Business Model Canvas: Explained with Examples

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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.

Business Model Canvas Explained

What Are the Benefits of Using a Business Model Canvas

Why do you need a business model canvas? The answer is simple. The business model canvas offers several benefits for businesses and entrepreneurs. It is a valuable tool and provides a visual and structured approach to designing, analyzing, optimizing, and communicating your business model.

  • The business model canvas provides a comprehensive overview of a business model’s essential aspects. The BMC provides a quick outline of the business model and is devoid of unnecessary details compared to the traditional business plan.
  • The comprehensive overview also ensures that the team considers all required components of their business model and can identify gaps or areas for improvement.
  • The BMC allows the team to have a holistic and shared understanding of the business model while enabling them to align and collaborate effectively.
  • The visual nature of the business model canvas makes it easier to refer to and understand by anyone. The business model canvas combines all vital business model elements in a single, easy-to-understand canvas.
  • The BMC can be considered a strategic analysis tool as it enables you to examine a business model’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges.
  • It’s easier to edit and can be easily shared with employees and stakeholders.
  • The BMC is a flexible and adaptable tool that can be updated and revised as the business evolves. Keep your business agile and responsive to market changes and customer needs.
  • The business model canvas can be used by large corporations and startups with just a few employees.
  • The business model canvas effectively facilitates discussions among team members, investors, partners, customers, and other stakeholders. It clarifies how different aspects of the business are related and ensures a shared understanding of the business model.
  • You can use a BMC template to facilitate discussions and guide brainstorming brainstorming sessions to generate insights and ideas to refine the business model and make strategic decisions.
  • The BMC is action-oriented, encouraging businesses to identify activities and initiatives to improve their business model to drive business growth.
  • A business model canvas provides a structured approach for businesses to explore possibilities and experiment with new ideas. This encourages creativity and innovation, which in turn encourages team members to think outside the box.

How to Make a Business Model Canvas

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a business canvas model.

Step 1: Gather your team and the required material Bring a team or a group of people from your company together to collaborate. It is better to bring in a diverse group to cover all aspects.

While you can create a business model canvas with whiteboards, sticky notes, and markers, using an online platform like Creately will ensure that your work can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Create a workspace in Creately and provide editing/reviewing permission to start.

Step 2: Set the context Clearly define the purpose and the scope of what you want to map out and visualize in the business model canvas. Narrow down the business or idea you want to analyze with the team and its context.

Step 3: Draw the canvas Divide the workspace into nine equal sections to represent the nine building blocks of the business model canvas.

Step 4: Identify the key building blocks Label each section as customer segment, value proposition, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, and cost structure.

Step 5: Fill in the canvas Work with your team to fill in each section of the canvas with relevant information. You can use data, keywords, diagrams, and more to represent ideas and concepts.

Step 6: Analyze and iterate Once your team has filled in the business model canvas, analyze the relationships to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. Discuss improvements and make adjustments as necessary.

Step 7: Finalize Finalize and use the model as a visual reference to communicate and align your business model with stakeholders. You can also use the model to make informed and strategic decisions and guide your business.

What are the Key Building Blocks of the Business Model Canvas?

There are nine building blocks in the business model canvas and they are:

Customer Segments

Customer relationships, revenue streams, key activities, key resources, key partners, cost structure.

  • Value Proposition

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.  

Business Model Canvas Template

Let’s look into what the 9 components of the BMC are in more detail.

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.

Customer Persona Template for Business Model Canvas Explained

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.

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.

Customer Journey Map

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.

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

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).

Value Proposition Canvas

What to Avoid When Creating a Business Model Canvas

One thing to remember when creating a business model canvas is that it is a concise and focused document. It is designed to capture key elements of a business model and, as such, should not include detailed information. Some of the items to avoid include,

  • Detailed financial projections such as revenue forecasts, cost breakdowns, and financial ratios. Revenue streams and cost structure should be represented at a high level, providing an overview rather than detailed projections.
  • Detailed operational processes such as standard operating procedures of a business. The BMC focuses on the strategic and conceptual aspects.
  • Comprehensive marketing or sales strategies. The business model canvas does not provide space for comprehensive marketing or sales strategies. These should be included in marketing or sales plans, which allow you to expand into more details.
  • Legal or regulatory details such as intellectual property, licensing agreements, or compliance requirements. As these require more detailed and specialized attention, they are better suited to be addressed in separate legal or regulatory documents.
  • Long-term strategic goals or vision statements. While the canvas helps to align the business model with the overall strategy, it should focus on the immediate and tangible aspects.
  • Irrelevant or unnecessary information that does not directly relate to the business model. Including extra or unnecessary information can clutter the BMC and make it less effective in communicating the core elements.

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.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

FAQs About the Business Model Canvas

  • Use clear and concise language
  • Use visual-aids
  • Customize for your audience
  • Highlight key insights
  • Be open to feedback and discussion

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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.

The Strategic Project Manager

Key Activities of the Business Model Canvas – A Deeper Dive

Organizations are defined by what they actually do. As part of the Business Model Canvas, Key Activities capture what people spend their time day to day in execution of the Business Model.

This post identifies many examples of Key Activities in a wide variety of different types of organizations. The purpose is to help clarify what a Key Activity is, and to give ideas to help spark your thinking.

Where Key Activities Fit in the Business Model Canvas

‘Key Activities’ is one of the nine items that make up the Business Model Canvas . It is the place on the canvas to capture the actionable priorities in an organization. It’s where people spend their time, and what executives are most concerned about. It is on the Execution side of the canvas.

The Business Model Framework is largely credited to Alexander Osterwalder and Strategyzer .  To supercharge your understanding of business models, I recommend his book, “Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers” .

For this post, the focus is on a few of the types of activities that are most prominent in organizations today. Note that this is not just about businesses, or private industries. Business Models are important for government and not-for-profit organizations also, and all are considered here.

The key activity types of focus for this post are:

  • Production – everything from how a product or service is produced and delivered to customers
  • Problem solving – developing custom solutions for customers and clients; usually project based
  • Technology – leveraging technology to provide value added for customers
  • Platform or network – building a platform that will provide superior value and competitive advantage
  • Sales and marketing – externally facing presence that is necessary and present in most organizations

Note that not all organizations will have activities in each of these activity types. Most will have some dominant types.

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I recommend these strategy resources on FlevyPro (paid links):

Key Activity Type: Production

Production is a primary activity in organizations that build and sell products. Manufacturing businesses are a prime example. However, most organizations produce something, even if not a primary activity.

Here are five top Key Activities related to Production:

  • Design – designing products, machinery, and production processes
  • Purchasing – outsourcing materials and other input products
  • Build – assembling, processing, and sharing inputs into the desired products
  • Deliver – shipping, distributing, and handing off the products to end customers
  • Administer – orchestrate, control, and manage the production process

Organizations sometimes outsource all required production as it is not a core activity. In those cases, the outsourcing itself is a Key Activity of the organization.

Key Activity Type: Problem Solving

A consulting organization is a prime example of an organization that solves problems as a core activity. However, many government organizations with certain specialties also solve problems for their internal and external customers.

Here are five Key Activities that fit under the Problem Solving umbrella:.

  • Knowledge Management – managing a core shared knowledge base
  • Recruitment – identifying, connecting with, and hiring skilled people
  • Training – enhancing core skills and integrating people into shared processes
  • Interfacing with clients – interacting with those whose problems you are solving
  • Writing proposals – detailing scope and cost for future engagements

In addition to for-profit enterprises, many not-for-profits have Key Activities in Knowledge Management and Training.

Key Activity Type:  Technology

With Technology there is a focus on an underlying capability that provide strategic advantage.

The following are example Key Activities related to Technology:

  • Research & Development – the capability to develop core technologies, or specific applications
  • Development – distinct fr R & D, this can include developing software as part of the offering
  • System Administration – support for a technology infrastructure that is required
  • Support – helping customers and internal personnel through technology issues
  • Recruitment – ensuring a stable of people versed in the core technology

Technology-oriented activities may be a part of businesses in consulting and manufacturing; government organizations that design, develop and manage technologies for government use; and not-for-profit organizations that support people that need technology or professions in technology fields.

Key Activity Type:  Platform or Network

Platforms and network activity have become more pervasive as organizations try to leverage network effects . In such organizations, each participant added to the network increases the value of the network to all participants.

The following are five Key Activities related Platforms and Networks:

  • Research & Development – could related to the Network or the Platform, or to a technology that is a common interest of network participants
  • Providing Core Expertise – central expertise that attracts participants, builds community, and continually adds value
  • Platform Management – technical support, customer service, and provisioning for new customers
  • Membership Management – administration, customer relations, and other value added services
  • Quality Monitoring – ensuring that security and content quality meet established standards

As there are many types of network effects, there are many sub-areas of interest that may involve additional Key Activities that fall under Platform or Network.

Key Activity Type:  Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are critical to most organizations, especially those in private industry. However, it is also a Key Activity Type for not-for-profits in raising money and offering services. It can also be important for government organizations who need to sell internally to customer sin order to obtain the required levels of funding.

  • Recruiting – finding people who can sell applies to every organization
  • Advertising – making offerings of the organization known in the target market
  • Prospecting – continually identifying candidate customers or consumers
  • Maintaining – proactively nurturing existing customers and consumers
  • Collaborating – coordinating with related stakeholders to create a holistic interaction

Sales and marketing is important to some degree in virtually any organization, whether public or private sector, or for profit or not.

This post looks at an array of ideas for capturing the Key Activities that your organization undertakes, or needs to undertake, to conduct its day to day business. Key Activities are an essential part of executing on the organization’s Business Model.

You can quickly and conveniently work through the Key Activities and other components of the Business Model Canvas with the Lucidchart Business Model Canvas template (Try for free)  – recommended!

Importantly, this subject applies to virtually any organization whether commercial for profit, not for profit, startup, or government entity

I would love to hear from anyone from these various organization types about your Key Activities in support of your Business Model. Please share!

To supercharge your understanding of business models, I recommend “Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers” by Alexander Osterwalder.

For a startup-centric presentation of Key Activities of the Business Model Canvas, see “ Business Model Canvas: Key Activities ” by Startup SOS.

I recommend these PM templates and strategy resources (paid links):

business model canvas key activities examples

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Denis Oakley & Co

Denis Oakley & Co

I HELP BOLD LEADERS TRANSFORM THEIR BUSINESSES AND THE INDUSTRIES THEY COMPETE IN

February 10, 2018 By Denis Oakley

Key Activities in the Business Model Canvas

Key activities are important things your business needs to do to run. It’s even more specific than that. Key activities are the key things that you need to do in order to deliver your value propositions to customers . In this lesson, we look at what key activities are within the context of the business model canvas and how to identify them and use them correctly.

key activities

Key Activities Video

Here’s a video where I run through what the key activities are and how they fit into the business model canvas

Identifying the key activities that you need for your valuation is important. It’s equally important to consider which key activities you need to do yourself. Changing these can be a great source of business model innovation , especially when faced with business model depreciation and disruptive market changes .

Finding the Key Activities

To find your key activity the best place to start is your value proposition

  • What’s are the most important actions to build your product or service?
  • What’s most important to distribute your product and service?
  • What kinds of activities are important if we want to maintain customer relationships? (Personal Service, Your Office, Sharing Experience etc..)
  • What kinds of activities are fundamental to your revenue streams? (Credit Limit, Fast Payment, Trust etc..)

What Key Activities Do Your Value Proposition(s) Require?

First of all look at your value proposition. What are the key things that you need to do to make it work? If you have a florist you need to

  • buy the flowers,
  • prepare them and
  • deliver them.

You also need to manage your promotional channels so that customers come to the shop.

If you run a plastics factory your key activities are likely to revolve about:

  • maintaining production,
  • keeping the operations safe, and
  • working out how to reduce costs and improve productivity to keep pace with market changes.

Here there are many many more things that you could be doing. Key activities are the critical things that you absolutely must do in order to develop and maintain your competitive advantage .

Small businesses and startups will often list tasks or processes at this stage because they are fairly simple. When you look at the business model of large enterprises that may comprise hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of employees the key activities need to be captured at a far higher level of abstraction.

It is just the same as looking at a map at different scales. One of the keys is using the right scale to look at your business in its stage of development

What Do You Have to do Everyday?

What key activities do you have to do every day? This is a really good approach for helping you to figure out what is a key activity and what is not. If you or your staff are doing the same activities every day then there is a good chance that they are critical for the delivery of the value proposition. For a supermarket (looking at the unit rather than the enterprise) restocking is a key activity. When customers go into the supermarket they expect to find goods on the shelves to buy. Without them, the business model falls apart.

For a company like Google the key activities are improving its code base and then examine all the data that it has gathered to help it improve search results and let advertisers sell better-converting adverts.

For a company like IKEA, the key activities are optimising its logistics chain to ensure that every store has all the furniture that people in that market are buying. It also works on reducing the cost of its products so that it can maintain it’s market-leading position in flat packed self-assembled furniture.

Is Your Business Based Around Producing or Making Something?

Where a company is involved in making something the key activities usually centre on getting the raw materials, transforming them and then shipping or distributing the finished products.

A dairy farmer’s key activities are feeding the cows, checking them for health, milking them and then storing the milk ready for collection. Nestle’s key activities (if we look at the Yoghurt product line) are collecting the milk, processing it into yoghurt, packaging it into containers and then sending it out into its distribution network.

Space X’s key activities are all about designing and manufacturing ever larger rockets, building more effective rocket control and telemetry systems and selling orbital delivery services to its customers.

The key activities tend to vary quite widely based on the type of customer and the manufacturing process used. Where manufacturing is continuous or mass sales tend to be a far smaller portion of the key activities as these are delivered by channels. When products are very large or highly customised then sales tend to be far more complex and take longer.

Some examples of business models based around production include

Is Your Business Based Around Solving Problems for Customers?

Companies which are problem-orientated tend to have a different set of activities. These companies are often consultants, lawyers and other types of knowledge workers.

A lawyer, for example, has client consultations, pleading and case law review as his critical activities. Activities such as billing are generally not key activities because these are common for all businesses and provide little competitive advantage.

The deeper message of key activities is that these are the activities that provide a competitive advantage. Case law review is something that all lawyers do. How can this be a key activity/ Can you do it faster? Do you have a better process for doing it? Is one of your key resources a software system that allows you to assess more cases than would be possible or feasible by hand.

Problem-solving business models are knowledge-intensive. The key is understanding, in the business model, how this knowledge is obtained, processed and packaged to solve the customers’ problem.

Is your Business Based Around Building a Platform or Network for Other People to Use?

When we look at platforms, what we are doing is analogous to providing a meeting hall for people to use. If it is a market place the meeting hall has to have tables for sellers to display their wares. It has to have all the facilities that buyers need to make purchases.

When we look at the key activities we can see that there is often a build once-optimise continually process. Facebook , for example, was built once. Mark Zuckerberg only ever built a single Facebook. Over time almost all the original code has been upgraded, expanded, replaced and optimised as the value proposition has changed over time.

It’s tempting to just say build and optimise the platform. That is doing too little work. What is far better is to delve down into the details and say – what is it about the way that we build and optimize the platform that gives us the amazing results?

The other aspect to bear in mind with platforms is that you are often serving two or more customer segments simultaneously using the platform. There will be platform-centric key activities. There will be key activities that are focused on each of the customer segments (or groups of them under certain conditions)

If you want to see some examples of platform key activities have a look at these business models

Deciding the Key Activities in Your Business Model

When I design business models for clients the key activities are one of the last parts of the business model canvas that I work on.

For most startups, there aren’t normally more than 2-3 key activities. That is mainly because if an activity is key it should be consuming most of a person’s time. Startups have few people and limited time and resources. They can’t as a result have too many key resources. They are unable to deliver on them if they do.

Having lots of key activities is also an indication of sloppy thinking and an inability to prioritise what is really important. Focusing on just a few activities allows you to get really good at them and find a source of competitive advantage . Being very good at some activities is also a great way of defending against threats to your business model .

One way of prioritising is to imagine that no-one has come into the office. You are the only person in there.

What are the first three things that you do?

Those will normally be your key activities

So for example when I worked at a food delivery company as the VP of operations I cared about three things

  • Are the chefs cooking?
  • Are my delivery riders here?
  • Has the website and app sent me lots of customer orders to fulfil

That translated to

  • Platform build & Optimisation

in our business model canvas.

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I can help you get it right

How to Build a Great Business Model Canvas – The FREE Course

  • Introduction 
  • Value Propositions
  • Marketing & Distribution Channels
  • Customer Relationships
  • Key Resources
  • Key Activities
  • Key Partners & Suppliers

About Denis Oakley

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Key Activities in the Business Model Canvas

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By Denis G.

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:

  • A plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying sources of revenue, the target customer base, products, and details of financing.

Essentially it tells us how the key drivers of a business fit together.

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.

That’s where the Business Model Canvas comes in. It gives you a way to create a pretty clear business model using just a single sheet of paper. And what is great about it is it can be used to describe any company – from the largest company in the world to a startup with just one employee.

Advantages of the Business Model Canvas

The reason why you might want to create a Business Model Canvas is that they have the following advantages:

  • Easy to understand : Because the canvas on just a single page and is very visual it’s very easy to understand.
  • Focussed : It removes any fluff that might have been present in a traditional business model. It’s all killer no filler.
  • Flexible : It’s quick and easy to make changes to your model and sketch out different ideas.
  • Customer Focused : the canvas forces you to think about the value you’re providing to your customers, and only then what it takes to deliver that value.
  • Shows Connections : The single page graphical nature of the canvas shows how the different parts of the model interrelate to each other. This can be really difficult to ascertain from a traditional business plan.
  • Easy to Communicate : Because the canvas is so easy to understand you’ll be able to share and explain it easily with your team, making it easier to get them on board with your vision.

Using the Business Model Canvas

The first thing to notice is that there are nine elements or building blocks which make up the canvas:

Business Model 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:

  • Customer Segments : Who are your customers?
  • Value Proposition : Why do customers buy from you? What is the gain you provide or the need you satisfy?
  • Channels : How are your products and services delivered to the market?
  • Customer Relationships : How do you get, keep, and grow your customers?
  • Revenue Streams : How does your business earn money?
  • Key Resources : What unique strategic resources does your business have or need?
  • Key Activities : What unique strategic activities does your business perform to deliver your value proposition?
  • Key Partnerships : What non-key activities can you outsource to enable you to focus more on your key activities.
  • Cost Structures : What are the major costs incurred by your business?

Left/Right Split

Before we dig deeper into the detail of each of these elements, there’s just one thing to be aware of…

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

In this building block, you enter the different customer segments or that you will serve. If you can, create one or more persona for each segment you serve. A persona is simply a relatable description of each customer type you serve. They try to highlight your customers’ motivations, their problems and capture the “essence” of who they are.

One really important point to get across here is that customers don’t exist for you, but rather you exist to serve your customers.

Many businesses will serve just one customer segment, but not all. For example, Google serves two customer segments, people performing searches as well as advertisers.

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?”.

Some of the most common value propositions are:

  • High performance.
  • Ability to customize.
  • Brand/Status.
  • Cost reduction.
  • Risk reduction.
  • Convenience.

3. Channels

Channels refer to how your products or services are sold to customers. To complete this section ask yourself how do your customers want to be reached? How are you reaching them now?

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.

Partner channels could include a multitude of options, from using a wholesaler to working with affiliates to sell your products or even using Google Adsense.

4. Customer Relationships

The Customer Relationships building block answers the question of how you get, keep, and grow customers.

  • Get : How do customers find out about you and make their initial purchase? For example, this could be through advertising on Google.
  • Keep : How do you keep customers? For example, excellent customer service might help keep customers.
  • Grow : How do you get our customers to spend more? For example, you could send out a monthly newsletter to keep them informed about your latest products.

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?

Consider Google. Advertisers pay Google to place their ads in front of users with buying intent. For example, if you search for “Nike trainers” you will see ads. If you search for something without purchasing intent, such as “picture of flowers” you probably won’t see any ads.

In fact, you could say that Google operates searches without purchase intent as a loss leader to keep people using the Google system.

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.

In a nutshell, we’ve developed our understanding of everything that relates to our customers.

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.

So with that let’s move on to the first infrastructure building block, Key Resources.

6. Key Resources

This building block describes your most important strategic assets that are required to make your business model work.

Broadly speaking resources can fall into one of four categories:

  • Physical : such as buildings, vehicles, machines, and distribution networks.
  • Intellectual : such as brands, specialist knowledge, patents and copyrights, partnerships, and customer databases.
  • Human : sometimes your people will be your most key resource, this is particularly true in creative and knowledge-intensive industries.
  • Financial : such as lines of credit, cash balances etc.

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.

Key Activities can typically be broken down into three broad categories:

  • Production : refers to delivering your product. You will typically do this to either a high quality or a high quantity.
  • Problem Solving : Consultancies and other service organizations often have to come up with new solutions to individual customer problems.
  • Platform/Network : Networks, software platforms can function as a platform. For example, a key activity for Facebook is updating the platform.

When completing this section, it is a mistake to list all the activities of your business, instead only include activities which are absolutely core to delivering your value proposition.

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!

There are usually three reasons for creating a partnership:

  • Economies of scale.
  • Reduction of risk and uncertainty.
  • Acquisition of resources or activities (e.g. music for Spotify).

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.

It should be straightforward to determine your most important costs and your most expensive after you’ve defined your Key Resources, Key Activities, and Key Partnerships.

Business Model Canvas Examples

That’s the theory out of the way. However, the Business Model Canvas comes to life when you see it in action.

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.

In Google’s case, its customers are its search users and its advertisers. The platform is only of interest to advertisers because search users are also present. Conversely, search users would not be able to use the platform free of charge were it not for advertisers.

The Business Model Canvas for Google is shown below:

Business Model Canvas: Google

As you can see the diagram gives you an immediate understanding of the key parts of Google’s business model.

We can see that:

  • Google makes money from the advertiser customer segment, whose ads appear either in search results or on web pages.
  • This money subsidizes a free offering to the other two customer segments: search users and content owners.

Google’s business model has a network element to it. That is, the more ads it displays to web searchers the more advertisers it attracts. And the more advertisers it attracts the more content owners it attracts.

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.

Google’s key partners are obviously the content owners from whom a large part of its revenues is generated. OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) also form a key partner.

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

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to using color within your canvas. Some people prefer to use color to represent the links between elements, as we have done in this article. Others like to use different colored elements or sticky notes to represent related elements.

The choice is up to you. What is important is that any relationships between elements are easy to identify and easy to understand.

Example 2: Skype

In the diagram below you can see the Business Model Canvas for Skype.

Business Model Canvas: Skype

From the Business Model Canvas we can see that Skype has two key value propositions:

  • The ability to make calls over the Internet, including video calls, for free.
  • The ability to make calls to phones cheaply.

Skype operates a freemium business model, meaning the majority of Skype’s users (the Free Users customer segment) use the service for free to make calls over the internet, with just 10% of users signing up to the prepaid service.

We can see from the customer relationship building block that customers typically have a help themselves relationship with Skype. Typically this will be by using their support website.

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

The Business Model Canvas for Gillette is shown below:

Business Model Canvas: 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 Gillette’s case, an inexpensive razor handle forms the bait, and continued purchases of the blades represent the hook.

The business model is very popular in SaaS (Software as a Service) businesses, where typically a free initial month leads to a monthly subscription.

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

Through these three Business Model Canvas examples, you should be able to see just how easy it is to represent the complete business model of any company on just one single sheet of paper.

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:

  • Don’t go it alone: Don’t try to create your model singlehandedly. Instead get a small team of 3-5 people together so you can brainstorm ideas.
  • Use a whiteboard if you can.
  • Have plenty of different colored whiteboard pens and sticky notes handy.
  • Plan on the process taking about an hour to complete your first draft Business Model Canvas.
  • Decide which building block you’re going to fill in first. Usually, it makes sense to start with Customer Segments or Value Proposition and then work from there.

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

Minute Tools Content Team, Business Model Canvas Explained with Examples, Minute Tools, Oct, 2018 https://expertprogrammanagement.com/2018/10/business-model-canvas-explained/

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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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Key Activities in a Business Model Canvas

business model canvas key activities examples

Businesses are multi-faceted structures embracing a variety of levels. While driven by people at all levels, organizations are primarily what they do. In other words, each type of organization is dedicated to a certain type of activity.

Key Activities make a whole block in a Business Model Canvas describing the main processes, functions, and tasks a company should undertake to develop, stay competitive, and deliver its value proposition.

Normally, these are actions that are an absolute must for successful company operations and growth. So, let’s take a look at how those tasks vary across organizations and how to determine Key Activities for a specific Business Model Canvas to make it a success.

The Place of Key Activities in a Business Model Canvas

Identifying the key activities, problem-solving, platform/network building, sales and marketing.

This module is the seventh out of nine essential elements that make up a Business Model Canvas. Standing in between Key Resources and Key Partners, this module is on the execution side of the template and is a part of the value proposition implementation rather than value creation.

By identifying and prioritizing the most important tasks, organizations can better focus their resources and optimize their operations to achieve both big and small goals. The Key Activities block is crucial for understanding how a venture works and what makes it unique in its niche.

As such, this component is critical for any business model.

To be more specific, these are the prime tasks an organization should complete to match its value proposition, reach appropriate customer segments, establish long-lasting customer relationships, and generate revenue streams. As such, this module is among the core blocks many other Business Model components rely on.

The main aspect of this module is the value organizations add to the market via their operations. Value analysis and assessment allow for estimating how effective the key activities are as well as for a better understanding of what stands behind company failures and success.

Since the block is directly linked to a number of other modules, to identify your key activities, think about the answers to the following questions:

  • What are the key actions to create a product or service?
  • What are the channels to distribute that product or service?
  • What are the core activity types for building and maintaining customer relationships?
  • What jobs will ensure revenue streams?

Notably, the scale of the enterprise also matters in the choice of key activities. Thus, smaller companies and startup projects will have simple lists of actions and tasks.

And big organizations with complex structures embracing multiple processes and a number of affiliates will call for a higher degree of abstraction when determining their key tasks.

While the algorithm for defining key activities stays the same throughout the business cycle, it’s important to approach it from the right angle to work out the scheme that will align with the current development stage of your organization.

Key Activities Classification

A set of core activities that will work for each business model type is different and greatly dependent on the industry or niche a company operates in, as well as on its long-term development goals and overall entrepreneurial environment conditions.

Thus, organizations can change major jobs to respond to changing business tendencies, embrace emerging trends, catch up with new opportunities, and retain or increase the value they offer.

With a plethora of tasks and processes involved in different types of enterprises and organizations, the key activities can be broadly grouped into four major categories described below.

It’s by far the most comprehensive and complex category that covers product development, manufacturing, and delivery. Production is peculiar to manufacturers and companies that create and sell products. Good examples of production-based business models among global brands are Nestle, Tesla, Apple, and SpaceX.

The key activities typical for this category include:

  • Design and selection embrace choosing and designing both products and production processes, including technology, machinery, and systems to be used. At this stage, production capacities are also to be determined and planned to satisfy the expected demand to avoid inventory problems;
  • Planning is aimed at establishing a healthy and consistent production process covering pre-scheduled tasks and actions;
  • Control involves the management and monitoring of all production processes and stages to detect any deviations and correct them. Besides, it covers quality control to ensure a continuously high quality of products delivered. And regular inventory control is required to avoid product shortages or overstocking;
  • Delivery refers to product handling, shipping, transportation, and distribution to end users;
  • Customer feedback is critical for production-driven companies to introduce any product modifications or refinements to increase value and match customer needs to a tee.

Today, many organizations tend to outsource production jobs to optimize their costs and embrace multiple product types. In this case, outsourcing will be the key activity of the company.

This activity is characteristic of organizations that come up with exclusive solutions for certain problems, issues, situations, or challenges. Most often, these are companies providing different types of services. Hospitals, lawyers, financial and tax consultants, and beauty salons are good examples in this area.

Problem-solving business models rely on works that bring a competitive advantage. Besides, those tasks are usually backed by consistent learning and training. So, the key activities to fit this category are as follows:

  • Research to identify market demands and actual needs that will help companies deliver solutions that ignite interest and promise positive change;
  • Project management to coordinate and finetune connected processes. This will boost productivity and minimize problems that might impact the value of the services provided;
  • Expert advice to improve project planning, balance management efforts, prepare effective operational teams, and develop optimal risk control strategies. All of this is meant to prevent service disruptions;
  • Recruitment to find, connect with, and employ experienced professionals;
  • Customer service to communicate with clients to build relationships of trust.

Building platforms and networks are about creating a place for people to interact, communicate, transact, and make deals.

The key activities here will be built around platform maintenance and optimization to keep them serviceable, functional, and in line with the latest updates, upgrades, innovations, and trends, not to mention their matching the market demand and target audience needs.

The most vivid examples of platform-based business models are Google and Amazon.

The key activities that help create value in this segment embrace the following:

  • Cloud computing to enable off-site data management, easy remote work, and optimize the use of digital resources;
  • Financing to ensure organizational development and growth and directly impact the market trends;
  • Research and development to ensure access to up-to-date advancements and technology and make the platform or network match the current industry standards and customer interests;
  • Delivering fundamental expertise to get participants interested, set up communities, and add value;
  • Consistent platform management through client service and technical support;
  • Customer management to administer and control services and regulate customer relationships;
  • Quality control to make sure platform security and service quality match the standards applied.

It’s worth noting that this category is not limited to the above-mentioned works. There are many other key activities that fall under this category, given the number of network aspects. We’ve mentioned the most common ones.

This category is applicable to a certain extent to nearly any organization, be it a private or governmental structure, a profit or non-profit company. The key activities here are the following:

  • Recruiting to employ specialists capable of selling different products and services;
  • Promoting to reach and engage the target audience;
  • Customer search to determine and hunt for new customers;
  • Maintaining to foster and nurture the existing customer base;
  • Collaborating to establish the right connections via communication and further build beneficial relationships.

The Key Activities module is a core component of the Business Model Canvas crucial for the value proposition delivery, sustaining great customer relationships, properly aligning distribution channels, and generating revenue streams.

As such, the module is not something you can tailor in a set-and-forget manner. It requires consistent revision and adjustment to stay on top of business changes.

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Key Activities – Building Block in Business Model Canvas

Published: 26 December, 2023

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Stefan F.Dieffenbacher

Business Models

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Table of Contents

Key Activities “Value Chain” in the Business Model Canvas can sometimes be challenging to discuss important business concepts, even when you’re an expert like the folks we have at Digital Leadership. A lot of terms are thrown around without a lot of definition or description.

Key Activities is a term that’s often used interchangeably with core activities, and these ties directly into your business’s value chain and value propositions: in other words, how you bring value to your customers , address their Jobs to be Done and solve customer problems uniquely. They are the essential tasks needed to deliver value to customers.

Key Activities in Business Model Canvas

In “How to Create Innovation,” we discuss how the business model canvas can help you best understand your business model and the typical key activities that your business needs to perfect in order to succeed. Your key activities are the integral pieces of your business’s value chain and value propositions. They form a building block within several pieces of your Business Model Canvas, in particular your Operating Model Canvas.

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In this article, we discuss how key activities define your business model, how they assist in value creation, and how to separate key activities from non-core activities that may be distracting you from success.

Key Activities in Business Model Canvas

The original concept of core activities, supporting activities and Value Chain came from Michael E. Porter . In his groundbreaking book Competitive Advantage , Porter explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm. Competitive Advantage introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter’s concept of the Value Chain disaggregates a company into “activities,” or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage.

Digital Leadership’s Business Model Strategy service offers expert guidance and assistance to align Key Activities with the overall objectives and value proposition of the business. and the Marketing Strategy Consulting service optimizes Key Activities within a business, providing specialized expertise to align marketing activities with the broader business strategy, ensuring strategic coherence, and maximizing impact. The integration of our initial step, the Innovation Blueprint service , serves as a comprehensive starting point, offering a strategic vision for businesses to envision transformative initiatives, stay competitive, and adapt to the dynamic digital landscape.

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Unlock the full potential of your business with The Unite Extended Business Model Canvas – an innovative framework that goes beyond the traditional canvas to encompass the immediate business context. By integrating crucial elements such as Business Drivers, customers, and the team, along with the Unfair Advantage, this extended model provides a comprehensive and strategic approach to mapping your business. Download the model now to gain valuable insights, align your resources effectively, and discover a winning formula for sustained success in today’s competitive business environment . You can download it now.

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The concept of Value Chains as decision support tools was added to the competitive strategies paradigm developed by Porter as early as 1979. In Porter’s Value Chains, Inbound Logistics, Operations, Outbound Logistics, Marketing and Sales, and Service are categorized as primary activities. Secondary activities include Procurement, Human Resource Management, Technological Development, and Infrastructure. Business models take core and key activities into account and use them to support their revenue streams.

What are Key Activities & Why are They Important?

Most of your organization is made up of non-core activities : entire areas such as accounting, forecasting, marketing, and HR, are not even sector-specific and so generally do not add to the differentiation of your organization. In these areas, you can increase efficiency or decrease costs, but further investment in these areas is unlikely to add to your competitive advantage.

Your key activities are industry-specific and are areas where you possess relative strength. However, here you are competing head-to-head with other firms and are not superior to them.

When we are looking for strengths that support innovation, we need to be looking for assets and capabilities that are core or, ideally, differentiating, since these will support your competitive advantage. Key activities are your business’s reason to be, and differentiating how you do them will make you stand out in the crowd of competitors.

The distinction between core and non-core is critical, and yet most firms do not bother to make it. But it is precisely that distinction that allows you to understand where to cut cost and where to invest , where to focus on differentiation, and where to standardize , a key resource from something far less important.

Key Activities , as a building block of the Value Chain in the Business Model, hold significant importance in driving business success. They represent the core operational tasks and processes that a business must undertake to deliver value to its customers.

Key Activities for Some Real-Life Examples

  • Google: – Key Activities : Continuously improving the code base and analyzing data to enhance search results and optimize advertising performance.
  • IKEA: – Key Activities: Optimizing the logistics chain to stock all furniture items in stores as per market demands. Working on cost reduction for flat-packed, self-assembled furniture.
  • Dairy Farm: – Key Activities: Feeding and checking the health of cows, milking them, and storing milk for collection.
  • Nestle (Yogurt Product Line): – Key Activities: Collecting milk, processing it into yoghurt, packaging the yoghurt into containers, and distributing it through the supply chain.
  • SpaceX: – Key Activities: Designing and manufacturing larger rockets, developing advanced rocket control and telemetry systems, and offering orbital delivery services.
  • Tesla: – Key Activities: Manufacturing electric vehicles with innovative technology and developing sustainable energy solutions.
  • Apple: – Key Activities: Designing and developing cutting-edge consumer electronics, creating software ecosystems, and marketing premium products.

Which Key Activities are Critical to your Value Proposition?

Discovering your key activities begins with a thorough examination of your value proposition. Here are some essential questions to consider when identifying the most crucial actions in your business:

  • What are the primary actions required to design and develop your product or service effectively?
  • Which processes or tasks play the most significant role in ensuring the quality and uniqueness of your offering?
  • What key activities are involved in the distribution and delivery of your product or service to customers?
  • Are there specific logistics, transportation, or fulfilment activities that are critical for reaching your target market efficiently?
  • What activities are essential for providing personalized service and support to your customers?
  • How do you engage with customers to enhance their experience and foster loyalty?
  • What actions are indispensable for generating revenue and ensuring a steady income flow?
  • Which activities are crucial in building trust and credibility with customers to facilitate sales and repeat business?

In the Unite Value Proposition Canvas , the process of discovering key activities in your business begins with a thorough examination of your value proposition. By carefully evaluating the primary actions required to design, develop, and deliver your product or service effectively, you can ensure the quality and uniqueness of your offering.

The Unite Value Proposition Canvas help you gain a structured framework that helps prioritize tasks, streamline operations, and enhance customer satisfaction. And enable your business to thrive, delivering value to customers while driving revenue and growth in a competitive market landscape, You can download it now.

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There are a few different ways to identify and assess your strengths and the key activities necessary to your value proposition; here are three that have worked for us.

1- Brainstorm and interview

The simplest way is to brainstorm and build on the ideas you generate through a series of interviews with the senior business executives in your core organization. This approach will uncover some of your greatest strengths quickly. However, based on our experience, it will often not go far enough, since many firms are simply not used to reflecting on their assets and capabilities, and so asking people what they think their differentiating strengths are may not yield a full and accurate picture.

Additionally, market research will help you understand the needs of your various customer segments. You’ll better understand how your value propositions are helping customers complete their Jobs-to-be-Done.

2- Work with a Capability Map

If you want to take a more systematic approach, our best advice is to work with a Capability Map.

Capabilities are the processes, systems of knowledge, and specific skills that a firm possesses based on which it operates, earns revenue , and competes with other firms. Capability Maps summarize the capabilities of a firm visually. They can exist at different levels of an organization – from an abstract list of capabilities at the enterprise level, or a much more detailed visualization when focusing on the particular capabilities of organizational units or even something like the IT system.

The Unite Business Capability Map offers a systematic approach to understanding a firm’s processes, knowledge systems, and skills. It provides a comprehensive visual summary of capabilities, enabling clear communication, strategic planning, and efficiency improvements. By downloading the model, businesses can customize their Capability Maps, align resources, and drive sustainable growth. You can download it now.

Business Capability Map

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Capabilities are the processes, systems of knowledge, and specific skills that a firm possesses based on which it operates, earns revenue, and competes with other firms. Capability Maps summarize the capabilities of a firm visually. They can exist at different levels of an organization – from an abstract list of capabilities at the enterprise level, or a much more detailed visualization when focusing on the particular capabilities of organizational units or even something like the IT system.

3- Work with an Operating Model

A third alternative is to mine your Operating Model for strengths that distinguish you from your competitors. The concept of an Operating Model Canvas was originally developed by Andrew Campbell and his colleagues. We have developed an iteration of it that will consider additional aspects and that is more geared towards innovation.

One key ingredient we propose to overcome the Strategy-Execution challenge is to establish how you are going to execute using a well-defined and communicated Operating Model. The Operating Model Canvas expands upon the Value Chain, Key Resources , and Key Partners of your Business Model.

The Unite Operating Model Canvas will help your team achieve alignment with your strategy and with each other, thus bringing together all the different functions of your business. You can download it now.

Operating Model Canvas

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An interesting exercise is to assess from a third-party perspective what you are offering and how you are creating value today. How is your organization operating and does that hold more radical potential? Can your Value Chain be entirely rethought and reconfigured? Can you disintermediate the Value Chain, cut out entire production processes, or develop a new Value Proposition if you leave out some steps?

This means undertaking a clear and objective analysis of the situation and thinking through the Value Proposition and Value Chain, and the disruption potential in each step.

Assessing your assets and capabilities is critical. These will provide the boundaries for any future innovation and transformation initiative. If you do not leverage your unique assets and capabilities, you are likely to end up in competition with quite literally everybody – a fight that is hard to win. By leveraging your strengths, you can outline a unique Search Field and Opportunity Space for your innovations.

Key Activities Categories

Your key activities must be robust and diverse enough to provide consistent revenue streams to move your value propositions forward. Your key resources are the materials and contacts you’ll need in order to successfully complete those key activities.

Your entire Value Chain and all of your supporting processes must be able to effectively support your key activities. The chain always breaks at its weakest link. Therefore, think hard about what you need to do to get ready to scale effectively and focus on the most important and most difficult areas first.

1- Production

The processes behind actually making your product.

Production processes are a critically important key activity, and you should have clear quality and cost control over them, particularly if you are a production-driven business . Inventory control is an important element of production, as well. Make sure you’ve empowered production managers to

Many of your key resources will be devoted to production because the production process is so materials-heavy, but don’t neglect the relationships that may be key resources, too,

2- Problem-solving

All businesses, no matter their business model, must approach problem-solving as a key activity.

Problem-solving pathways are established so decision-making is as streamlined as possible. Proper problem-solving is an important element of maintaining customer relationships. Entire business models are devoted to the customer relationship that grows as a result of completing the problems of a customer’s Jobs to be Done.

3- Platform/ Network

Modern companies must ensure that their digital footprint is robust and persistent, and if your business is the technology you’re using, then ensuring that it’s operating is clearly an important key activity.

Your platform management and network-related key activities are too important to ignore; make sure they receive the attention and investment they deserve. Knowledge management is likely extremely important for businesses that exist completely online.

Common Key Activities

It can be easier to understand the concept of key activities with some examples.

Obviously, your specific key activities will depend on your business and value proposition.

1- Research & Development

Your research and development department should be laser-focused on innovation. That can only happen when you’re not wasting resources on non-key activities. Those resources should be devoted to new customer segments and business development.

In addition to new products, resources should be devoted to developing new distribution channels .

2- Production

Production planning is an important key activity and an important site of cost and quality control. The right QC management results in continuous learning and improvement of the production process. The right inventory management system will make sure you can meet the expected demand.

3- Marketing

The business model canvas includes room for marketing because seeking out new customers is a key activity within nearly every business model.

4- Sales, Customer Services, & Customer Relationships

Your sales support and sales team are important elements of your business model and should be treated as one of your key activities. The focus should always be on key or prospective customers, the so-called “hero” customers that can make or break your revenue streams.

Because it’s so important to maintain customer relationships and the customer experience, customer interactions appear as key activities in multiple areas of the business model canvas.

Key Points About Identifying Key Activities in Your Business Model:

  • Capability Map Approach : Use a Capability Map for a systematic analysis of critical processes, knowledge systems, and skills that drive your business’s operations, revenue generation, and competitiveness.
  • Production-Based Businesses : For manufacturing or production-focused companies, key activities involve sourcing raw materials, transforming them, and efficient distribution.
  • Problem-Solving Businesses : Knowledge-intensive businesses prioritize activities like client consultations and case law reviews, leveraging innovative processes for a competitive advantage.
  • Platform-Centric Businesses : Companies providing platforms or networks focus on building and continuously optimizing their offerings to serve multiple customer segments effectively.
  • Startup Prioritization : Startups should prioritize a few key activities to excel in critical areas, establish competitive advantages, and optimize resource allocation.
  • Importance of Focus : A limited number of key activities demonstrate clarity in thinking and prioritization, allowing businesses to excel and defend against potential threats.
  • Explore Practical Case Studies : For in-depth insights into successful key activity prioritization, visit relevant websites analyzing how diverse businesses manage core activities for sustainable growth and market leadership.

Key Activities: Questions for Reflection

As we wrap up this discussion of key activities, we’d like to suggest some questions for you and your team to consider. Not only will your answers reveal how successfully you’re following through on the key activities of your business model, but not having answers will tell you a lot, as well.

  • What are our value chains and key processes?
  • What are our key value-creating activities?
  • Do we have several key value chains?

Connecting The Dots: The UNITE Business Model Framework

The key activities play a crucial role in each element of The UNITE Business Model Framework , and they are the specific actions required to bring the business model to life.

How to Create Innovation  includes a number of canvases that focus on value creation and finding the right business model to meet your   customer segment and customer needs.  The framework is built to inspire drastic changes that help you  find a competitive advantage.  Our hope is that your company grows through business model innovation, and so we again encourage you to look deeper into our website and the book.

Here is a summary of the key ingredients of the framework:

The UNITE Business Model Framework

Download the complete Business Model Framework package, including instructions for putting it to work for you today.

The centrepiece is the  Business Model Canvas,  which covers the  six main areas of a Business Model  (the Operating, Value, Service, Experience, Cost, and Revenue Models).

The  eXtended Business Model Canvas   adds the immediate business context, including Business Drivers, customers, and the team, as well as the  Unfair Advantage.

Detailed Models

A Business Model can be broken out into numerous aspects. Depending on what challenges you face, you can zoom in on your area of interest using an appropriate tool or canvas:

  • Your  Business Intention and objectives  as well as your  Massive Transformative Purpose  summarize your drivers and give direction to what you do.
  • The  Value Proposition Canvas   details the central components of your offering (the product or service).
  • To dig into your Customer Segments, work with  data-driven Personas .
  • The  JTBD  Customer Job Statement and Job Map  frame the JTBD of your customers.
  • The  Business Model Environment  puts your Business Model in a market context composed of emerging trends and disruptive forces.
  • The   Innovation Culture Canvas  helps you understand and consciously shape a culture that supports innovation.
  • The Innovation team structure enables you to draft a team structure for your innovation initiative.
  • Using learning and growth metrics, you can measure progress at the initial stages of development. These metrics help you focus on what really matters instead of creating a detailed business plan that will not really help you. Later on, you can expand the financial aspect of the Revenue and Cost Models with a full  business case .
  • The  Operating Model Canvas   helps you think through the Operating Model.

Optimizing Key Activities is crucial for enhancing a business’s efficiency, effectiveness, and overall performance. By identifying areas of improvement within the value chain, businesses can streamline processes, reduce costs, and deliver better value to customers. Optimization may involve adopting new technologies, refining workflows, investing in employee training, and leveraging data analytics to make informed decisions. By continuously optimizing Key Activities, businesses can stay competitive, drive innovation, and achieve long-term success.

Frequently Asked Questions

1- how do you identify key activities.

Optimizing key activities in a business is crucial for improving search engine visibility and attracting more potential customers. By identifying and focusing on the core operational tasks and processes that contribute to the value proposition, businesses can enhance their competitive advantage and better align with the needs of their target audience. Implementing effective SEO strategies and content marketing efforts around these key activities can lead to higher rankings on search engine results pages, increased organic traffic, and improved online visibility, ultimately driving business success and growth.

2- What is an example of a key activity in business?

In the realm of business, one prime example of a key activity is “Research & Development” (R&D). For companies aiming to drive innovation, R&D holds immense significance as it becomes the driving force behind new product or service development, the enhancement of existing offerings, and the ultimate differentiation from competitors. Within this process, the generation of ideas, conducting experiments, and constant refinement all directly contribute to delivering unmatched value to customers, making R&D an indispensable element of business success.

3- What are 3 examples of business activities?

Three examples of essential business activities are as follows:

Sales: This involves the process of effectively selling products or services to customers, generating revenue for the company.

Marketing : This encompasses a range of activities aimed at promoting and advertising products or services to attract and engage potential customers.

Accounting : This critical function involves managing financial transactions, maintaining accurate bookkeeping records, and preparing financial statements to ensure the company’s financial health and compliance.

4- What are the 6 basic business activities?

a. Sales and Marketing b. Research and Development c. Production or Service Delivery d. Procurement e. Human Resources f. Finance and Accounting

5- What are the 5 management activities?

In the realm of management, there are five fundamental activities: a. Planning : involves establishing objectives and devising the optimal strategy to attain them. b. Organizing : The allocation of resources and structuring of tasks to effectively reach organizational goals. c. Staffing : The process of recruiting, selecting, and training employees to occupy essential positions within the organization. d. Directing : Providing guidance and leadership to employees, ensuring efficient task execution and goal achievement. e. Controlling : Monitoring performance and taking corrective measures to ensure successful goal attainment.

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IMAGES

  1. Business Model Canvas

    business model canvas key activities examples

  2. Business Model Canvas: A 9-Step Guide to Analzye Any Business

    business model canvas key activities examples

  3. The Business Model Canvas Explained: Key Activities

    business model canvas key activities examples

  4. Business Model Canvas Template

    business model canvas key activities examples

  5. Examples Of Key Activities In Business Model Canvas

    business model canvas key activities examples

  6. How To Use The Business Model Canvas

    business model canvas key activities examples

VIDEO

  1. How Can I Use the Business Model Canvas for Startup Success?

  2. Business Model Canvas ( Key Activities & Customer Segment ) By Group 2 from class DEP4A S2

  3. BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

  4. Writing a Business Plan (Lesson 10): Business Model Canvas Overview

  5. Mr. Pradeep. R

  6. Business Model Canvas video

COMMENTS

  1. Key Activities

    Research and Development Production Marketing Sales and Customer Service Categories of Key Activities Production: covers all actions related to product development, manufacturing, and delivery. It usually involves significant quantities of a product. This is the preponderant activity in the Business Models focused on manufacturing.

  2. 60 Examples of Key Activities

    This is often documented as part of strategic planning exercises such as a business model canvas. The following are illustrative examples. Marketing Adding value by marketing products and services. For example, promoting a product to generate demand. Sales Selling a product.

  3. Business Model Canvas: Explained with Examples

    Updated on: 12 December 2022 | 15 min read Exploring Business Model Canvas? Create one using a template Learn how to create a business model Key building blocks of 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?

  4. Business Model Canvas: The Definitive Guide and Examples

    1. Customer Segment 2. Value Proposition 3. Distribution Channels 4. Customer Relationship 5. Revenue Streams 6. Key Resources 7. Key Activities 8. Key Partners 9. Cost Structure Applications and Analysis What to Do After? Some Tips for Beginners Software for Business Model Canvas What Are the Benefits of the BMC?

  5. Key Activities Block in Business Model Canvas

    Some typical key activities that are commonly practiced by most organizations are listed below; Research & Development The research and development department is required to liaise with all other functions of the company whether it be production, marketing or sales. The typical functions of a research department are mentioned below;

  6. Key Activities of the Business Model Canvas

    Excel workbook and supporting ZIP —————————————- Key Activity Type: Production Production is a primary activity in organizations that build and sell products. Manufacturing businesses are a prime example. However, most organizations produce something, even if not a primary activity.

  7. Key Activities in the Business Model Canvas

    February 10, 2018 By Denis Oakley Key Activities in the Business Model Canvas Key activities are important things your business needs to do to run. It's even more specific than that. Key activities are the key things that you need to do in order to deliver your value propositions to customers .

  8. What Are the Key Activities in a Business Model Canvas?

    A business model canvas is a documentation and implementation tool that business managers can use to plan and execute business models. They're useful for identifying the core components of a business, like revenue streams, customer relationships, key partners, and key activities. Lacking the detail of a formal business plan, business model ...

  9. The Business Model Canvas Explained, with Examples

    Example 2: Skype. In the diagram below you can see the Business Model Canvas for Skype. From the Business Model Canvas we can see that Skype has two key value propositions: The ability to make calls over the Internet, including video calls, for free. The ability to make calls to phones cheaply.

  10. Key Activities in a Business Model Canvas

    Production It's by far the most comprehensive and complex category that covers product development, manufacturing, and delivery. Production is peculiar to manufacturers and companies that create and sell products. Good examples of production-based business models among global brands are Nestle, Tesla, Apple, and SpaceX.

  11. Business Model Canvas: Definition, Benefits, and Examples

    Key activities (the steps the team must complete to make it successful) Key resources (what personnel, tools, and budget the team will have access to) ... Another Hypothetical Example of the Business Model Canvas: Channels. Or think about the Channels bucket in the business model canvas. If your team was building out a canvas, maybe you'd ...

  12. Business Model Canvas: A 9-Step Guide to Analzye Any Business

    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.

  13. Business Model Canvas Explained: Examples And Structure

    Business canvas, also known as a lean business plan, is a time-saving approach to business planning, opposed to traditional planning methods. Rather than describing the detailed vision, mission, operations, it answers key questions - and the team derives the conclusion from this answer. Business model canvas is more attainable than a business ...

  14. 10 Best Business Model Canvas Examples For Your Inspiration

    5.0 Avada Email Marketing 4.9 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.

  15. Key Activities

    The right inventory management system will make sure you can meet the expected demand. The business model canvas includes room for marketing because seeking out new customers is a key activity within nearly every business model. 4- Sales, Customer Services, & Customer Relationships.

  16. Business Model Canvas: Key Activities In-Depth

    September 18, 2019 Business Model Canvas: Key Activities In-Depth When carving out a path to business success, one must not overlook the pivotal role that strategic operations play in this journey. In the BMC, this is illustrated through the Key Activities block.

  17. Key activities business model example canvas definition

    Key activities business model example canvas definition Understand the key activities in the canvas model July 24, 2017 Pierre Veyrat Business Management The canvas model has become a well-established methodology for the agile and assertive creation of business models.

  18. What Is a Business Model Canvas? (With Sections and Example)

    A business model canvas is a tool businesses use to plan their business strategy and goals. Understanding how to use it can help you get a clearer view of your company's operations. In this article, we define a business model canvas, explain why it's important, list its key components and provide an example to help you prepare your own.

  19. Business model canvas explained

    Key activities in business model canvas. The main activities determine the company's real priorities, since this is what the business does every day and what the department managers focus on. ... Business model canvas examples. Let's take the model of the new generation popular streaming service Netflix as one of the examples of using the ...

  20. Business Model Canvas

    Critiquing the Biz Model Canvas (Key Activities section) Now that we have covered the Key Activities section of the Business Model Canvas (BMC), it's also time to discuss honestly some shortcomings of the BMC relating to this aspect. Production, Problem Solving, Platform/Network: these are the only types of Key Activities listed in the BMC ...

  21. Key activities and resources

    For example the Philadelphia Business Journal closely follows developments and includes lists of top brokers. Financial Capital-Once credit cards have been maxed out or friends and family loans are exhausted, looking for a small business loan or venture capital and eventually an IPO may be next steps.

  22. Create a Business Model Canvas Online

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