Professor – Dr. Vidya Hattangadi

The Pigneur and Osterwalder Business Model

Dr Vidya Hattangadi — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:01:00 +0000

Abstract

The Business Model Canvas also called the Pignut and Osterwalder business model consists of nine essential parts: Customer Segments, Value Proposition, Revenue Streams, Channels, Customer Relationships, Key Activities, Key Resources, Key Partners, and Cost Structure. The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management template that helps businesses to describe, design and analyse their business models. Alex Osterwalder modelled this strategic toll who is a Swiss business management theorist and entrepreneur. He designed this model as a part of his PhD research. In Osterwalder’s model his PhD supervisor Yves Pigneur has co-authored the model. This model was published in a book called Business Model Generation.

During the model development of Osterwalder and Pigneur by an amazing crowd of 470 practitioners from 45 countries contributed their thoughts and experiences. That is an inspiring collaboration. The model is in the form of a visual chart with various elements that describe the value proposition of an organisation, its infrastructure, market and finances. The objective of the model is to assist firms to align their activities through the illustration of potential trade-offs.

This article explains the basics of the Business Model Canvas. The model comprises nine building blocks. They are explained as follows:

Value proposition of the business: Apple’s value proposition lies deeply in design, branding, and innovation. Banking on creativity, the brand sets its products and services apart using aesthetics, advanced technology, and user experience. Value proposition refers to the product or service the firm intends to offer to its customers to satisfy their needs. It is unique to an organisation as it helps to differentiate the product apart from its competitors. The description may be qualitative, outlining the intended outcome and customer experience, or quantitative, describing the efficiency and price. Nike bases its value proposition on the practice of sport as a generator of confidence and success, will and effort, going against what is established, and bringing inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.

The business proposition (value proposition) is at the centre of the Business Model Canvas because it is the core offering that answers why customers would choose one company over another, thus serving as the heart of the business model that the other components revolve around. It directly connects the value created to the specific problems or needs of the customer segment, making it the fundamental reason for the business’s existence and the driver for all other strategic decisions.

Infrastructure: Number ofIndian organizations stand out for their strong infrastructure in word. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is a major player known for its diverse portfolio and engineering expertise. Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) is recognized for its experience in large-scale civil engineering projects. Additionally, GMR Infrastructure and Reliance Infrastructure are also prominent in the infrastructure and real estate sectors. It’s shown on the left of the canvas.

In a value chain model, infrastructure refers to the all-encompassing systems, processes, and resources that support the entire organization and its operations, rather than specific activities like production or marketing. It includes elements like strategic management, finance, accounting, legal, and quality management, which are crucial for the overall functioning and success of the business. Value chain consists of all processes of the business adding value to the final product/service.

The organisation’s infrastructure comprises the key activities that generate the value proposition, the key resources it used to create value for its customers, its alliances or key partner networks and the things that motivate them to be part of the business model. These describe how the company delivers the value proposition.

Channels

In a business context, channels are the ways a company communicates with, delivers value to, and interacts with its customers to fulfil its business proposition. They are the pathways through which a business reaches its target audience, provides its products or services, and builds relationships. Channels outline the ways a business communicates with and reaches its customers to deliver its value proposition. Hindustan Unilever (HUL) employs a multi-channel approach to reach consumers, including traditional retail, modern trade, e-commerce, and specialized channels like health and wellness stores. They also utilize direct selling and direct-to-consumer strategies, particularly in rural areas through initiatives like Project Shakti. HUL leverages a vast network of distributors and stockists to ensure product availability across various locations.

Customers

On the right side of the canvas, the model analyses three aspects of the customers of the business. They include customer segments break the total market down to help identify and describe its target customers more specifically, channels of delivery connect a customer segment to the value proposition and the type of relationship between the business and its customers. For example, transactional, long-term, self-service, co-creation, etc. Considered together, these describe how the customer expects to access the value proposition. Airbnb has two main customer segments – travellers seeking accommodation and property owners renting out their spaces. Uber connects drivers and riders. Spotify targets music lovers, artists, and advertisers.

Revenue streams

It describes how the company makes money from its target market. For example, businesses can generate revenue through the sale of a physical product, selling a continuous service in the form of subscriptions, renting, or leasing an asset such as a car, licensing or charging fees to advertise products. For example, Tata Motors generates revenue from multiple streams including commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles, electric vehicles, and the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) segment. They also have revenue from vehicle financing and related services. Tata Motors sells a wide range of vehicles, including passenger cars, trucks, buses, and defence vehicles. These vehicles are sold in over 170 countries worldwide, making Tata Motors one of the most globally diversified automotive companies.

Key Activities

Key activities are the essential things a business needs to do to bring its customers value. Key activities are arrived at more through acumen and enumerating the steps needed to deliver value, than by doing business research. There are 3 categories of key activities; production: designing, manufacturing and delivering a product in significant quantities and/ or of superior quality. Problem-solving: finding new solutions to individual problems faced by customers. Platform/ network: Creating and maintaining platforms. ITC’s key activities span across diverse business segments including cigarettes, FMCG, hotels, paperboards, packaging, and agribusiness. Within these, they focus on strategic analysis, supply chain management, and input tax credit management. Furthermore, ITC actively engages in social responsibility initiatives, such as watershed development, afforestation, and sustainable agriculture.

Key Resources

Identifies the most important assets required to make a business model work. These resources enable a company to create and offer value, reach customers, maintain relationships, and generate revenue. Key resources can be physical, financial, intellectual, or human. In Philips India’s Business Model Canvas, key resources can be broadly categorized into physical, intellectual, human, and financial resources. These resources are essential for the company’s operations and achieving its goals in the healthcare and home care sectors. The physical resources of Philips India’ include manufacturing facilities, production equipment, distribution networks, and any physical infrastructure necessary for delivering products and services. The intellectual resources include Philips’ patents, trademarks, and proprietary technologies, including AI algorithms used in diagnostic imaging and digital health solutions. Philips India relies on its skilled workforce, including engineers, researchers, and healthcare professionals, who possess the expertise to design, develop, and deliver innovative solutions.

Key Partners

They represent the external entities with whom a business collaborates to create and deliver value. These partnerships can include suppliers, strategic alliances, joint ventures, or buyer-supplier relationships. For example, P&G’s global reach is heavily reliant on strategic partnerships. A key example is their collaboration with Walmart, focused on optimizing supply chain efficiencies through data analytics and shared information systems. This partnership has led to reduced inventory levels and improved product availability for both companies. P&G partners with EY to enhance manufacturing performance and supply chain operations. This includes leveraging EY’s global experience and P&G’s certified consultants, along with tools like Supply Network Operations (SNO) and the Run-to-Target (RTT) Transformation Accelerator. The company collaborates with GLAAD to promote LGBTQ+ inclusivity in advertising and marketing, ensuring authentic and accurate representation. This partnership involves evaluating and improving representation from pre-production to post-production and beyond. It has a long-standing partnership with WWF, focusing on environmental conservation and sustainability initiatives.

Cost Structure

The Cost Structure block on the Business Model Canvas outlines all the costs associated with operating a business. It details the most significant expenses incurred in creating and delivering value, maintaining customer relationships, and generating revenue. Understanding the cost structure is crucial for optimizing operations, reducing inefficiencies, and ensuring profitability. Bata, as a large retailer, would also have significant costs associated with its supply chain, including sourcing, logistics, and distribution. Manufacturing cost includes the cost of raw materials, labor for production, factory overhead (rent, utilities), and machinery maintenance. Since Bata has its own manufacturing facilities, these costs are crucial. Retail operation cost covers the costs of running physical stores, including rent, utilities, store staff salaries, visual merchandising, and point-of-sale systems. Bata spends significantly on marketing to promote its brand and products. This includes advertising campaigns, promotional events, and digital marketing efforts. Bata is synonymous with the school going children for the leather and canvas shoes in India. Bata is known for school shoes around the world. For generations, Bata has been part of their childhood memories, helping millions of students step confidently into their future. With a portfolio of over 20 brands.

Conclusion

The Business Model Canvas is used by both startups and existing businesses, including large corporations. With a little adaptation of the ideas, non-profits and social enterprises can also use the canvas. The canvas is easy to draw on a whiteboard or a big piece of paper and you can use sticky notes to add ideas or details to each block. Whether someone is launching a startup or reinventing an existing business, this model provides a clear framework for mapping out who their customers are, what they value, and how their organization can deliver that value while generating sustainable revenue. By breaking down the complex world of business strategy into nine essential building blocks, the authors offer a practical toolkit that has revolutionized how companies think about their fundamental operations.

References

Conferred with Most Fabulous Professors Award

Dr Vidya Hattangadi — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:18:38 +0000

A good teacher is warm, accessible, enthusiastic and caring. This person is approachable, not only to students, but to everyone on campus. This is the teacher to whom students know they can go with any problems or concerns. A good professor has great class management skills; he/she is updated with subject knowledge and is a fantastic researcher.

World HRD Congress 2020 event took from 15^th to 17^th February at Taj Land’s End, Mumbai. This event is centralized on importance of giving which is an important element of our lives. World HRD Congress brings together over 2000 HR professionals in attendance from over 133 countries. It focuses on the elements such as HR Tech, Diversity and Inclusion or women leaders in HR, and much more. The event focuses on covering various HRM and HRD issues at a national level. This event is among the largest rendezvous for HR professionals. This event provides immense opportunity to acquire skills and contribute to the organization.

One of the features of the World HRD Congress was to recognizing the best Professors in the management faculty. The award is titled as “Most Fabulous Professors.” This year I was conferred upon this prestigious award.

Awards recognize the hard work and achievements put in by one in his/her chosen field. It boosts the morale and boosts motivation to still do the best. It is a nice feeling to be recognized on a great platform such as World HRD Congress.

How to get a dream PhD supervisor?

Dr Vidya Hattangadi — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 11:53:24 +0000

How often you’ve come across a PhD scholar happy with his/her guide? How many cheerful PhD scholars have you seen? Everyone dreams of a pleasant, helping, and dependable in short a ‘dream supervisor’ for completing the PhD degree. But let me tell you they don’t exist. The reality is that even on the rare occasions when supervisors do turn out to be masterminds, or even just very brainy in reality, they are still neither gods nor saints; more likely they are simply overworked and underpaid, and just trying to do their job which is often thankless.

Yes, you are at liberty to pass on the buck of incompletion, hypothesis getting nowhere, inadequacy of primary data, literature review going nowhere, bibliography not completed etc, etc on your supervisor. Well, till you get your PhD degree every bit that you are doing is an “Illusion.” The relationship between a doctoral candidate and the supervisor (guide) needs some definite outline; hence I am giving this brief account based upon my experience.

Your supervisor is responsible to conduct and monitor the prescribed course activity and report its progress to the Center for Research. Some Universities have the prescribed formats of course work while many universities in the developing nations are yet to formulate it. The course work must contain topics related to how to scientifically review the literature, collecting primary data, designing the instruments to collect primary data, centering the primary data on meeting the research objectives, hypothesis of the research, and the statistical tools to validate the hypothesis. In my opinion if the research scholar has a good industry experience, has exposure to professional life then, the course work option should be left flexible.

A PhD usually concludes in a dissertation of around 100,000-3,00,000 words, based on research carried out over the course of study. The research must be original work which aims at creating new information or supposition in a particular area. In this case the specialized area chosen by the student. It has been observed that many Universities initially make the students go through an M.Phil program and then upgrade them to PhD status after further work on the chosen topic. Thus students who are not considered to be doing work appropriate for PhD level can instead submit a shorter thesis and gain an M.Phil.

PhD students are expected to work independently, supported by their center and a supervisor. They need to work by themselves, attend seminars, workshops to gain many insights on the chosen topic. During their study, students are expected to publish some papers/articles, present their work at conferences, which will allow them to get feedback on their ideas for their dissertation. Be critical and reflect on your work. Take some time after intervals, before final revisions rework, acknowledge the limitations of your PhD. Your final work should elevate the tone of your PhD – leave the reader in an affirmative frame of mind. Thus, discuss with your guide why, when, how, how many – will your work bring in some change to the world? What we see most often is statistical authentication of the hypothesis. Well your PhD has qualitative importance also.

What is role of a guide in PhD program?

Suggest and guide the research student for his dissertation on a suitable topic.
Guide his participation in conferences, seminars and other discussion group of relevance and for paper presentations.
Regularly follow up and monitor the progress made by the student in conformity with the study plan. The advent of Internet allows the guide and the student to communicate with each other through different Medias. But, meet at least once in six months personally.
Suggest modifications/ changes if any required in the scope of the research study necessary by the external factors to make the study meaningful and relevant.
Provide a quarterly progress report to the Centre for Research in the prescribed format for its review and feedback (if format is available )
Make valid recommendation of the study to the doctoral evaluation committee in accordance with the specific requirements as may be stipulated.
Recommend referees for the assessing the dissertation.
Thus the guide must be available for consultation, collaborate with the Research Centre for brining in the best practices for the doctoral program. The guide’s and student’s relationship may be described as ‘normal working relationship.’

If you guide tries to become your superior, your employer, your associate, your best friend, your editor, your search engine, lends his/her shoulder to cry, is socializing with you to remove your boredom is simply crossing prescribed limits.

Your PhD supervisor is a human like you. He/she has a character. Understand personality of your supervisor. He/she may like to see regular progress reports, others may be less demanding, particularly if your supervisor is in regular contact with you keep him/her updated. Whatever the case may be, it is important for a student to meet the supervisor, sort out problems if any, avoid misapprehension and mutual disappointment if any, make the first move always. Take the first initiative and generate a good relationship with your supervisor. Do not overburden your supervisor with too many similar drafts – they will not be able to cast a fresh eye over it after the second draft. Do not burden your supervisor with trivia, discuss what is important. I want to clarify one important point here – do not assume silence from your supervisor means approval, while forgiving them for assuming that silence from your end means you are doing your work without any problems.

However, a PhD scholar produces a good PhD when he/she opens up new area, provides amalgamating framework, answers long-standing question, does a through exploration of an area of study, removes bias in existing knowledge, validates a theory, provides empirical data, develops new methodology, develops a new tool to a finding in short explores something new, and is a brave innovation. Remember friends – let your PhD contribute to the goodness of the society. Don’t look at it as merely a certificate.