Business Model Canvas - Key Activities
This article will cover the various types of Key Activities tailored to digital business models.
Key Activities is one of the sections of the popular Business Model Canvas tool.
The Business Model Canvas was devised by Alex Osterwalder
Types of key assets / resources within digital business models shown in the biz model canvas
(1) Types of Key Activities
Some of the most important Key Value-Creating Activities of Digital Business Models include:
Sourcing, transport, processing, delivering of goods
Data capture, processing, managing, presenting
Data processing can include many aspects, e.g aggregation, organisation
Presentation / visualisation of information, data
Offer search & discovery features
Provide personalisation
Measurement, improvement
Acquire & onboard demand & supply side (platform biz model)
Balancing supply & demand to enhance network effects
and (a lot) more
Broader Key Activities include:
Research & Development
Sales & Marketing
Business planning
Other general & admin activities
and (tonnes) more
(2) Examples of Key Activities
Now let’s take a look at examples of Key Activities. The best way to do so is - as always - by looking at concrete, vertical-specific examples.
eCommerce
Examples of digital businesses in the eCommerce vertical include Amazon, Etsy, Wayfair and thousands of others.
Key Activity examples Amazon:
Sourcing of inventory:
Direct sourcing / purchase of inventory sold to the customers
Owned brands have additional activities like sourcing of components and design, manufacturing
Licensing of media content (music, TV shows, movies) for Prime TV
Inbound logistics / transport of goods:
Transport of goods to the right fulfilment centres via partners and own fleet
Warehousing:
Build, lease, operate various types of warehouses
Marketing & Sales:
Brand marketing to attract direct traffic to website & app
Sales via website, app
Fulfilment, transport & delivery of goods:
Outbound logistics via partner and own delivery assets
Content & Media
Examples of digital businesses in the Content & Media vertical include Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, Medium, Apple News and many more:
Key Activity examples Netflix:
Forward-planning:
Planning of the content slate
Budget allocation to categories and titles
Content sourcing / creation:
Purchasing content
Licensing content
Creating content
Production and post-production of titles
Marketing:
Promotion of upcoming titles
Supply influencers (magazines, TV/news, etc) with details on new titles
Provide free trial, different pricing planes
Content streaming & measuring:
Pre-positioning content to CDN network
Stimulate viewing: recommendations & personalisation
Measures success & viewing by title & aggregate
Initiate improvement loop and adopt content planning based on viewing behaviours
Product development:
Ongoing improvements to the technology
Support new OSs, new types of electronics, etc
Evolve & adapt pricing plans
Sharing economy
Examples of digital businesses in the Asset & Service Sharing (=Sharing Economy) vertical include Uber, DoorDash, Airbnb among others:
Key Activity examples Airbnb:
Acquire & onboard demand & supply side (platform biz model)
Acquire demand & supply side: word-of-mouth, brand & comms marketing
Onboard supply side (hosts): ID, background check, hosting guides, etc
Upskill supply side: vast amount of online resources, incl videos, websites, etc
Onboard demand side: ID check, payments, T&Cs, etc
Balancing supply & demand to enhance network effects:
Ranking of results matching the filter criteria
Presentation of results
Manage the transaction:
Intermediate the reservation
Manage payment
Provide updates prior and during stay to both sides
Intermediate communication between host & guest
Online Travel
Examples of digital businesses in the Online Travel Agencies (OTA) vertical include Booking.com, TripAdvisor and Expedia:
Key Activity examples Booking.com:
Data collection:
Data connections to hotel management systems and intermediary platforms for availability & pricing info
Capture user-generated reviews & ratings
Capture & guide user queries (AI):
Data presentation
Matching results with user queries
Ranking considers contracts with hotels, best matching with user query and commission rates for Booking.com
Social Media & Search
Examples of digital businesses in the Social Media vertical includes Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, X. Examples of Search Platforms include Google, Bing and others.
Key Activity examples Google:
Data capture via crawling
Data processing via indexing
Data presentation on different digital properties within the search results pages
Learn more about Google’s way of capturing data, processing and presenting.
Software-as-a-Service:
Examples of digital businesses in the Software-as-a-Service vertical include Salesforce, most Adobe products and hundreds of thousands more cloud-based software products:
Key Activity examples productivity SaaS:
Provide free access (Freemium or Free Trial) to acquire users
Create single-sided network effects among users to attract more, e.g. via role-based features
Capture user data via website and app
Process user data in proprietary ways (key value proposition)
Display data in intuitively-understandable and engaging ways
Critiquing the Biz Model Canvas (Key Activities section)
Now that we have covered the Key Activities section of the Business Model Canvas (BMC), it’s also time to discuss honestly some shortcomings of the BMC relating to this aspect.
Production, Problem Solving, Platform/Network: these are the only types of Key Activities listed in the BMC. Of course, nothing wrong with it as such but also very high level and - frankly speaking - not much of a guide. But that’s understandable as the BMC is aiming to please all business models. With our focus on digital business models only, we have been able to provide a far more specific list of key activities with many relevant examples that can be transferred to other ideas.
We hope you enjoyed our coverage of Key Activities including the differentiation of different types and the extensive list of examples relevant for digital business models.
What we like more than the Business Model Canvas: the B-MAP
We have used the business model canvas for almost 10 years on a very regular basis and to cover many dozen companies. Over time, we have realised that it has its limitations.
That is why we have decided to use a presentation format based on the time-tested Value Chain method devised by Strategy Professor Michael Porter. It is a far better way to grasp key aspects of a digital business model than the canvas.
Prof Porter is the most cited scholar on competitive strategy and digital transformation (with almost 10x more citations than the respectively 2nd ranking scholar).
Our Business Model on A Page (B-MAP) is specifically developed for digital business models and based on the Value Chain.
We have decided to price our B-MAPs super-affordably to give everyone (including our many valued followers from lower-income countries) the opportunity to get kick-started on their innovation journey with this high value resource that includes a B-MAP + walk through video for each of the digital companies that are covered!