BUSINESS MODEL INTERROGATION & DEVELOPMENT

Pick a company of your choice (probably a public limited company, for easy access to information and verification by me) and then interrogate the business model of this company by telling us how the company makes money showing the interaction between the product market and the capital market. Tell us whether their products are ‘bought’ or ‘sold’. You can use a couple of known framework e.g. the Boston Consulting Group Matrix or Product Life Cycle approach to describe the product/service portfolio (market). Be careful to stay more in the financial and strategic side of the debate and not necessarily stray off to other functional areas like marketing or HR (not a marketing or HR essay). Whenever possible and you talk about product portfolios, talk about their relative profitability and that is how it may differ from a marketing or HR essay.

Also, tell us what internal structures or architecture needs changing or revising to give it a needed boost. You can tell us what could go wrong with their current business model in the light of other competitions and new product developments from rivals and how your chosen company should respond.

As additional guide, always think in terms of how your critique affects the bottom line (whether from revenue or cost side).

Further Guidelines:

A background to the company’s current operations and architecture would be very useful.

You may evaluate the company’s current business model (strategy operating and financial architecture) and whether it should be changed or modified.

Evaluate how the company’s business strategy affects its organisational structure.

Is the current organisational structure right for the business in the light of their model and the changes you may propose?

Has any technological changes disrupted their business model and operating architecture (or would it impact on their model if there were such a technology)?

Think about avenues to reduce their cost and/or improve quality.

Analyse product market conditions and strategies

Analyse capital market conditions and strategies

Analyse internal organisation architecture systems