Social entrepreneurship

Step 2: The Business Model Canvas - 9 building blocks

The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a tool to create a new business or improve an existing organisation. The Business Model Canvas is developed by Alexander Osterwalder, a famous Swiss business scientist, author and strategy consultant.

In this toolkit we use the fictional example of a CBO in Nigeria (Abudja region) that offers empowerment training for young women that are unemployed. The training focuses on discovering creative talents and increase self-confidence. During the empowerment training, the women design and make their own products like clothing, bags and jewelry. The products are being sold in the shop of the CBO. The financial revenue of selling the products partly goes back to further develop the project. The other part goes to the women that make the products.

First: download the BMC and the filled in BMC with example format below.
You can fill in a BMC format for every idea you have. You can put it on the wall and use post-it’s to fill it in, and adjust with every step of your research.

The BMC exists of 4 main components: 
1) your clients
2) your offer
3) the infrastructure of your business
4) the financial viability of your business

Those four components are divided by the following nine building blocks:

• Customer segment: what groups in society are we serving? What are our main customers and beneficiaries;
• Customer relations: What sort of relation do we want with our customer: personal or formal. Do we see them as participants, co-creators, advisors, paying customers etc.
• Channels: Through what channels do we reach our customer segments: online, via network, via partner organizations etc. 

• Value proposition: what is the problem you are solving with your product or service (the added value) and how does it differ from other offers? 

• Main activities: those are the activities you need to do, to be able to deliver your product or service.
• Key resources: This could be both material things (computers, an office, training material etc.) or man hours.
• Strategic partners: these are the partners you need to be able to deliver your service or product. 

• Income: who is willing to pay for your product or service? What are the sources of income for each customer segment? Do you have other, related products or services that you can sell?
• Costs: what are your main costs to be able to deliver your service? This is your budget.

Below you can download the format for the Business Model Canvas. In the next steps we will do further research on some of the components of the BMC. At the end of the toolkit you are able to fill in every building block.

Business Model Canvas

BMC Nigeria example