The Business Model Canvas

Perfect for Scale-up and established businesses

 

The business model canvas is an excellent medium to help you summarise a business model in a straightforward, structured way. Using this canvas will lead to insights about the customers you serve, what value propositions are offered through what channels, and how your organisation makes money. The canvas is very flexible, allowing you to model your own business or even a competitor. Alexander Osterwalder of Strategyzer created the Business Model Canvas.

How to use the canvas

The business model canvas is a shared language for specifying, envisioning, evaluating and developing business models. It describes the reason how a business creates, delivers and captures value.

Customer segments

  •  List the top three segments. Look for the segments that provide the most revenue.

 Value proposition

  •  What are your products and services? What is the job you get done for your customer?

Revenue streams

  •  List your top three revenue streams. If you do things for free, add them here too.

 Channels

  •  How do you communicate with your customer? How do you deliver the value proposition?

 Customer relationships

  •  How does this show up and how do you maintain the relationship?

 Key activities

  •  What do you do every day to run your business model?

 Key resources

  •  The people, knowledge, means, and money you need to run your business.

 Key partners

  •  List the partners that you can’t do business without (not suppliers).

 Cost structure

  •  List your top costs by looking at activities and resources.

 

The Outcome

You will have a visual map of your business model, allowing deeper discussions about your business model to gain a shared understanding. This will allow you to start to develop new innovative business models.

If you have an accountant, they should be your first stop for business advice. If you don’t have an accountant or they can’t help, BuBul has a wide range of experts available. For more advice, contact our expert* Andrew on LinkedIn.

*We’ve picked experts we know and trust who are good at what they do. All of them will give you at least an extra 30 minutes free advice if you contact them and would then charge their normal prices. They don’t pay to be on BuBul and don’t give us any money from anything they earn as an expert.

Andrew Constable Business Planning expert Andrew has over 20 years of experience in product management in global organisations, managing complex relationships strategically and driving business change. He is great at helping you plan that new venture or how to scale up your business.