The document outlines the Business Model Canvas created by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, emphasizing its role in understanding and maximizing business opportunities through nine key building blocks. It employs a theatrical analogy to illustrate the dynamics of a business, with various stakeholders described as actors in a production, highlighting the importance of relationships, resources, and value propositions. Additionally, it discusses strategies for innovation, competitive advantage, and the iterative nature of business model generation.

1. Business
Model
Canvas
Curtesy of Alex Osterwalder
and Yves Pigneur
Understanding your
business and maximising
your opportunity
The application of systems
thinking for business start-
ups and early-stage growth
James Cracknell
Consultant
Relocon-East
jcracknell@Relocon-east.co.uk
Populating The Canvas with Ideas

2. What is the
Canvas?
Nine building blocks that
do much more than
describe your business.
They tell the story of who
you are, how you talk
about yourself, how you
create value now and
how you can in the
future.
Unlocking your future
growth with the
Business Model Canvas
and Relocon-East

4. Think of your business as a
theatrical production
Front of House -
everything that is
customer facing
Backstage – the means by
which we create an
amazing experience for
our customers

5. All your stakeholders can be
mapped to roles
Actors – You as the manager and your team
Front of House – all that will make the experience remarkable and memorable.
Back of House – the resources that you need to put on the best show possible and deliver your
mission
The play – your value proposition, the culmination of rehearsals, dress rehearsal and final
performance
The Props – those resources you need to make it all happen
The audience – stakeholders including customers, investors, partners and your community
The playwright – You as a leader, a designer of the future – the one who can inspire the actors to
see the whole. You define the culture and develop the characters, their parts and their involvement
The Reviews - multi-perspective analysis of the value that the whole experience has given based on
feedback directly from the audience
The critic – the consultant who helps you frame the above; identifies potential weakness, helps
you see the threats but opens your mind to opportunity which play directly to your strengths. An
independent force for positive change and creative thinking

6. See your
business
within the
Canvas

7. Now place
the theatre
on top of the
Canvas
Maximise the impact of
everyone’s participation
as you bring your business
to life

8. An Introduction to the
Nine Building Blocks

9. Customer
Segments
Build a strong Value
Proposition to service your
chosen profitable client.
• Define your distinct offer
• Build a persona
• Target the most profitable
• Create differentiation
• Match pricing abilities to
value offered

10. Value Proposition
What is the ‘bundle of
products and services’ you
can offer to your chosen
client segment?
• Create clear differences
• Solve for pains and gains
• Maximise customer value
whilst raising pricing
points
• Analyse the most effective
way of creating new
markets

11. Channels
The organisations interface
with its customer segment
to deliver the value
proposition.
• Go through the five
phases
• Raising awareness
• Delivering the product or
service to the customer
• Dealing with post sales
care

12. Customer
Relationships
Ranging from personal to
automated, the relationships
we have with our customers
sets the tone for acquisition,
retention and value
enhancement.
• Identify the relationship
that matches the segment
needs
• Leverage existing
relationships to bolster
sales
• Extend the relationship
from transactional to a
‘lifetime’

13. Revenue Streams
The arteries of the business
model, revenue needs to
flow freely to allow the heart
of the business model to
thrive.
• Create recurring revenues
• Upsell and cross sell to
create an eco-system
• Manage the pricing
mechanisms that best
suits the value
proposition

14. Key Resources
What we own and what we
have that drives our activities
and makes the model work.
Four resource types
• Physical – tangible assets
we own or rent.
• Intellectual – brands, know-
how, patents and copyrights
and licenses
• Human – your team, and
those people upon whom
you depend
• Financial – the means by
which you fund the
activities. Also a way to
secure captivity in certain
market segments

15. Key Activities
What must you do to make it
all work? Your resources
provide the means for
activities to be delivered.
• Production process – from
design to creation
• Problem solving –
knowledge management
and continuous
development
• Platform – networks and e-
commerce sites. Matching
services and information
dissemination

16. Key Partnerships
Suppliers you need, partners
you have all working to make
things happen
• Strategic alliances – non-
competitors helps achieve
economies of scale
• Cooperation – collaboration
is the new competition,
share the risks
• Joint ventures – projects to
secure resources
• Buyer-supplier love ins –
protect the supply chain
making it sustainable

17. Cost Structure
Each business model has its own
cost base dependent upon the
business model. These costs fall
on the continuum between cost-
driven and value-driven
structures. Getting the right cost
base is essential to the success
of the model.
• Minimize costs and maximise
margins in cost driven model
• Build costs directly to support
the value-driven business
• Understand cost drivers to
your business

18. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
West End Production with
Broadway aspirations?
• Place yourself in your
desired future and ask the
question ‘How did I get
here?”
• Each part of the canvas is a
loaded time capsule of
information exploring future
relationships desired and
required
• Our role – to facilitate this
thinking. To challenge you
to look at the business as it
will be.

19. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
Putting you in the
Director’s chair
• Using each element to
discuss the way the existing
business operates
• What you have done so far
and what you want to
continue to do
• Our role – to ask the right
questions, listen and guide
the thinking

20. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
Making every player
perform to their best
• Using Porter’s model to
identify value in the
transformation process
between inputs and
outputs
• Our role – to challenge
the current way of
delivering the outputs.
Using the Canvas to
map the relationships.

21. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
Not just another Hamlet but
a production that stands out
from the crowd
• Map your competitors model
onto the canvas.
• Use positioning maps based
on the nine building blocks
• Identify clear areas of
competitive advantage
• Our role – the critics eye as
we widen the aperture and
focus on differentiation

22. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
Innovation – from
audience participation
to new lighting, bringing
in the new to enhance
the experience
• See each element of the
system as a part of the
whole
• To make incremental
improvements that are
focused on the end game
• Our role – to shape the
approach and lead the
creative charge

23. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
Rehearsals are not
enough – audience
feedback is essential
• Set out to create a Minimum
Viable Product (MVP) using
the canvas
• Check for its desirability,
feasibility and viability
through each element – using
the canvas to find the ‘sweet
spot’
• Our role – to identify how to
build them, test them and
measure them

24. How we use
the Canvas
as theatre
Business Model
Generation – making
the production shine
• Every business needs to be
maximizing its offer - the
canvas opens up and
identifies synergies and
leverage points
• Create multi-sided business
models that bring in new
revenue streams
• Identify cost structures that
do not fit and those that do
• Our role - To help you re-
envision a new world of
possibilities

25. For Hands-on and dynamic
business model generation
Contact
James Cracknell BA (Hons)
linkedin.com/in/cracknelljames121
SFEDI Accredited Business Adviser
Qualified Business Model Canvas Practioner
Call 07854 430623
Or
jcracknell@Relocon-east.co.uk