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Scenario-Guided

Business Model Design

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Scenarios can be useful in guiding the design of new business ments. The strategy literature discusses this practice in detail
SCENARIOS SCENARIOS models or innovating around existing models. Like visual thinking under the topic of “scenario planning.” Applying scenario
planning techniques to business model innovation forces
(p. 146), prototyping (p. 160), and storytelling (p. 170), scenarios
render the abstract tangible. For our purposes, their primary refl ection on how a model might have to evolve under certain
182
182 function is to inform the business model development process conditions. This sharpens understanding of the model, and of
by making the design context specifi c and detailed. potentially necessary adaptations. Most important, it helps us
DESIGN Here we discuss two types of scenarios. The fi rst describes differ- prepare for the future.

ent customer settings: how products or services are used, what
kinds of customers use them, or customer concerns, desires, and
objectives. Such scenarios build on customer insights (p. 126),
but go a step further by incorporating knowledge about custom-
ers into a set of distinct, concrete images. By describing a specifi c
situation, a customer scenario makes customer insights tangible.

A second type of scenario describes future environments
in which a business model might compete. The goal here is
not to predict the future, but rather to imagine possible
futures in concrete detail. This exercise helps innova-
tors refl ect on the most appropriate business
model for each of several future environ-

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