Classroom Companion: Business

19.2 · The Business Model Canvas

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6. Identify the set of key activities that are required to create and support one or 
several value propositions.
7. Identify the key resources required for these activities and for other purposes.
8. Determine the costs associated with key activities and key resources and the 
overall cost structure of the organization.
9. Identify strategic relationships with one or several key partners to support or 
contribute to the value proposition, key activities, and key resources.
The BMC is used to model high-level abstractions of an organization’s business 
operations. For two different organizations doing business in the same business 
domain, there might be small differences in the resulting BMC. However, even a 
small difference in the BMC of two organizations—for example, if one of them is 
using the core competencies in a smarter way—may render the business operations 
of the two organizations radically different. If the BMCs of the two organizations 
are identical, there is a motive for the organizations to reconsider the BMC to cre-
ate significant differences in their business operations to distinguish it from that of 
the competitors.
To gain a strategic advantage, it is often enough to focus on one specific build-
ing block in the BMC. It is seldom necessary to redesign the business model com-
pletely to differentiate itself from the competitors. This may be a critical issue if the 
value proposition offered by a company is a commodity. In that case, price may be 
the only parameter that distinguishes the competitors.
Successful business models may change over time—what turned out to be a suc-
cessful business model 5 years ago may not be a successful business model today. 
The reasons may be technological development, altered competition arena, new 
user demands, and different market behavior. Technological developments may 
render a business model obsolete.