Business Model Canvas Re-imagined
By: Manish Adlakha
Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Startup, Impact, Business

Since the advent of Industrial age, people across the world have tried to find out the best ways to initiate businesses. While there is no one way of assured success, using models which have proved successful in the past does give confidence to an aspiring entrepreneur.

‘Business Model Canvas’, initially proposed by Alexander Osterwalder in 2008 has become one of the most used methods for developing new business models.

While it gives clarity to an entrepreneur about most of the building blocks of a successful business like ‘Infrastructure’, ‘Offerings’, ‘Customers’ & ‘Finances’, the current state of our world raises serious questions about the long-term impact & efficacy of our businesses and therefore exposes a gap in how we intend, plan and execute our businesses.

We are running fast towards a point of no return with respect to climate change, our industries & products are creating havoc on Earth, our businesses contribute heavily to social & economic disparity which in turn cause social problems with huge costs and the only measure of success is dominant market share (by subverting vendors. clients & competitors by hook or by crook).

Basis my experience in handling large businesses from a Revenue perspective, running my own small enterprise and now handling entrepreneurship & enterprises in an alternative education setup, I feel we can do much more while planning & executing a new business so that we are able to create businesses which are more in harmony with nature, with society & with each other.

The basics of Business Model Canvas are available on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas

One major component which should be added in the original model is ‘Impact’. To make sure we have a harmonious business model, it is important to study the impact of our business & inculcate changes to create a business model which can help reduce any negative impact & maximize the positive impacts of our model.

Business Model Canvas Re-imagined

While the 9 core building blocks are explained in detail on the wiki link above, I would like to touch in more details on the new block which is ‘Impact’.

Impact

Social Impact

· How are you engaging with the community

· How is the business impacting the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’

· Identify Social gaps & add activities to your business which counter those gaps

· The Cost Structure of the business should have provisions for social costs

2. Ecosystem Impact

· Knowledge sharing with Industry peers

· Help allied businesses develop & grow through partnerships

· The Revenue streams should have symbiotic client-vendor relationships of mutual benefits

3. Ecological Impact

· Use resources frugally

· Map out the environmental impact of usage of each resource

· Do value-stream mapping of the business to minimize ‘non-value adding’ activities & resources

· Do an impact-analysis of all your end-products & business wastes on Ecology & Climate and work proactively to minimize the impact

While this can be a starting point and we may need to add more aspects of ‘Impact’ as per different industries & businesses, this building block initiates a discussion in the board rooms & startup spaces about the need to study the impact of all our activities & reach a middle point on optimizing both profits, value & impact.

The first step to change is awareness and this step, if done diligently, will open the dialogue about the impact and make the entrepreneurs and leadership be cognizant of what impact (positive or negative) the business will create.