3 Ways to Illustrate Business Model Canvas Using PowerPoint

Explaining how the company operates can get pretty complex. One of the frequently used business model frameworks is Business Model Canvas (Alex Osterwalder describes it in his book “Business Model Generation”). This model effectively grasps all key elements of how a company operates and enables one to see the big picture.

Adding catchy visuals and diagrams to illustrate this framework will help you get people’s interest and support an understanding of the specific business model. Here we share ideas of how you can present the full picture and details of BMC on a slide clearly and simply.

All slide examples below are from Business Model Canvas PPT template. Click the pictures to see the details.

When designing the graphics for the canvas, we wanted to help people use this model without extra hassle. So they can focus on fulfilling the canvas content, not creating the graphics from scratch. Tell us, if we managed :). One of the first user testimonials was:

Your graphics are a lifesaver! I’ve always struggled with recreating it in PowerPoint.
I wasn’t looking for a Business Model Canvas presentation template because it never occurred to me that there was one. So I feel very lucky about the discovery.

– Terry Ribb, Relevens, Inc.

Business Model Canvas in a Nutshell

Business Canvas is a well-known strategic management tool for developing new business models (e.g. for start-ups) or documenting and improving existing ones. BMC is a widely used framework by companies and startups to analyze their strategy and to apply the lean startup approach.

The Business Model Canvas is based on a simple visual representation of core activities, resources, and partners. All elements are put into one model, as a kind of jigsaw puzzle. Their position reflects the activities flow, from resources, activities, and value definition, towards customers. It includes all the main players in the functioning of the company.

The Business Model Canvas framework helps a company align its activities and understand the potential trade-offs. You can explain the core elements that drive the business on a single page using this model (read more about BMC here).

Unlike other business models (SWOT or PEST for example), Business Model Canvas includes a set of important internal factors driving a business (value proposition, revenue streams, or customer relationships) that proved to be key success factors in the rise of companies such as Amazon or Nescafe.

Presenting Components of Business Model Canvas

The Canvas has nine elements and together they provide a pretty coherent view of a business’s key drivers:

1. Customer Segments: Who are the customers? What do they think? See? Feel? Do?
2. Value Propositions: What’s compelling about the proposition? Why do customers buy, and use?
3. Channels: How are these propositions promoted, sold, and delivered? Why? Is it working?
4. Customer Relationships: How do you interact with the customer through their ‘journey’?
5. Revenue Streams: How does the business earn revenue from the value propositions?
6. Key Activities: What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition?
7. Key Resources: What unique strategic assets must the business have to compete?
8. Key Partnerships: What can the company not do so it can focus on its Key Activities?
9. Cost Structure: What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?

For visualizing each part of the business canvas you can use slides with elegant outline icons and virtual sticky notes:

To present the whole model on one slide we prepared slide versions in three different visual styles:

Light modern style with Outline Icons

You can use this light mono-color deck with subtle yet modern outline icons when you want to focus on section names and content. Such a template will suit any presentation and audience.

Simple flat sections and sticky notes

Use simple flat icons when you want to make them small, as they still remain recognizable even if shrunk to a pretty small size. The sticky note graphics create a nice natural-looking design of the whole canvas. You can alter the color of the note cards, they are all editable vector shapes.

Getting the creative look with hand-drawn canvas symbols

The third variation you can reuse is with creative scribble icons. You can choose the multi-color canvas layout or the one that has all 9 sections colored in the same way.

Choose a canvas style that fits your business or product better, whether you want to create a more unique, modern, or functional presentation.

Putting the Business Model Canvas presentation in PowerPoint format and asking your whole team to collaborate on it is a great way to make sure that everyone understands what you have in mind. A collaborative approach brings up new ideas as well.

Graphical Resources – the BMC template

To help you prepare fresh attractive slides, we designed this universal editable slide deck for presenting a business model canvas. It’s designed for PowerPoint, however, you can import this template to other presentation software, e.g. Google Slides or Keynote.

What’s inside the Business Model Canvas PPT Template?

The template contains pre-designed layouts and visuals for each canvas element. You can easily replace existing images, adapt content to describe your business idea, and encourage others to brainstorm on it.

The PowerPoint template with diagrams and symbols representing all nine areas of BMC contains:

• Diagram overview with all areas on one slide with a place for short text or editable Post-it notes.
• 9 single slides to describe each part in detail with more space for text.
• Over 20 icon symbols represent key activities, key resources, partner networks, and value propositions. Followed by channels, customer segments, and relationships.
• The template contains slides in three graphical styles: unique scribble graphics, modern outline icons, and simple flat icons.

If you enjoyed the graphics above, you can see the full deck and get it here:

Canvas PowerPoint Slide Redesign Guide

See four tips on how to design creative BMC slides:

If you need more business frameworks a roadmap, business review, SWOT, or PEST, then visit our Business & Marketing diagrams page.

Looking for a single symbol to illustrate the business concept, like strategy, competition, process, or other? Check our blog, where we gathered ideas for illustrating abstract concepts with only one icon.

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