Tag archives: business model generation

How can the crowd change your business model?

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Tuesday, 23 February 2010

During Social Media Week, we covered lots of crowdsourcing.

Advertising was up early in the week, followed by hardware focused crowdsourcing (like the Rally Fighter) and at the end of the week, crowdsourcing was discussed in the context of the news business. I also had a chance to talk with John Winsor about “the age of abundance in marketing” about the implications of access to talented crowds.

After all this great discussion, I was left with one main question:

How can the crowd change your business model?

I made a first pass at an answer using a framework from Business Model Generation.

I. Key Activities

create something

create the communications about the thing

find other people to create (recruiting)

Questions:

- what activities should we be asking the crowd to help with?

- who exactly is in this crowd? customers? experts?

II. Key Resources

People, financial, intellectual, physical

Questions:

- how many people need to work for us full time? where do the others come from?

- is is possible for us to have all the best skills “in house”?

III. Key Partners

- optimization + economy

- reduction of risk

- acquisition of particular resources and activities

Questions:

- can some of best partners come from the crowd?

- see I

IV. Value Proposition

Questions

- isn’t the crowd well positioned to help with this (assuming they are your customers)?

V. Customer Relationship

Questions

- is co-creation is a good basis for a relationship?

- is ongoing dialog that is not always focused on sales, a good basis for a relationship?

VI. Channels

Questions:

- can the crowd help decide how they can best be reached?

- can the crowd help with: awareness, evaluation, purchase, delivery, after sales (support)?

VII. Cost Structure & Revenue Streams

Questions:

- can the crowd lower cost of resources? (for example if you only work with people as you need them or as they need you)

- can the crowd help to lower cost for specific activities (awareness, support, recruiting, etc)

My initial conclusions:

If you find specific places where the crowd can help and if you choose the right crowd, you have a shot at transforming your business model. Yes, some testing will be required.

If you look at crowdsourcing narrowly as the creation of anything by anyone, you’ll miss the opportunity.

How can the crowd change your business model?

UPDATE: fortunately, ALEXANDER OSTERWALDER, one of the creators of Business Model Generation just helped to answer this question with his post on Social Media on Business Models.

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