The Business Design Ecosystem

Business design is a concept interpreted in various ways. In many cases, the term is used in substitution for business model.

In my conception, business model is one of the subsystems of a large ecosystem that is business design.

Business design, for me, encompasses several subsystems, all interrelated and with various overlaps, namely:

1. Market Strategy - basically answers the question where to compete or where I compete
2. Competitive Strategy - basically answers the question how to compete or how I compete
3. Organizational Strategy basically answers the question how I organize or how I am organized to compete
4. Marketing Strategy - from the target market, answers questions about product, distribution, price and promotion
5. Business Model - describes the rationale for how an organization creates, delivers and captures value

Talking about business design in detail is very difficult because it is a tangle of elements with interconnections and overlaps. Easier and more didactic, without the use of figures, is to say what basic questions business design answers:

1- What is my business?

2- What is my product or service for?

3- Who is it for?

4- How does it serve?

5- At what price does it make sense or at what price does it no longer make sense?

6- How does my product or service reach my customer or how does the customer reach my product or service?

7- How does my customer find out that my product or service exists?

8- What do I need and who do I depend on to produce, deliver and communicate my product or service?

9- Who pays the bill?

10- What bills do I pay?

11- Where does the margin come from?

12- What industry am I inserted in and what are the forces that will impact the profitability of my business?

13- What structural advantages do I have over my direct and indirect competitors? What am I better at?

14- How do I organize the company, how do I organize the people and how do I organize the work?

15- What is the best governance model?

16- What are the main risks? What elements of my business design are vulnerable to political, economic, regulatory, legislative, social, technological etc. changes, and what impact could they have on the business?

17- In what elements of the business design can I incorporate some relevant innovation?

And other questions that may be relevant on a case-by-case basis.