Business Model Canvas | Entrepreneurship and Innovation | Sample Assignment of Management
Executive Summary
The focus of the report is to determine the business model canvas for an Australian company which is established after 2015. The company taken is Maths Pathway, which is an online learning portal dedicated to studying mathematics. The company started in 2015 and is known to offer its services to over 1700 teachers in the entire Australia. The website of the company has suggested that the website serve over 57000 students across Australia. The portal is a one of a kind learning platform for the students since the focus of the company is on growth of the students. The founders realised that students in Australia faced problems in understanding and solving various mathematics problems. They felt monotonous due to the traditional learning methods of mathematics. Therefore, the company was formed to provide students with engaging tricks and techniques for studying. The value proposition of the website is that it offers a range of mathematics worksheets for the students based on their proficiency in the subject. It is not necessary for the students to access the same worksheets and learning material no matter what their proficiency level is. The students can choose to work depending upon their understanding. There is a mix of easy and complicated worksheets for the students. Also, the students can evaluate themselves through different tests to understand where they stand. The schools pay a nominal fee to access the services of the website for their students. As far as the key activities of the website are concerned, the students focus on growth instead of just solving particular mathematics problems. The target customer segment is the schools and even the individual students who wish to improve their mathematical skills. The schools access the services of the website to provide support to their teachers and students. The services are offered online only, mostly through the website of the company.
Introduction
The purpose of this report is to develop a business model canvas for an organisation and determine the critical success factors that have made the business sustainable. The focus is to explore a business model that is often seen to acquire sustainable success and high levels of profitability. The company selected for the report is Maths Pathway, which is an online educational website based in Melbourne. The website is used in a majority of Australian schools for teaching mathematics. This company has provided students with a platform to get rid of their traditional mathematics boredom and giving students an interesting way to study mathematics through their computers. The company was developed in 2015 by Richard Wilson and Justin Matthys, who focussed on improving the mathematics skills of the students. The founders were concerned about the declining interest of the students in the subject and wanted to develop a platform which could provide them an engaging way to learn it. The website is used in over 250 schools and used by over 57000 students across the entire Australia.
The Business Canvas Model is a strategic tool which enables the managers to provide details of the customers they serve, value propositions offered through different channels and how the company generates revenue through it (Davis et al. 2018). It is often used by managers and leaders for having a clear understanding of the vision and mission of the firm.
Value Proposition
The company has an efficient business model and serves 1700 teachers and 57000 students across Australia. The value proposition of Maths Pathway is the engaging website developed by the founders to learn mathematics. It is one of a kind platform which helps the students to learn in an interesting way such that they can feel motivated for learning mathematics even if they have been scoring low in the subject. Due to the fact that the students feel extremely bored of the traditional learning methods in mathematics, the founders developed a website which provides students with exclusive techniques to solve their mathematics queries, make understanding easier with simple tricks and also access diverse worksheets to evaluate their knowledge (Lokey-Vega & Bondeson, 2017). Students usually need handy tricks to cope with the complex problems of mathematics and ensure that they can score well using it. Hence, Maths Pathway helps them achieve their objectives. Besides this, the website also provides access to thousands of worksheets that improve the understanding of the student. Students can practice these worksheets by paying a nominal fee for the membership to the website.
Maths Pathway has individualised learning practical for the students where they can use tools and techniques to understand (Maths Pathway, 2020). Although there might be many such websites available in the Australian market but the USP of Maths Pathway is the ability of the company to ensure that students enjoy their learning sessions instead of feeling bored. The key focus of the Maths Pathway is to grow and not just acquire short-term learning goals. The website offers teachers with support and not complicated paperwork. Students are able to grow mentally so that they have a zeal to practice mathematics. The founders have claimed on the official website of the company that it is no magic instead the focus is on giving the ability to the students to solve problems. The students should progress with one of a kind model.
Key Activities
Maths Pathway is engaged in providing exclusive access to the students to various maths worksheets and also providing techniques to make maths easy for them. The website uses a modular format where the students get a chance to choose their work depending on their proficiency levels (Maths Pathway, 2020). It is not necessary for the students to solve the same tasks. For instance, a student who is a beginner and does not have much knowledge of the concepts can complete the tasks based on this. However, the students who are amateurs can solve complex problems and improve their understanding even more. The website also has tests for the students to evaluate them after solving various worksheets and understanding the techniques. Maths Pathway can be bought by the schools in Australia so that their students can access the learning material of the website. For this, the schools are expected to pay a nominal fee. However, if students want to access the services of the website, they can also do it by paying a fee themselves. There are diverse plans available for the students and schools. The students get feedback and even reports of their evaluations. These reports can be used by the students to improve themselves and acquire better mathematical skills.
Key Resources
The key resources include people, technology and knowledge needed to run the website. The people are the employees of the company who are responsible for adding exclusive content on the website from time to time. The company needs advanced IT infrastructure to extend its services to its target audience (Nguyen, 2015). The knowledge and skills of the employees are used for ensuring the success of the website. The management ensures that these resources are available with the company for effective operations.
Key partners
The key partners of the company include its key stakeholders (Yuan & Powell, 2015). The key partners of Maths Pathway include employees, customers (schools, teachers, students) and suppliers. The website cannot run effectively without its key stakeholders. The management has to keep its partners motivated so that they can keep providing their services to the target audience. The partners of the website collaborate to ensure that the website is updated regularly and extend its services to the customer segment.
Cost structure
The cost structure of the BMC entails the key costs for the company. For Maths Pathway, the key cost is to maintain IT infrastructure for providing seamless experience to the students and teachers. The company has to invest in advanced technology to connect to the schools and teachers and provide them appropriate support.
Customer Segments
The key target segment for Maths Pathway is schools in Australia. The website is exclusively developed for the schools so that they can provide their students with ample support in mathematics. Studies have indicated that students usually face problems in solving complex mathematical problems using traditional learning ways (Yuan & Powell, 2015). This increases the failure rate of the students in mathematics. As a result of this, the founders of Maths Pathway have developed a website which is extremely engaging for the student and has learning content developed as per different proficiency levels of the students. So the schools can access the services of the website for effective results of their students in mathematics.
The presence of Maths Pathway in Australia is depicted in the image below.
Fig 1
Source: https://mathspathway.com/impact-report-2019/our-impact-on-australian-classrooms/
As per the image, Maths Pathway has a wide presence in Australia. The website is used by different types of schools in Australia; Catholic, Government and Independent. The impact of the website in mere 4 years of its development has been huge on the Australian schools (Maths Pathway, 2020). The teachers and students have made the website an integrated part of their mathematical curriculum.
Customer Relationships
As far as customer relationships are concerned, the website has built a diverse clientele for itself in the few years of its starting. The official website of Maths Pathway claims that the impact of the website in 2018 and 2019 has been tremendous such that the overall performance of the students in mathematics has improved (Maths Pathway). Also, teachers have started to learn new and engaging ways to support students in their mathematics study. Teachers are able to have a huge impact in the classroom through a learning and teaching model. The teachers are assisted with new and engaging ways to make students learn. The company has formed engaging relationships with the teachers and students. The relation is expected to strengthen in the coming years.
Channels
Channels include the ways through which the organisation offers its services to the target audience. For the Maths Pathways, the services of the website are available online for the teachers and students. The schools pay a small amount to access the services and extend the support to their teachers and eventually students. Maths Pathway delivers diverse worksheets to the email of the members from time to time such that the students can practice them and expect differentiated feedback (Maths Pathway, 2020). The feedback is constructive and enables the students to work on their weak areas. Besides this, the feedback is even available for the teachers so that they can improve themselves and become better coaches for their students.
Revenue Streams
Maths Pathway does not have multiple revenue streams. However, the website charges a nominal fee from the schools such that they can access the services. On the other hand, the students on an individual basis can also access the services by paying a small amount. As of now, the services are only available for Australian schools and students. However, the company may plan to expand its operations in the near future to international schools and students as well.
Conclusion
To conclude, it can be indicated that the business canvas model is a vital tool for the managers to understand the value proposition, key activities, target customer segment and how the company creates money. For Maths Pathway, it is one of a kind portal developed for the students of Australia to make mathematics extremely interesting for themselves. The company may plan to expand to offer their services to overseas students once they realise the success of their business model. The company has put a good impact on students in previous years and it is expected that this will continue in future as well. For this, the students have to ensure that they keep dealing with the problems of the teachers and students and update new content on the website from time to time. This can help the students to learn in an engaged way and increase the reach of the website in near future.
References
Davis, D., Chen, G., Hauff, C., & Houben, G. J. (2018). Activating learning at scale: A review of innovations in online learning strategies. Computers & Education, 125, 327-344.
Lokey-Vega, A., & Bondeson, K. (2017). Innovation in design of project-based learning for the K-12 online context. In Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 677-684). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Maths Pathway., (2020). About Us. https://mathspathway.com/about-us/. Accessed on 30/8/2020.
Maths Pathway., (2020). Impact report 2019. https://mathspathway.com/impact-report-2019/our-impact-on-australian-classrooms/. Accessed on 30/8/2020.
Nguyen, T. (2015). The effectiveness of online learning: Beyond no significant difference and future horizons. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 11(2), 309-319.
Yuan, L., & Powell, S. J. (2015). Partnership model for entrepreneurial innovation in open online learning. E-learning Papers, 41.