Nine Building Blocks Of Afresh Business Model

Question

Task: Conduct a report on the deconstruction of Afresh business model and also explain the interrelationship between the nine building blocks of Afresh business model.

Answer

Introduction
For every business like Afresh, it is of primal importance to have a definitive Afresh business model, and it allows in figuring out some of the essential elements to the point where customer value has been created (Habjan & Pucihar, 2017). It eventually allows an organization to becoming capable of solving market associated problems and maintain its competitive dominance. This business model deconstruction would be based on the organization named Afresh.

Description of Business, Industry, Market, Products and Services
The organization that has been chosen for business model deconstruction is Afresh. This organization selected to build the Afresh business model is mainly inclined towards facilitating companies in preventing the waste that they generate. The company is ignited towards making a relevant change in the entire system and would ensure that any kind of fresh food has not been wasted. The company operates in the food industry and would be abiding their services to grocery stores mainly. The number of waste generated by all of these stores and the markets alike are turning out to hurt the entire environment. The company was founded in the year of 2016 with 14 employees, and the team is constantly growing.

Figure 1: Characteristics of Afresh
(Source: Afreshtechnologies.com, 2020)

The mission of the company used to is to facilitate their partners and clients alike to add billions in terms of profits by averaging 50%+ waste reduction across all the retail and grocery stores present worldwide (Afreshtechnologies.com, 2020).

Figure 2: Per Capita Food Loss and Wastage
(Source: Fao.org, 2015)

The figure provided above demonstrates the numbers of losses that occur each year in almost every essential country. The waste needs to be minimized to deal with the consequences of climate change in an effective manner, and thus, a proper monitoring technique must be developed as well.

How will you deconstruct the Afresh business model by using nine building blocks?
According to Austin (2020), the use of a business model canvas is considered essential for every start-up because it ensures that it works as strategic management and lean start-up template for all of the beginners in their respective industries. The use of an appropriate visual chart would allow in understanding the business model of Afresh as well. (Refer to Appendix)

Customer Segments
According to An et al. (2018), customer segmentation of Afresh business model can be done by categorizing them into behavioural, psychographic, demographic and geographic. For a company like Afresh, the use of behavioural segmentation adds value and the people who have a positive behaviour towards waste management and advanced technology are considered vital. Also, both online and offline retail and grocery stores are viable options as well.

Key Partners
According to França et al. (2017), the key partners of an organization plays an essential role in helping them to emerge from thick and thin. The team of the company are its vital partners, and the advisors and investors are of primal importance for the new beginners of the industry.

Value Proposition
The value proposition of Afresh business model resolves around advanced technology and making sure that enough attention has been paid towards their ability to empower people at the maximum. The absolute amount of technological advancement, the backing from Stanford, the inclusion of AI (Artificial Intelligence) for their business and ecological measure for their business makes it a viable one in the entire food and beverage industry.

Key Activities
In the words of Gierej (2017), the key activities of an organization must have the ability to represent a necessary amount of urgency and importance in their services and the potential they have in terms of offering value for the consumers. The situation of Afresh is extremely vital, and the key activities of the company would comprise of minimizing wastage, empowering people, contributing to sustainable development and others.

Channels
This block of Afresh business model illustrates that the channels are an effective way to let people know that all of the services of the company can be easily availed if there is a definitive and easy option to reach out to them. Since the services that are offered by Afresh are extremely valuable and can be used for the beneficiary aspect of any grocery store. In the case of Afresh, the company uses both online and offline distribution channels. They have an office space and uses social media and their official website as a means for people reaching out to them.

Revenue Streams
The company generates cash from individual consumers who work in fresh produce, as it has been mentioned in the customer segment. Meanwhile, the proficient retailers and grocery store chains act as a major client base a revenue generator for the company. Being a start-up having reputable clients are a major source of income for Afresh.

Cost Structure
According to Fjeldstad & Snow (2018), the cost structure of the company depends on how much their activities can earn revenue for the company. It can be said that the use of advanced technology accompanied with cost leadership strategy has been a major source of income for the company.

Key Resources
According to Joyce & Paquin (2016), the key resources of an organization comprises of their intellectual property, both tangible and intangible ideas and their ability to attract a decent client base. It is the team of the company comprising of CEO, CTO and CFO who form an integral part of the entire team. The human resources, financial resources and technological resources form an integral part of the organization.

Customer Relationships
While assuring that business flourishes rapidly, it is essential to maintain an affirmative relationship with all of the customers. The use of social media and a separate customer relationship management (CRM) team by the organization ensures that they can remain connected with the company for all of their needs.

Key Interrelationships Existing
The key interrelationship between most of the blocks of Afresh business model establishes the foundation of the business model and the way it will manage to benefit a business at an exponential level (Ritter & Lettl, 2018). The key resources of the company are responsible for the finalization of their key activities in the market. Similarly, the value proposition provided by the company about their key activities attracts their decided customer segment. The ability to avail all of the services from the company ensures that the revenue streams for Afresh is constantly flowing and they can continue their operations accordingly. Thus, it would not be false to claim that the interrelationship between all of the building blocks facilitates the success of the company.

Critical Success Factors basis the Afresh business model
The ability to generate sustainability is an extremely crucial factor for most of the businesses because it proposes with a decent amount of obstacles beginning with operational costs (Yeoh & Popovi?, 2016). However, the situation of Afresh is completely different from the others. Thus, the following CSF would be beneficial in allowing the company to gain the maximum amount of success:

• To be able to engage in business deals with some of the multinational companies around the world
• The ability to maintain consistency in profitable revenue streams
• Ensuring the development of innovative ways to maintain customer relationships
• Continue using the business model that allows them to leverage their technological advancement and AI to complete potential

Factors Responsible for the Success of the Afresh business model
The key factors responsible for the success of the Afresh business model are their approach to their sustainability and the technological advancement that has been preached by Afresh. With the constantly changing business environment, it is of primal importance that a company can understand the significance that their innovation adds to their businesses (Long, Looijen & Blok, 2018). The scenario of the company where it has been said that the use of human-centric- AI is popular, that is where the attraction of consumers begun. It can be said that essentially, it was mainly the value proposition that made the company extremely virtuous and attractive in front of their important clients and consumers.

Changes that could be Made
If there could be some changes considering the deconstructed Afresh business model that could be made, then the learner would recommend the following things for Afresh:

• Emphasize on having a better marketing strategy and attracting a wide range of people. It is essential to popularize the services that the company has to offer.
• The company can be equally prominent about starting their business at a much ground level. It implies that the company can approach numerous farmers and small stores to ensure that all kinds of wastage have been stopped at the grass-root level.
• In the food and beverage industry, the company should also take an initiative to deal with animal husbandry as well to ensure that cruelty-free products can be introduced in the market.

Conclusion
This discussion and deconstruction of the Afresh business model allowed in a better understanding of how business models function. It also showed its importance in the case of various start-ups, that are trying to establish themselves in the market. One of the integral aspects that have been found herein Afresh business model is the fact that if a company can leverage technology can gain prominent success in the market and with the right amount of capital and human resources, a good business can be set up.

References
Afreshtechnologies.com. (2020). Afresh Technologies. Retrieved from https://afreshtechnologies.com/

An, J., Kwak, H., Jung, S. G., Salminen, J., & Jansen, B. J. (2018). Customer segmentation using online platforms: isolating behavioral and demographic segments for persona creation via aggregated user data. Afresh business model Social Network Analysis and Mining, 8(1), 54.

Austin, E. C. (2020). BUSINESS SURVIVAL GROWTH MODEL (BSGM) CANVAS VS BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS (BMC). European Journal of Business and Innovation Research, 8(1), 52-68.

Fao.org. (2015). Global food losses and food waste. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/a-i2697e.pdf

Fjeldstad, Ø. D., & Snow, C. C. (2018). Business models and organization design. Long Range Planning, 51(1), 32-39.

França, C. L., Broman, G., Robert, K. H., Basile, G., & Trygg, L. (2017). An approach to business model innovation and design for strategic sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 155-166.

Gierej, S. (2017). The framework of business model in the context of Industrial Internet of Things. Procedia Engineering, 182(2017), 206-212.

Habjan, K. B., & Pucihar, A. (2017). The importance of business model factors for cloud computing adoption: role of previous experiences. Organizacija, 50(3), 255-272.

Joyce, A., & Paquin, R. L. (2016). The triple layered business model canvas: A tool to design more sustainable business models. Journal of cleaner production, 135, 1474-1486.

Long, T. B., Looijen, A., & Blok, V. (2018). Critical success factors for the transition to business models for sustainability in the food and beverage industry in the Netherlands. Afresh business model Journal of cleaner production, 175, 82-95.

Ritter, T., & Lettl, C. (2018). The wider implications of business-model research. Long Range Planning, 51(1), 1-8.

Yeoh, W., & Popovi?, A. (2016). Extending the understanding of critical success factors for implementing business intelligence systems. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67(1), 134-147.

Appendix
Afresh business model