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Developing business ideas for drone technologies
Developing business ideas for drone technologies

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1.2 Key activities

Key activities are the core activities performed by the organisation to make the business model work. Activities combine resources to deliver value propositions, reach markets, keep customer relationships, and generate revenue. Activities depend on the type of business model offered by the organisation. If it is a product business model, some production or operational activities would take place in order to deliver a product or a service. If it is a matchmaking business model, activities will be more related to the management of the platform.

Production, problem solving and platform/network activities are three main categories for key activities.

  • Production activities pertain to the design, manufacturing and delivery of a product in significant quantities and/or exceptional quality. For instance, drone manufacturers are mainly in this key activity type.
  • Problem solving activities often relate to providing a new solution or service to a customer’s problem. For instance, drone spaying organisations dedicate themselves to offer optimal plant protection product usage to their customers.
  • Platform/network related key activities are mainly reflected in the case of matchmaking or multi-sided business models introduced in Week 2. Activities are concentrated on running a platform, promoting its diffusion and provisioning service. For instance, the ICAERUS platform website [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] integrates comprehensive information about drone application in agriculture sectors to serve all kinds of stakeholders; their key activities include managing the website, promoting the platform by various dissemination activities and updating information to serve their stakeholders.

Activity 2

Timing: Allow approximately 15 minutes.
Figure 4 A Photo of a drone spraying

Considering Use Case 2 – Drone Spraying, what key activities should be performed to support the business model outlined in Week 5?

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Discussion

In Section 1.4 you will find a complete example of the three blocks of the infrastructure area of the business model canvas.