A visual approach to cut a long (business) story short and know what needs to be done today, to shap
- Caecilie Olive Hechtel
- 6 nov 2015
- Tempo di lettura: 4 min
It's a Wednesday's late morning and I have just boarded a direct flight from Milan to Shanghai. Almost 11 hours offline, alone with a pen and a blank notebook as travel companions. First I start with a mind map type of exercise to put some order into the many businesses started in the last 18 months. The good news is, we are still up and running, and paying our bills. The bad news is, I know there is still a long way to go, and I know it's up to me to make us better. The mind map type of exercise turns out to be insufficient to reflect more complex relations and to provide insights into what can be the best next step of a longer business journey.
The mind map type of exercise turns out to be insufficient to reflect more complex relations and to provide insights into what can be the best next step of a longer business journey.
I then remember my husband recommending a book called Business Model Generation. In fact, he's been recommending this reading since over two years meanwhile. I am now ready to give it a try and start reading it. In a few hours, I'm through and my only thought is: "How lucky am I to have come across this book, right now".
How lucky am I to have come across this book, right now.
The business model canvas perfectly summarizes and visualizes an otherwise extra long business plan making process. It also provides a great tool to have better discussions with partners, peers, and colleagues from different industries and nationalities.
With the help of two other tools - the blue ocean strategy canvas and the customer empathy map - you can visualize even the most complex business into one same powerful picture.
Use the customer empathy map to get started with describing who are your customers to complete the right side of the business model canvas. When doing this exercise, I invite my customers to play to be a "criminal profiler". I ask them to identify 3 to 5 typical customers (in marketing they are called personae) and to describe their personality, motives, and behaviors like as if they were suspect killers. The empathy map can help directing and organizing the outcome. In the end, you will recognize customer segments.
There is, by the same authors, a book dedicated to generating a meaningful Value Proposition. It's on my reading list. Until then, I address the Value Proposition box by applying the blue ocean strategy canvas. I have done this many times before with groups of senior managers and find it a very effective modeling tool, still.
For the benefit of those of you, who did not read the book Blue Ocean Strategy, I will try to summarize it in a few points, but please take the time to read it, it's really worth your while.
Blue ocean strategy canvas is about identifying underlying unexpressed needs that customers of a specific industry (yours) have, and that players of this same industry have not yet satisfied. The reasons players do not satisfy theses needs vary from player to player. Some have not seen them yet, others may encounter too big a conflict of interest with existing operations, and others may simply not have the capacity and the ability.
Start with listing the competing factors (e.g. price, speed, responsiveness, expertise, technology, etc.) that define your industry. You can list as many as you want. If your group is big, you may group them later. Depending on the complexity of your company, you may feel comfortable with 5, 10 or 50.
Place the factors of point 1 on the horizontal ax of the graph. The vertical ax will show a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest customer value and 1 the lowest.
For each competing factor, you will rate the performance of three different players: the industry average, yourself today, the ideal future company (representing your company after the transformation).
The factors where the distance between the three points is biggest, are the factors you may want to focus on. As a result, you will be able to define a list of activities to be reduced, eliminated, improved and created. I call this the "business transformation delta".
This is how I combine these tools and models together to help business owners to design and transform their business.
About the author: 41 years old, a business traveler for over 20 years, I have had the opportunity to contribute to major business transformations from a very young age. Coordinating the introduction of ISO9001 in 1994, managing business process re-engineering SAP projects in 1998, launching mobile and online printing services in 2004, creating innovative and high-value energy saving optimization services in 2010, and finally leaving the corporate career to embrace the 3.0 digital age in partnership with my youngest sister in 2013. From 2004 until 2013, I have held general management roles. Since 2014, I act as a private advisor to small businesses and senior managers.
Contact me for assistance in moderating a group or acting as a sparring partner.
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