Task

Your task is to describe business model patterns that illustrate a suitable, creative, and unique solution to the current corona crises. To submit a business model pattern, you need to specify the following: 

1. Title: Give your business model pattern a catchy name that describes your idea in simple terms. 
2. Business Model Pattern: Describe how a company can deal with the problem. Be creative, use real-world examples.
3. Problem: Describe the problem to be addressed through the business model pattern (e.g., low demand due to lock down, high cost due to new hygiene rules). 
4. Advice: Provide useful insights on how companies can implement your business model pattern putting it in practice. What should they be aware of? Can you anticipate any pitfalls? Are there any existing tools that can support the companies?
5. Industry: Is your business model pattern industry-specific? If yes, please name it and provide reasons.

For examples click here: weareopen.business

Context for the challenge

The current Corona Pandemic is already seen as the most significant economic crisis since the second world war. The business models of many companies are choked due to regulatory restrictions, social distancing, and overarching economic shutdowns. Especially small companies and service providers are threatened existentially. Therefore, companies need to adapt their current business models for both short-term survival and long-term resilience to find their way through the crisis.

In this campaign, we aim at identifying different business model patterns best suitable to either address short-term challenges of the Corona pandemic or enable long-term resilience.  Business model patterns are building blocks companies can use to adjust their business model. Business model patterns collected in this campaign will be made available for the public on our website. Companies seeking solutions on how to adjust their business model in the current pandemic can use identified, promising business model patterns.

Background information

A business model represents the management’s hypothesis on how, when, and with which means a company creates value for its customers and captures value for its shareholders. Business models, however, are not static but need to adapt according to changing circumstances. A systematic way of changing the business model is breaking it down into patterns. Business model patterns are a widely used approach to share successful business practices. Patterns address specific economic mechanisms or market drivers and provide solutions to general challenges. Combined, they build the core elements of a company’s business model. Patterns usually represent tested approaches and rules for a certain industry but can be recombined and adapted for other industries. The idea is to provide small and medium enterprises whose business models are affected by the current pandemic with tested solutions to adapt their way of doing business. Patterns can address certain elements of the business model which are not working anymore, e.g., changing the target customer group, changing what and how a company delivers its products or services to its customers, changing the way products or services are created, changing the way the business earns money. A common starting point to identify such patterns is observing how other companies have reacted to this crisis or previous ones and then abstracting this knowledge.