Make sure basics of your enterprise are on right page

WHETHER you’re a seasoned professional or a fledgling start-up, there are always new and emerging ways to gain perspective on your business.

Drafting up a business plan is a great way to look at and into your business with an indepth study of its internal and external operations – but what if there was a step before this to help you map out similar insights on a single page?

Good news – there is. It’s called the Business Model Canvas. The concept of business models rose out of the dotcom era and generally describe how a business will sustain itself and provide value to its customers.

The Business Model Canvas, which can be drawn up on a single page, was initially developed by Professor Alex Osterwalder and has become an effective tool for developing business ideas and gaining new perspectives.

The versatile tool is an open source resource that is distributed under a Creative Commons licence from Strategyzer.com and is an invaluable asset in any entrepreneur’s toolkit. Since its introduction in 2008, an array of canvases have appeared and have become the new cornerstone to planning a business.

So, what can it do? The canvas is a one-page document separated into nine distinct yet interconnected sections. Centred around the businesses value proposition, the right side of the canvas asks you to reflect on the internal operations of the business while the left side asks you to reflect on the external factors.

The canvas asks you to assess your key resources, partners, and activities; it asks you to consider your customer relationships, and segments; as well as your businesses channels, cost structure and revenue streams. By following the canvas and taking a bird’s-eye view of your business, new perspectives, questions and answers can be uncovered.

Seeing value in this innovative approach from Strategyzer.com, the Southern Cross Enterprise Lab has recently partnered with Southern Cross University’s School of Business and Tourism to deliver a workshop

BY … TAKING A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF YOUR BUSINESS, NEW PERSPECTIVES, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CAN BE UNCOVERED

on how to use the canvas. The workshop provided the opportunity for students, academic staff, and the local business community to collaborate on start-up ideas, bringing together diverse groups of people and introducing them to a contemporary way of planning.

Southern Cross Enterprise Lab (based at Southern Cross University’s Lismore campus) and the Digital Enterprise Lab (at the Gold Coast campus) hope to bring new ways to innovate and create to our community and our region.

OWEN HOGAN IS EXECUTIVE OFFICER AT SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY’S SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND TOURISM