Business Model Canvas: Key Activities

Use Daily Tasks to Brainstorm Key Activities

Create a list of daily activities. This will help you decipher what a key activity is and what it is not a key activity. These activities are integral to the success of your business. 

If you run a grocery store, you must take stock and restock daily. Your customers will expect goods on the shelves. If these goods are missing, then your grocery store will fail.  An online mentorship and coaching business would have different daily tasks. These could be morning check-ins with each client, sending individualized to-do lists, and scheduling meetings with each client. It depends upon your business model.

Example questions

Here are example daily question you might ask yourself if you are running a bakery:

• Are the bakers baking any pastries or cakes?

• Have the ingredients that needed restocking arrived, or is shopping pending?

• Have customers been notified they can pick up their orders? Will they receive a delivery today?

• Are there orders on social media pages or from your website order form?

• Are there big client orders that move the bottom line?

Resulting key activities

From these questions, your key activities might center around:

• Baking (integral to building)

• Stock taking and shopping (key resource)

• Pickup/delivery update (distribution channels)

• Social media and website management (customer relationships)

• Research key partners like events companies (key partners & revenue streams)

Now it’s time to vet your list.  Is each key activity helping you maintain customer relationships? How are you delivering on the customer experience?

Additional Tips for Deciding Key Activities

SMB vs. enterprise key activities

Small and mid-sized businesses will usually have tasks or processes as key activities. When a larger corporation is working on business models, it will list out key activities with a higher level of abstraction. The process for mapping these key activities in a Business Model Canvas is the same. The difference is scale. At a larger scale, you will become increasingly abstract with your list.

Small businesses will also have fewer key activities. Each key activity takes up time and money from a startup’s small workforce and limited resources. Do not overcomplicate key activities. Good business models create simplicity. 

Less is more

Having many key activities sounds exciting and productive, but this will impact your ability to focus on the necessary tasks to best deliver on your value proposition.  Concentrate on a few essential chores to get a competitive edge.  That doesn’t mean you only do the key activities of course or your business would shut down.  It simply means you focus more of your attention on these key activities because you recognize they are growth levers.

Are you struggling to narrow down your typical key activities? Try imagining you are the only one running the business.  As an understaffed business, what needs to get done? How can your customers still get quality products or services from you, even as a one-person team? The necessary tasks to make that possible are your key tasks.

Key activities must change

Your key activities block will change as your business grows because your goals will change.  You may need sales support from a sales team.  You may need inventory control in anticipation of an expected increase in demand for your products.  Make sure to update your key activities as you grow and your goals change.

Key activities may need to change over time as markets shift, causing your goals to shift.  The flip side to this is understanding that changing your key activities is a great way to drive innovation and create business transformation.  It’s a lever that (somewhat) works both ways.

Final Thoughts

Correctly identifying your key activities is essential to building your Business Model Canvas. Do not go overboard and overcomplicate the processes.  Instead, focus on finding tasks that ease the delivery of your value proposition. Your business will grow as you deliver on your promises, and your key activities need to evolve to match. And if you haven’t already, please go back and check out our section on key resources.