Business Canvas model for Astitva

The Business Model Canvas Definition Astitva and Business Canvas

by Osterwalder & Pigneur,
2010
1 Customer Segment Customer segment was very clear in the mind of
Anamika. She wanted the “Social and financial
inclusion and empowerment of women and
children from marginalized communities”.
She had a clear boundary where she wanted
to serve women and kids and cater to the
issues faced by them. She chose the area of
women empowerment and providing better
life to the kids from marginalized section.
Anamika chose Wazirpur slums in Delhi ,
largely inhabited by industrial workers. There
were more than 2000 families residing in this
area.
2 Value propositions and key Activity 1: ‘Swavlamban’ias her first
Activities structured activity for Astitva. Swavlamban
was made the major focus area for the
working of Astitva. Anamika with her team
of volunteers conducted intensive skill
development activities for Wazirabad
women. The team taught them to make
crochet products, painted diyas, decorative
candles, decorative envelopes etc. The team
made an extra effort in involving the women
in selling the products they made. This
helped build their confidence, social skills,
and self-reliance, apart from earning money.
From time to time, Anamika organized and
conducted sessions on self-motivation,
personal grooming, and wellness by well-
known experts. As a flagship program, this is
where most of the energy went in
establishing Astitva. The products made by
women were displayed and sold at Diwali
Melas, community cultural programs, school
functions, college fests, corporate events, and
at commercial shops. Anamika and the team
of volunteers at Astitva learnt the full supply
chain – raw material procurement, production
process, quality control, packaging, shipping,
billing, collection etc.

2. Th ‘Samanvay’ii1: Samanvay involved

giving kids from socially disadvantaged
sections of society an opportunity to integrate
1
 with the mainstream and have opportunities
of experiencing what kids from affluent
society experience. The activities included
celebrating Christmas with slum children
every year, followed by lunch and fun
activities, sponsoring education of talented
poor kids, opening of “Sukanya Samriddhi
Yojna”iii accounts organizing talent shows,
Pizza making workshops at Dominos etc. In
this way Team Astitva helped inculcate spirit
of self-confidence and social inclusion in
them. It also involved mainstreaming of
juvenile offenders.

Activity 3: ‘Samaaj’iv (Society).: An activity

wherein several community outreach
programs were carried out like encouraging
people to vote during elections, distributing
free mud containers for providing water
under ‘Save Gorayya’ i. e. Save the Sparrow
campaign, plus organizing several full day
Health Checkup Camps at Wazirpur,
including Eye Checkup, Dental checkup,
General Health, and Neurotherapy camps,
where the needy were provided free
spectacles, and eye operations.

Activity 4: Sammaan (Respect): This activity

was done to acknowledge their good work,
and inspire others to follow their path.
3 Channels 1. Swavlamban’: In the Swaylamban
activity, the products made by
women were displayed and sold at
Diwali Melas, community cultural
programs, school functions, college
fests, corporate events, and at
commercial shops.
2. Samanvay: It involved Dominos and
the banks.
3. ‘Samaaj’v (Society): It required the
doctors, nurses, and medical
equipment’s majorly.
4. Samaan (Respect): Anamika gave
recognition to women achievers from
various fields, including those
contributing to the upliftment of
downtrodden in various fields of
Social Work and Education. This
activity can termed as event, which is
cost centric, and organization apart
 from image building didn’t get any
revenue.

4 Customer Relationship They connect with the women and children of

the Wazirpur by providing them with work like
crochet making, painting diyas, decorating
candles, decorating envelopes and making
bags. They also provided them with the
health checkup. The children were included
in pizza making workshops, Christmas party ,
opening their accounts.
5 Revenue Streams Both the activities Swaylamban and Samanvay
were highly cost centric and didn’t have the laid
plan for the revenue. It woud have been more
appropriate if they would have opened the
stitching centre for women where the revenue
could have been sustained and any skill
development for children e.g. computer learning
which could fetch them sustainable living.
The Samaaj activity too was highly cost centric ,
instead of arranging the health camps, she could
have tied with the hospital for free checkup.
The Samaan was done to give the recognition to
women in social work and education. The activity
didn’t generate any revenue. All the activities
were cost centric and didn’t provide any revenue
which made it unsustainable.
For the social enterprise to be sustainable, the

equation should be:

Revenues (R) +F (Finances) > Expenditure

(E)

If market revenues are less than the

expenditures (R – E < 0), then the social
enterprise needs more social investments
(F>0), so that it is sustainable. The important
point to consider with respect to economic
performance, is whether the enterprise
generates revenues in excess of expenditure
(R >E), or whether funds are required (F>0).
In case of Astitva, Revenues came from the

sale of products at Fairs, Malls, Shops etc.

Finances came from self funding and

partner/sponsors for specific items on a case

 to case basis. The expenses included space

rent, raw material cost, transportation, office

expenses, minimum salary to women etc.,

Since revenues were always less than the

expenditures (R – E < 0), Astitva always was

in need of more investments (F>0), so that it

would become sustainable. Ideally, the

revenues should have exceeded expenditure

(R>E), so that funds were not required. This

was the Achilles heel of Astitva.

6 Key Resources 1. Swavlamban: The key resources

required to make the activity
successful was arrange funds, manage
transportation, raw material
procurement.
2. Samanvay: The key resource was the
arranging the funds for every activity.
It was not a one-time investment
where they could reap the benefits
later. The major resources required
were Transport partner, Snacks
partner, Photography, Gifting partner,
Mementos partner.

3. Samaaj: This activity was also cost

intensive. The resources required
Hall, photographer, food and gifts.
8 Cost Structure 1. Swavlamban: They didn’t work on
the cost structure of the activity nor
did they analyse how much it would
cost them.
2. Samanvay: It was highly skewed with
related to funds and never thought
they are investing highly in the
activity like Chritmas parties, pizza
making workshops at Domino’s or
other fun related parties, talent shows
or sponsoring the talented kinds or
 opening of Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna.
3. Samaan: This event was done to
recognize the work of people who
contributed in the upliftment of the
marginalized people. Again Anamika
never thought that this investment
won’t have any impact on the lives of
women and children from Wazirpur.
i
Swavlamban means Self-Empowerment
ii
Samanvay means Social Inclusion
iii
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana i.e. Girl Child Prosperity Scheme is a government of India scheme for financial inclusion
of girl child
iv
Samaaj means society
v
Samaaj means society

The above table supports how the key components interact and how the value is created. It

describes the eight components and supports the rationale of the social business model. It is not

necessary that all the nine components are needed to characterize the nature of the model. It is very

important to understand the revenue needs to generated from the social enterprise also, and make all

the activities centric towards this concept and also adding the value proposition.