An enhanced version of the Business Model Canvas for risk management and business continuity

Abstract

In a world of uncertainty business planning can be considered as the biggest changes faced by companies and organizations. The recent Covid-19 health crisis and the Russian-Ukraine political conflict are just indicative on the massive impact such situations can have in the planning and operations of any organization. From the Chernobyl disaster in the 80s, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90s, the 9/11 terrorist attack in the 2000’s, the Global financial crisis in the 2010’s and so on, such crises seem to continuously appear, without business planning efforts to consider such unpredictable events, which tend to appear frequently the last decade. Therefore, proactive risk, forecast, analysis and management need to be part of planning activities at least in three dimensions. The first one is the organizations dimension which defines the organizational readiness in terms of internal infrastructure to handle a crisis, the second is the socio-economic impact a specific crisis can have on the market and the society an organization operates, and the third dimension is on post crisis activities an organization must perform to achieve business continuity, and in many cases disaster recovery. This paper builds on the existing Business Model Canvas (BMC), a widely known business planning methodology, accepted and used by many organizations. The addition made on the BMC demonstrates in a practical way the position of the three risk dimensions proposed in this research and their interaction and impact with the existing business planning segments of the BMC which remain unchanged. The three risk dimensions form the BMC shield, a term used to conceptualize the protection of the business, around the planning process, from unexpended risks and disasters. The new BMC, with the risk management shield is powered by the Company Democracy Model (CDM), a democratic organizational culture driven in this case towards risk management thinking and action. CDM is used to democratically, collectively and continuously collect, access and integrated risk management data, ideas, and actions in the risk management shield to protect the business planning process. To further demonstrate the BMC shield concept and operations the paper analyses the application of proposed approach within the PESLTE and CAGE international business frameworks. Since most of the crisis have international impact the PESLTE and the CAGE elements must be also analysed from the potential risk dimension during the planning process. The proposed busies planning approach can be used by any organization regardless the size, the sector or region it operates. It is a practical tool that ignites a democratic thinking on dealing with possible risks that can come up but also on how these risks can be mitigated withing the planned operations. The research conducted in based on an extensive literature review, primary research with surveys and interviews but also with the analysis of several case studies that indicate the needs and the trends for the development of such an approach. The paper indicates the pre and post condition on using the proposed methodology, research limitations, areas of further research to be conducted for the application of the proposed approach in vertical organizational sectors and geographic regions.