Case studies for teaching business models generation

I am working on a curriculum piece (part of a larger course focusing on social entrepreneurship) about business models.  

The target audience will be primarily be non-business students/adult learners.  The context is a course in human-centered design.

Any recommendations for existing case studies that could be used in a classroom setting that ties in nicely with the Business Model Generation book.  

Because it is for a class, ideally it would a "teaching/learning" case study.

All ideas are welcome.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Erwin Fielt on May 19, 2012 at 1:55am

I put a library example I once made up on my blog: http://fieltnotes.blogspot.com.au/

Permalink Reply by Jitender Miglani on May 19, 2012 at 5:56am

Hi Erwin,

The Library example was very good. I liked it. It just shows the power of visualization in making things easier to understand.

The beauty of Canvas is that it can be used to represent the business model of any company regardless of its size. In the attachment, I represent the business model of both the mom-and-pop store and the Walmart. 

Jitender

Attachments:
Permalink Reply by Johan Steenkamp on August 1, 2012 at 10:27pm

I made a Fiddle from your example http://bmfiddle.com/f/#/q8qS4

Permalink Reply by Mack Ayache 12 hours ago

Hi Erwin,

Out of curiosity for the public Library that doesn't charge membership fees, what does its business model look like?  my public library lets you borrow books/games/computer time/etc. free of charge and offers very little "premium" material (like booking a room for instance).  I'm assuming its a non-profit venture but where to do they even find enough money to subsidize everything that's free?

Permalink Reply by John Rumery on May 19, 2012 at 1:42am

Thanks Erwin- great suggestion.  A library would be a great introduction to the canvass.  

Permalink Reply by Meggie Williams on June 1, 2012 at 2:17pm

Thnak you all for this discussion and your contributions! I am a lecturer at Industrial Design Engineering at The Hague University in the Netherlands and I had exactly the same questions as John. For my course Implementing Business and Products I was looking for business cases as exmaples and to organise a business model challenge around. All these contributions were very helpful!

Permalink Reply by John W Babiak on June 2, 2012 at 8:41am
Im developing a course that will cover business model generation.

Rather than just explaining the various components, I'd like to be able to give the participants a case (text) describing a business, split them up in groups and have them map out the business model canvas.

I could have the groups work on businesses the each know, but I'd prefer they all work on the same one. So we can compare results.

All of the examples in the reply to this discussion are showing the resulting canvases.

Does anyone have any case texts that describe a business that could be used to give everyone the same basic understanding of that business?

Thanks!

John
Permalink Reply by Karl Burrow on June 3, 2012 at 8:06am

John,

This is a good point and similar to my approach for my current BM training courses. The pros is that it allows the audience to become more proactive and promotes co-creation, ideation and brainstorming.

As well it allows the teams to challenge the business model during the evaluation and questioning review process.

Karl

Permalink Reply by Frank Wyatt on March 11, 2013 at 4:54am

Hi John

This is not a direct reply to your question but may help. I'm working through examples presently of challenges I put to companies. I'm taking one aspect of the BMC and designing challenges around that aspect e.g. (in brief)

Publishing company

Selling to lower socio economic women mainly in age range of 15-20 and 24 - 35

Sell book for $1 via bookshops and newsagents

Distribution takes 50%

Authors 20%

Other costs 25%

Profit is $0.5

How do you quadruple your profit without increasing cost?

Answer

Invariably companies go straight for the Distribution cost (cost down)

Real answer is in appropriating the value of the unmet needs of customers

Need to get into the ecology of the customer

Example is of course Mills and Boons but I only ever reveal this after the event

I'm hoping others will share similar model challenges

Permalink Reply by Meggie Williams on June 6, 2012 at 5:24pm

Hi all,

I used this introduction: http://www.slideshare.net/mientje12/120605-mw-bm-business-model-cha...

and this hand-out: http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/mientje12/120605-mw-hand-out-b...

 

We had a great time and came up with some very inspiring ideas. Thanks for your ideas!

Permalink Reply by marcus martins bonassi on June 14, 2012 at 9:53pm

John, I am from Brazil. Me and a couple friends are trying to develop a course that teachs business models and show people that they can get over life as a mechanical thing and start doing something. But we are gatering some material together and searching for tips and examples to teach in classes such as exercises, examples, and stuff like that. Could you help me where to find those things?? Tks a lot

Permalink Reply by John W Babiak on June 14, 2012 at 10:55pm
Hi Marcus,

There are a lot of good examples of Business Models in this forum as well as links to online articles.

At a recent coaching session that I conducted I asked people to work in groups and do an exercise using a project that they had in mind or to use their current employer as an example.

John

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