bait is often provided at a loss, subsidized by the hook.
In the diagram above we have used the thickness of the arrows to indicate the size of revenue generated. In Gillette’s case, all revenues are generated by just one customer segment, but the vast majority of revenues come from Frequent Blade Replacements, with just minor revenues coming from the purchase of handles.
If you look at the left-hand side of Gellettes Business Model Canvas you will notice how all major costs are aligned with delivering the value proposition. For example, marketing costs help to build Gillette’s strong brand and R&D costs help to ensure that the blade and handle technology is unique and proprietary.
Key Takeaway
Creating your first business model.
If you’re going to do create your first Business Model Canvas, then here are some tips to help you get started:
The Business Model Canvas provides a way to show the key elements of any business model on a single sheet of paper. The canvas is based on nine building blocks and the interrelationships between them. You can use the canvas regardless of whether you are trying to understand a startup with two employees or a Fortune 500 company with over 50,000 employees.
Cite this article
Originally hailing from Dublin, Denis has always been interested in all things business and started EPM in 2009. Before EPM, Denis held a leadership position at Nokia, owned a sports statistics business, and was a member of the PMI's (Project Management Institute’s) Global Executive Council for two years. Denis now spends his days helping others understand complex business topics.
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Business Model Canvas – Comprehensive Guide with Examples
The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is useful for people looking to create a model or adapt the structure of their organization or development idea. It enables you to create value out of new ideas. Simply having a good idea for a new product or service is not enough if you can’t answer some key questions about how to take it forward.
The Business Model Canvas offers a concise tool for thinking through the business and keeping the key points highly visible to you, your team and your other stakeholders. It is a graphical, one-page framework that allows you to design, describe and/or challenge your business model.
Leading global companies such as MasterCard, General Electric, Adobe, and Nestlé, use the Canvas to manage strategy or create new growth engines, while start-up businesses, schools, development organizations, and other enterprises use it in their search for the right business model.
Why Use Business Modeling Canvas?
It is often very difficult to think through every single influence on your ideas and plans: how can you explain what you do, why you do it and how you do it in a simple and structured way? When you are planning or looking back at an initiative it is useful to look at how you are doing things now and how you could do them better in the future.
To get the most value from the strategic nature of the inputs and outputs, you may want to consult with many other people, both within and outside your organization. When you come to use the Canvas, you’re likely to make several revisions until you are happy with it. Business Model Canvas creates a complete overview of your strategy which includes:
- The products you should offer
- The people you should focus on
- The paths you should take
- The resources you should use to make your idea as successful as possible
Taking the time to sketch out your model and explore it in detail enables you to identify both its advantages and drawbacks so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not to commit resources to take it forward.
The Structure of Business Model Canvas
The Business Model Canvas is a single-page overview that lays out both what you do (or want to do) and how you go about doing it, enabling structured conversations around management and strategy. This visual format is useful for both existing and new organizations and businesses.
Look at the Business Model Canvas template below; you will see nine key elements. Let’s take a few moments to understand each of these elements in the sections below:
1. Value Propositions : these are the different products and services which the business offers and which create value in each of the customer segments. Value proposition enables the customers to go for the product or service that is being offered as compared to the others. It is the one that attracts the customers and which makes the customers return. Some of the characteristics of value proposition include the newness, customization, uniqueness, and quality of the product or service. Price, design, brand, and accessibility are some of the key attributes of a value proposition.
Guiding Questions:
- What is unique that is available to customers?
- Why do customers buy from your business?
- Which classes are you creating values for?
- What unique service do you offer to your customers?
2. Customer Segments : This refers to the market which the service or product is offered to. A customer segment is that part of the market targeted by the organization. In any business model, customers are at the center of the business. There is a need to classify these customers, identify their needs and satisfy the customers for the business to survive. There are different customer segments which include based on different market characteristics.
- Who are the major customers of your business?
- What do customers say about your business?
- Are there any important customers?
3. Channels : These are the means by which the goods and services reach customers. Recently modern technologies have been used to easily and effectively reach customers.
- What channels are used to reach customers
- What alternatives are available to reach customers?
4. Customer Relationships : this involves all the activities that are undertaken to motivate and impress customers. Different market segments have different relations which the business should identify and maintain.
- What is been done to maintain customers
- What incentives and rewards are available for customers?
5. Revenue Streams : includes the means and sources that the business gets income from. These are the different ways that an organization would use to get revenue. Examples could be advertising, asset sale, subscription fees and renting.
- What are the main revenue source
- What is the business doing to get more income?
6. Key Resources : Key resources are the main utilities that the business has and uses to achieve customer satisfaction. It includes the equipment, pool of assets and other products that the business uses to ensure that there are production and service delivery.
- What are the main assets and resources for the business?
- What do you need to be able to satisfy customers’ needs?
7. Key Partnerships : includes all the key stakeholders that the business requires to be able to perform its activities. These may include manufacturers, suppliers and other businesses in the same category of other entities that a business can collaborate with.
- Who are the main stakeholders?
- What are the motivations for the partnerships?
8. Key Activities : these are the major functions of the organization. These are key activities that a business engages in, to ensure survival in the market.
- What are the main functions of the business?
- What does your business do?
9. Cost Structure : describes all costs incurred to operate a business model. Such costs include the costs incurred during the creation and delivery of value, enabling customer value and getting income.
- What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?
- What are the main expenses for the business?
Business Model Canvas Example – Uber Platform
Business Model Canvas provides a holistic view of the business as a whole. It is crucial when it is used in a comparative analysis regarding the impact of company investments and other contributing factors.
Be creative and write your ideas down on colorful memo notes using the Business Model Canvas tool.
- Create a blank Business Model Canvas.
- Choose a memo you wish to use then drag and drop it onto the drawing canvas.
- Customize the memo and sticky via the Format panel.
- When you are done, save it (File > Save as) to our cloud repository for future access. You can also export your diagram into an image (PNG, SVG, JPG, PDF and more) and share it with your co-workers.
Business Model Canvas helps you discover who your clients are, search for a solution for your target customers, and explore what they are interested in and why they would choose your product. In this Business Model Canvas example below, you can see the Uber segmentation is also geo-demographic as the service seems to employ drivers who live in areas with the highest unemployment rates.
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The Easy Guide to the Business Model Canvas
Got a new business idea, but don’t know how to put it to work? Want to improve your existing business model? Overwhelmed by writing your business plan? There is a one-page technique that can provide you the solution you are looking for, and that’s the business model canvas.
In this guide, you’ll have the Business Model Canvas explained, along with steps on how to create one. All business model canvas examples in the post can be edited online.
What is a Business Model Canvas
A business model is simply a plan describing how a business intends to make money. It explains who your customer base is and how you deliver value to them and the related details of financing. And the business model canvas lets you define these different components on a single page.
The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool that lets you visualize and assess your business idea or concept. It’s a one-page document containing nine boxes that represent different fundamental elements of a business.
The business model canvas beats the traditional business plan that spans across several pages, by offering a much easier way to understand the different core elements of a business.
The right side of the canvas focuses on the customer or the market (external factors that are not under your control) while the left side of the canvas focuses on the business (internal factors that are mostly under your control). In the middle, you get the value propositions that represent the exchange of value between your business and your customers.
The business model canvas was originally developed by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur and introduced in their book ‘ Business Model Generation ’ as a visual framework for planning, developing and testing the business model(s) of an organization.
Why You Need a Business Model Canvas
- The BMC provides a quick overview of the business model and is devoid of the unnecessary details compared to the traditional business plan.
- The visual nature of the business model canvas makes it easier to refer to and understand by anyone.
- It’s easier to edit and it can be easily shared with employees and stakeholders.
- The business model canvas can be used by large corporations as well as startups with just a few employees.
- It clarifies how different aspects of the business are related to each other.
- You can use a BMC template to guide a brainstorming session on defining your business model effectively.
How to Make a Business Model Canvas
There are nine building blocks in the business model canvas and they are customer value proposition, customer segments, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key partners, key activities, and cost structure.
When filling out a Business Model Canvas, you will brainstorm and conduct research on each of these elements. The data you collect can be placed in each relevant section of the canvas. So have a business model canvas ready when you start the exercise.
What are the 9 Components of the Business Model Canvas?
- Customer Segments
- Customer Relationships
- Revenue Streams
Key Activities
Key resources, key partners.
- Cost Structure
- Value Proposition
Let’s look into what the 9 components of the BMC are in more detail.
Customer segments
These are the groups of people or companies that you are trying to target and sell your product or service to.
Segmenting your customers based on similarities such as geographical area, gender, age, behaviors, interests, etc. gives you the opportunity to better serve their needs, specifically by customizing the solution you are providing them.
After a thorough analysis of your customer segments, you can determine who you should serve and ignore. Then create customer personas for each of the selected customer segments.
There are different customer segments a business model can target and they are;
- Mass market: A business model that focuses on mass markets doesn’t group its customers into segments. Instead, it focuses on the general population or a large group of people with similar needs. For example, a product like a phone.
- Niche market: Here the focus is centered on a specific group of people with unique needs and traits. Here the value propositions, distribution channels, and customer relationships should be customized to meet their specific requirements. An example would be buyers of sports shoes.
- Segmented: Based on slightly different needs, there could be different groups within the main customer segment. Accordingly, you can create different value propositions, distribution channels, etc. to meet the different needs of these segments.
- Diversified: A diversified market segment includes customers with very different needs.
- Multi-sided markets: this includes interdependent customer segments. For example, a credit card company caters to both their credit card holders as well as merchants who accept those cards.
Use STP Model templates for segmenting your market and developing ideal marketing campaigns
Visualize, assess, and update your business model. Collaborate on brainstorming with your team on your next business model innovation.
Customer relationships
In this section, you need to establish the type of relationship you will have with each of your customer segments or how you will interact with them throughout their journey with your company.
There are several types of customer relationships
- Personal assistance: you interact with the customer in person or by email, through phone call or other means.
- Dedicated personal assistance: you assign a dedicated customer representative to an individual customer.
- Self-service: here you maintain no relationship with the customer, but provides what the customer needs to help themselves.
- Automated services: this includes automated processes or machinery that helps customers perform services themselves.
- Communities: these include online communities where customers can help each other solve their own problems with regard to the product or service.
- Co-creation: here the company allows the customer to get involved in the designing or development of the product. For example, YouTube has given its users the opportunity to create content for its audience.
You can understand the kind of relationship your customer has with your company through a customer journey map . It will help you identify the different stages your customers go through when interacting with your company. And it will help you make sense of how to acquire, retain and grow your customers.
This block is to describe how your company will communicate with and reach out to your customers. Channels are the touchpoints that let your customers connect with your company.
Channels play a role in raising awareness of your product or service among customers and delivering your value propositions to them. Channels can also be used to allow customers the avenue to buy products or services and offer post-purchase support.
There are two types of channels
- Owned channels: company website, social media sites, in-house sales, etc.
- Partner channels: partner-owned websites, wholesale distribution, retail, etc.
Revenue streams
Revenues streams are the sources from which a company generates money by selling their product or service to the customers. And in this block, you should describe how you will earn revenue from your value propositions.
A revenue stream can belong to one of the following revenue models,
- Transaction-based revenue: made from customers who make a one-time payment
- Recurring revenue: made from ongoing payments for continuing services or post-sale services
There are several ways you can generate revenue from
- Asset sales: by selling the rights of ownership for a product to a buyer
- Usage fee: by charging the customer for the use of its product or service
- Subscription fee: by charging the customer for using its product regularly and consistently
- Lending/ leasing/ renting: the customer pays to get exclusive rights to use an asset for a fixed period of time
- Licensing: customer pays to get permission to use the company’s intellectual property
- Brokerage fees: revenue generated by acting as an intermediary between two or more parties
- Advertising: by charging the customer to advertise a product, service or brand using company platforms
What are the activities/ tasks that need to be completed to fulfill your business purpose? In this section, you should list down all the key activities you need to do to make your business model work.
These key activities should focus on fulfilling its value proposition, reaching customer segments and maintaining customer relationships, and generating revenue.
There are 3 categories of key activities;
- Production: designing, manufacturing and delivering a product in significant quantities and/ or of superior quality.
- Problem-solving: finding new solutions to individual problems faced by customers.
- Platform/ network: Creating and maintaining platforms. For example, Microsoft provides a reliable operating system to support third-party software products.
This is where you list down which key resources or the main inputs you need to carry out your key activities in order to create your value proposition.
There are several types of key resources and they are
- Human (employees)
- Financial (cash, lines of credit, etc.)
- Intellectual (brand, patents, IP, copyright)
- Physical (equipment, inventory, buildings)
Key partners are the external companies or suppliers that will help you carry out your key activities. These partnerships are forged in oder to reduce risks and acquire resources.
Types of partnerships are
- Strategic alliance: partnership between non-competitors
- Coopetition: strategic partnership between partners
- Joint ventures: partners developing a new business
- Buyer-supplier relationships: ensure reliable supplies
Cost structure
In this block, you identify all the costs associated with operating your business model.
You’ll need to focus on evaluating the cost of creating and delivering your value propositions, creating revenue streams, and maintaining customer relationships. And this will be easier to do so once you have defined your key resources, activities, and partners.
Businesses can either be cost-driven (focuses on minimizing costs whenever possible) and value-driven (focuses on providing maximum value to the customer).
Value propositions
This is the building block that is at the heart of the business model canvas. And it represents your unique solution (product or service) for a problem faced by a customer segment, or that creates value for the customer segment.
A value proposition should be unique or should be different from that of your competitors. If you are offering a new product, it should be innovative and disruptive. And if you are offering a product that already exists in the market, it should stand out with new features and attributes.
Value propositions can be either quantitative (price and speed of service) or qualitative (customer experience or design).
What Are Your Thoughts on the Business Model Canvas?
Once you have completed your business model canvas, you can share it with your organization and stakeholders and get their feedback as well. The business model canvas is a living document, therefore after completing it you need to revisit and ensure that it is relevant, updated and accurate.
What best practices do you follow when creating a business model canvas? Do share your tips with us in the comments section below.
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Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.
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HDD & More from Me
The 20 Minute Business Plan: Business Model Canvas Made Easy
Table of Contents
What’s the Business Model Canvas?
How do you get started, why use the business model canvas, when should you use the business model canvas, how do you use the canvas to facilitate alignment and focus, step 1 (of 10): customer segments, step 2 (of 10): value propositions, step 3 (of 10): channels, step 4 (of 10): customer relationships, step 5 (of 10): revenue streams, step 6 (of 10): key activities, step 7 (of 10): key resources, step 8 (of 10): key partnerships, step 9 (of 10): cost structure, step 10 (of 10): applications, analysis & next steps, example a: enable quiz (startup), example b: hvac in a hurry (enterprise), using the google doc’s/powerpoint template.
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If you’re already familiar, you can skip to the next section, ‘ How do I get started ?’.
The Business Model Canvas (BMC) gives you the structure of a business plan without the overhead and the improvisation of a ‘back of the napkin’ sketch without the fuzziness (and coffee rings).
Together these elements provide a pretty coherent view of a business’ key drivers–
- Customer Segments : Who are the customers? What do they think? See? Feel? Do?
- Value Propositions : What’s compelling about the proposition? Why do customers buy, use?
- Channels : How are these propositions promoted, sold and delivered? Why? Is it working?
- Customer Relationships : How do you interact with the customer through their ‘journey’?
- Revenue Streams : How does the business earn revenue from the value propositions?
- Key Activities : What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition?
- Key Resources : What unique strategic assets must the business have to compete?
- Key Partnerships : What can the company not do so it can focus on its Key Activities?
- Cost Structure : What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?
The Canvas is popular with entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs for business model innovation. Fundamentally, it delivers three things:
- Focus : Stripping away the 40+ pages of ‘stuff’ in a traditional business plan, I’ve seen users of the BMC improve their clarify and focus on what’s driving the business (and what’s non-core and getting in the way).
- Flexibility : It’s easier to facilitate alignment by tweaking the model and trying things (from a planning perspective) with something that’s sitting on a single page.
- Transparency: Your team will have a much easier time understanding your business model and be much more likely to buy in to your vision when it’s laid out on a single page.
The first time you engage with the canvas, I recommend printing it out or projecting it on a whiteboard and going to town (see below for a PDF). However, if you’re ready to put together something a little more formal (for distribution, presentation, etc.) here’s a Google App’s template you can copy or download as MSFT PowerPoint:
*Omnigraffle a popular diagramming program for the Mac. It has a fairly easy to use layering environment which you may find handy as you want to tinker with and produce different views of the canvas. You can try Omnigraffle for free (the basic paid version is $99).
The short answer is this: because it’s simple yet focused and that means more of your audience is likely to pay attention to it. Also, it’s highly amenable to change on the margins.
This matters a lot- more than most people think. A company that wants to innovate has to be ready to be wrong . A good VC in early stage investments succeeds with a prevalence of something like a 1/10. If you think you’re doing a lot better than that with substantial new innovation investments (a startup or a new line of business inside an enterprise) you’re probably throwing good money after bad.
Transparency, simplicity, and focus are great facilitators of the ‘creative destruction’ a good innovation program needs, and the Canvas does a nice job of delivering that across lines of business. For a large corporation with multiple lines of business at various levels of maturity, I actually prefer the Corporate Innovation Canvas as a starting point. However, from there, the Business Model Canvas does an excellent job of bringing clarity to the questions of how, for example, a given line of business creates focus and then implements it in an innovation-friendly way with, for example, ‘objectives and key results’ OKR’s . It’s a central element in the ‘innovation stack’ where an enterprise is able to go from priority innovation areas (with the Corporate Innovation Canvas) to testable business model designs (with the Business Model Canvas) to product charters (with an agile team charter ) to individual learning pathways to cultivate the talent they need to execute.
Even more important than the top down cascading of objectives with testable results and KPI’s is the improvement in the feedback in outcomes that helps the overall innovation program learn and adapt quickly. With layer appropriate innovation metrics, it’s much easier for the achievements of individuals to cohere (or not) to the job of teams and in turn from there to lines of business back up to corporate objectives. This helps both help the company’s talent understand where they might benefit from more practice and learning as well as what constitutes success in their individual roles and collaborations.
Anytime you want to have a focused discussion about what matters to a given line of business, the Business Model Canvas is a good place to start. The Canvas has received a lot of attention as a tool for startup entrepreneurship. While this may be one of the ‘sexier’ and more ostensibly simple applications of the Canvas, I actually think it’s one of the least compelling. For a startup, the only thing that matters is product/market fit, which the Canvas represents as a set of relationships between Customer Segments and Value Propositions. The Canvas doesn’t do a bad job of describing this, but it’s kind of overkill- the whole left side of the Canvas which describes the delivery infrastructure is mostly irrelevant for startups that are still finding product market fit, since all that’s provisional about where (and whether) they arrive at product/market fit.
Where the Canvas really shines is describing an existing line of business to answer questions like: a) What does product/market fit mean for this business? b) Where have we focused our company building and is it still relevant to ‘a’? c) What are our key revenue, cost, and profit drivers, and how do we improve those?
Now we’re taking! Whether you’re an ‘intrapreneur’ exploring a new extension to the business or a ‘digital transformation’/IT consultant trying to facilitate a discussion about what ‘strategic IT’ means and how you’ll know if you achieve it, the Canvas is a quick and productive place to anchor such a discussion.
First and foremost, I’d try it out for yourself. Fill out the elements the business you’re working on and then ask yourself ‘Does this make sense?’ ‘What are the most important linkages and components of the model?’
From there, you may just want to use the Canvas you sketch to facilitate alignment on some other topic. However, if you’re working with a team on a new venture or with a client on a new project, you may then want to take it from the top and facilitate a workshop where you facilitate a fresh take on the Canvas, levering your experience thinking through it once. The link below will take you to a related curriculum item that has workshop slides, prep. items, and agenda.
LINK TO WORKSHOP PAGE
Otherwise, the next sections (10 steps) offer a tutorial on how to think through a business model design with the Canvas. The closing sections offer notes on how to use the Google Doc’s/PowerPoint and Omnigraffle templates.
Output : a list of Personas, organized by Customer Segment if you have more than one segment. I recommend trying to prioritize them- Who would you pitch first if you could only pitch one? Who next? And so forth…
Notes : If you’re spending a lot of time on this first item, that’s OK (and it’s probably good). The Canvas is a tool, not a strategy and not all the nine blocks are equal. The pairing of Customer Segments and Value Propositions is really the ‘independent variable’ that should be driving everything else in your business model. When I use the Canvas in my Venture Design classes, we usually spend all of the first session (plus time for field research) on Customer Segments and Value Propositions.
For example, at Leonid, an enterprise software company I founded, we thought our largest customers worked with us because of the cost savings we offered and our knowledge about best practices. It turned out that was mostly wrong- reducing their time and risk to get new services to market was the most important. It’s not that the other things weren’t important, but they weren’t the top Value Proposition. That made a difference on how we sold the product and how we focused on operationalizing it for customers.
This mapping says ‘We have 3 personas. Persona 1 cares about VP 1 & 2. Persona 2 cares about VP 2; Persona 3 cares about VP3. (One segment only so segments not noted)’.
Output : a prioritized list of Value Propositions and linkages from each Personas to the VP’s relevant to them.
Notes: Again, this pairing is the key driver for most business models and if you want more on how to describe and discovery what to put in this part of the canvas, I recommend this: Tutorial- Personas .
Maybe you feel like you’re in good shape on understanding the customer’s world but you don’t have any validation on whether the Value Propositions are clicking because this is a new venture? If you’re not sure, that’s OK and good for you for acknowledging the uncertainty! It’s the responsible thing to do. The key is to write down those assumptions, prioritize them, and figure out the quickest and cheapest way to prove or disprove them. That’s what Lean/Startup is about and there are resources here to help you with that, if you’d like- Tutorial: Lean Startup .
Channels includes entities you use to communicate your proposition to your segments, as well as entities through which you sell product and later service customers (see AIDAOR journey below). For example, if you sell bulbs for light houses and there’s a website all light house attendants purchase equipment, that site is a sales Channel. If you use Google AdWords, that’s a Channel, too (for getting attention). If you use a third party company to service the bulbs when they break, that’s also a Channel.
Output : a list of important Channels, linked to Personas or Segments if they differ substantially. Make notes on what steps are relevant for each- promotion, sales, service, etc. See Note this section for more structure on this.
Notes: Channels and the next item, Customer Relationships, define your interface with the Customer. It’s important to think all the way through the customer ‘journey’ in specific terms. For most businesses, the way they get a customer’s attention is different than the way they onboard them or support them over the long term. For this, I recommend the AIDA.OR framework (attention-interest-desire-action-onboarding-retention) and storyboarding your way through it. Here’s a post explaining all that- Storyboarding AIDA(OR) . If you don’t want to do the storyboards, I recommend at least making notes about your customer journey through the AIDA(OR) steps.
Another consideration is whether your channels will give you enough visibility into the user, including, for example, a way to follow up with users. Not sure? Document your assumptions Lean Startup style and figure out how you’ll quickly prove or disprove them.
Output : a description of Customer Relationships, with notes if they differ across Customers (between Segments or among Personas within a Segment) or across the customer journey.
Notes: If you’re a startup, be sure to document and review critical assumptions here. Also, the focal items are in a kind of specific order- you should validate your Segments and their relationship to the Propositions above all else. If this means you provide personal support in the early days (a ‘concierge test’ in Lean Startup terms) to do discovery and validation of Segments and Propositions, that’s OK. You can subsequently test the Customer Relationship models. (Here’s a post on using consulting as a concierge vehicle in B2B if you want more detail: Consulting as B2B Concierge Vehicle ).
Notes : If you have a startup or are re-engineering the business, this is a time to look at where you’re driving revenue and whether it aligns with the rest of your focal points. Are you charging on value? Perceived value? They say everyone loves their banker; hates their lawyer. Why is that? Is there an actionable analog in your business?
For a product-driven business, this probably includes ongoing learning about users and new techniques to build better product. If you’re focused on doing a bunch of things for a particular set of customers (ex: comprehensive IT for law offices), this probably includes maintaining superior expertise on the segment(s) and creating or acquiring products and services that are a good fit, whatever that entails. For an infrastructure business (ex: electric utility), it probably includes keeping the infrastructure working reliably and making it more efficient.
Outputs : a list of Key Activities linked to your business’ Value Propositions.
Notes : One question this analysis should raise for you is whether or not certain Activities and Resources are actually core, actually focal to your business, something you’ll want to think through .
Outputs : a list of Key Resources linked to your business’ Key Activities.
Notes : Product-driven businesses have a differentiated product of some sort. Rovio, the company that makes the popular app Angry Birds, is such a company. Key Resources in product-driven businesses are typically key talent in critical areas of expertise and accumulated intellectual property related to their offering.
Scope-driven businesses create some synergy around a particular Customer Segment. For example, if you started a business that would take care of all the IT needs for law firms, that would be a scope-driven business. These businesses typically have key knowledge about their segment, a repeatable set of processes, and sometimes infrastructure, like service centers.
Infrastructure-driven businesses achieve economies of scale in a specific, highly repeatable area. Telecommunications is traditionally an infrastructure business. Retailers focused on retail, like Walgreens or Costco, are primarily infrastructure-driven businesses. The Key Resources for this type of business are, you guessed it, various types of physical or virtual infrastructure.
Let’s take a single product category: diapers. The Honest Company or another innovating around compostable or otherwise more environmentally friendly diapers would be a product-driven take on the category. Procter & Gamble which has a cradle-to-grave strategy for providing consumer products is a scope-based take; so are various baby-focused retailers. Kimberly-Clark (wood pulp) or DuPont (chemicals and polymers) are both infrastructure-based takes: diapers is just another way to sell something they produce at scale with relatively little differentiation.
If there are major cost components that don’t map to a Key Activity, I’d take a closer look at those costs.
Output : a list of Cost Structure elements with notes on their relationship to Key Activities.
Congratulations- you have a working canvas! The section below offers a few analytical ideas and suggestions for next steps.
Core Applications The most core and obvious applications of the Canvas are to ask: – Does it make sense? – Could it be better? – Does the rest of my team understand and agree? Have additional ideas? – (rinse and repeat at least quarterly)
Competitiveness The canvas does a good job of helping you figure out your business, which is a good place to start. You also want to look at the competitive environment and think about if and how you have/maintain a long term competitive advantage.
For this, I like Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework ( Wikipedia Page ; see also Chapter 2 of ‘ Starting a Tech Business ‘). Try walking through the Five Forces for your company and then bounce back to your canvas. How does it all hang together?
Next Steps Every business is a work in progress (sorry, I try to avoid saying things like that but it seemed to fit here). As you go through the canvas, you may encounter areas that give you trouble. The table below summarizes a few of the most common that I see in my work as a mentor and coach:
Want to make innovation an everyday thing?
What is Enable Quiz?
Enable Quiz is a (fictional) startup that’s building a lightweight quizzing application for companies that hire a lot of technical talent (engineers). Their take is:
For hiring managers who need to evaluate technical talent, Enable Quiz is a talent assessment system that allows for quick and easy assessment of topical understanding in key engineering topics. Unlike formal certifications or ad hoc questions, our product allows for lightweight but consistent assessments of technical talent.
Why and how would Enable Quiz use the Business Model Canvas?
They have a small team, but arriving at a clear, shared understanding of what they’re after is still important. That said, it’s important that the way they talk about this is both highly visible and amenable to change. Given that, the Canvas is a good fit.
The Business Model Canvas at Enable Quiz
This page shows Enable Quiz’s current working view of product/market fit:
What is HVAC in a Hurry?
HVAC in a Hurry is a mid-sized enterprise that services commercial HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. Their take on the business is:
For facilities managers & business owners who need their heating & cooling systems managed and repaired, HVAC in a Hurry is a full service provider that allows for easy and responsible management of a business’ HVAC systems. Unlike smaller firms, our commitment to best practices and training allows customers to worry less and realize superior total cost of ownership for their HVAC systems.
Why and how would HVAC in a Hurry use the Business Model Canvas?
HVAC in a Hurry has a working version of product/market fit. However, their industry is competitive and successful firms increasingly use technology to improve customer experience (CX) and reduce cost (overhead) in their operations. HVAC in a Hurry has a small ‘digital transformation’ team that’s working on digital applications to improve the company’s performance. This team decided to use the Canvas to ‘manage upwards’ in order to facilitate better discussions about where they should focus, how that aligns with the business as a whole, and what success definition makes sense for them.
The Business Model Canvas at HVAC in a Hurry
Here’s their current view of product/market fit:
If you’re not familiar with it, Google Doc’s is a web-based office suite, similar to MS Office. If you have a gmail account, you can access it (no guarantees- that was the case last time I checked).
First, you’ll want to link to the template file: BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS TEMPLATE IN GOOGLE DOC’S .
Once you’re accessed the file, you can make make it your own by going to the File menu and either ‘Make a copy…’, creating a copy in your own Google App’s domain or you can use the ‘Download as…’ option to download it as PowerPoint (and a few other formats).
What’s your experience with the Canvas? How have you used it? What worked? What didn’t? Please consider posting a comment!
Copyright © 2022 Alex Cowan · All rights reserved.
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