What a beautiful book!

First of all, I would like to say this is a beautiful book with a colorful, nice layout. The size of the book and the text & blank space on the page is completely different from other business books, and it seems that the presentation essence is introduced in this book. Once again, the design is beautiful.

In addition to the beautiful outlook and content, I think this is the best book to learn about business models. I strongly recommend this book for all business people and students who don’t know how to analyze the business model and how to generate the business model.

9 Building blooks

There are 9 building blocks are used for the business model canvas and they are useful parameters when we think about a new business model or rethink an existing business model.

1. CS: Customer Segments
2. VP: Value Propositions
3. CH: Channels
4. CR: Customer Relationships
5. R$: Revenue Streams
6. KR: Key Resources
7. KA: Key Activities
8. KP: Key Partnerships
9. C$: Cost Structure

How about your company?

When I did fill out the business model canvas with the 9 building blocks about my company, I found something new. So I encourage you to do this activity and hope you will find something useful too.

5 Business model patterns

And we can learn patterns to build new business models. There are 5 patterns of business model.

1. Unbundling business model

Mobile Telecom Industry has 3 key assets as Infrastructure Management, Product Innovation, and Customer Relationship. Each asset can be unbundled as a company, for example, Infrastructure management is done by Equipment Manufacturers like Nokia Siemens Networks or Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson. So the company that wants to focus on customer relationship and building their own brand can outsource infrastructure management.

2. The long Tail

LEGO allows customers to make their own designs and also sell their designs online. With this customer participation as designers for small demand, LEGO can get revenue from a small but large number of customers using customer own design.

3. Multisided Platforms

Google makes money from advertisers for target ADs while offering free service for web surfers and content owners. It’s called multisided platforms.

As another example, gaming platforms such as Sony Playstation, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Switch sell the game consoles for gamers and get royalties from game developers. Historically even if they lost money through the game consoles they focus on delivering as many consoles as possible to get more population to get more royalties. 

4. Free as a business model

Many smartphone app. offer basic functions for free and charge for premium services. This is called the Freemium model.

Also, Skype offers free internet video calling and provides pre-paid or subscription service with charge. 90% usage is free and only 10% usage is charged. 

5. Open business models

The outside-In pattern is to buy innovation from external organizations instead of internal R&D.

On the contrary, the inside-Out pattern is to sell our innovation such as IPs or patents to external organizations.

Use 5 patterns to your company

It is a good exercise to try using the above 5 patterns in your company. If It works, you get it.

Design future scenarios

I like this method to draw future scenarios with 2 criteria. In the case of Pharma business models of the future, one axis is personalized and the other axis is the shift from treatment toward prevention.

And more

These are not all. We can learn about 5 techniques to design a business model and 4 strategies and questionnaires that can be used for the traditional SWOT analysis and more.

Through learning the essence of business model generation, I believe that we can make a business plan by following the guidelines in this book. And it’s a good idea to scan our business environment and review it regularly to see if we have the opportunity to generate a new business model.

Thank you for reading this post. 

Please check other Strategyzer business toolkits and also the author’s website