With COVID-19 restrictions coming to a close, it’s time to take a closer look at how we can begin to reinvent business models.
When you hear the term “business model”, what exactly comes to mind for you?
For many, a business model is a description of how a business develops, captures, and delivers value to its intended customers. Business models are so much more than this simplistic definition. Through the eyes of a design thinker, business models are complex and made up of many components including user desirability, technological feasibility, and financial viability.
The Components of A Business Model
When it comes to business models, there are two pieces we must examine. The first is the “front of the house”. This piece includes developing connections between the value proposition. The second piece is the “back of the house”. The back of the house is composed of the components needed to ensure the connection between how the business actually organizes itself. This piece focuses on the resources, partnerships, and activities that enable the business to establish and maintain its value proposition. Of course, this organization comes with costs as a result of time and resources spent.
When we examine these pieces further we understand that desirability is the front of the house while feasibility is the back of the house.
What Lies Ahead
What lies ahead is uncertainty. We don’t know what the world will look like next week, next month, or even next year. As we near school opening, we don’t completely understand what this new model will look like for our children.
Instead, we must navigate this process and find our new “normal”. We now have a new set of narratives in which we must analyze and consider as we progress. If nothing else, this pandemic has taught us that people and society don’t do well in the face of change. Even with no choice but to adapt, friction and challenges are common. To the surprise of many, despite the friction, society was eventually able to adjust, and there has been much progress in the way of ensuring continuous work could be completed remotely.
Final Thoughts
Should we leverage the rubber band method?
In other words, should we expect things to go back as normal when we return to the world post-COVID? Likely, your answer was no.
We cannot and should not expect business to return as it was prior to the pandemic. We should leverage the insights gained from this experience to develop a more profound, wise plan and strategy for reinventing business models.
New business models need to be versatile and capable of handling changes like what we’ve witnessed as a result of recent affairs.
