Answer No.

Wikipedia is one of the most popular encyclopedias on digital

platforms and the largest source of information over the internet with
huge variety of information categories. It is free for the users and open
for collaboration. Like all the established businesses or companies,
Wikipedia also has a significantly decorated business model that they
follow to operate the business successfully.

Business Model Canvas of Wikipedia

The business model canvas of Wikipedia is being elaborated below:

Value Propositions
Wikipedia’s one of the strongest proposition is their value addition. It helps information seekers
with the vast number of articles and sources of information. As this is free for the visitors and
free to edit if necessary, Wikipedia is considered as a free encyclopedia. Wikipedia helps the
information seekers with the diverse information and it’s putting a significant impact on the
culture, education, religion and many other sectors. So, the business model of Wikipedia
encourages to add more values in their service.

Customer Segments
In case of customer segmentation, Wikipedia divides the customer segments in some criteria.
Wikipedia has a massive customer base who visit the Wikipedia’s website regularly. People from
diverse background use this for daily basis, especially students, teachers, researchers and also
from many other backgrounds sometimes depend on the vast resources of Wikipedia.

Customer Relationships
Customer Relationship can be considered as one of the crucial factors of a business. The
relationship between the customers and company determines the company growth and
sustainability. Wikipedia is also well known for the characteristics of a user friendly platform.
The visitors who visit the Wikipedia for any kind of information can also contribute with their
information. For the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, the end users find it very interesting.
Wikipedia focuses of the customer satisfaction. This focus drives to maintain a very good
relationship with the customers.
Channels
Channels are basically referred as the medium. Every business has some fixed channels that they
maintain. Wikipedia completely depends on the Internet as it is an internet platform. Wikipedia
operates its business and provides services through the official website and mobile app of
Wikipedia. Many educational institution are also now supporting the Wikipedia. Though
Wikipedia doesn’t have any offline channels active at this moment, the online channels are being
operated successfully.

Key Partners
The key partners of the gigantic Wikipedia are huge in numbers as Wikipedia is dependent on
them for their operation. The Internet crowd is the potential contributor or visitor of Wikipedia.
Among the crowd, there are information seekers, visitors, collaborators, publishers, editors and
many others who are directly involved with the Wikipedia. Wikipedia also has open source
community that works as the source of information. Being a nonprofit organization, Wikipedia
has a base of donors and the nonprofit Wikimedia foundation. The Wikipedia is being operated
by the collaboration of these key partners.

Key Activities
In a business model it is very crucial to identify the key activities of a business. Key activities are
the basic and main activities or operations that occurs inside a business. Wikipedia’s key
activities includes the administrative activities, editorial activities, managerial activities and
many other activities. The updates in the Wikipedia website also falls under the key activities of
Wikipedia. Also, Wikipedia has a process for the quality checkup of the content and information,
which falls under the key activities too. Another vital activity of Wikipedia is the multilingual
system that offers the visitor to have the information in their preferred language.

Key Resources
Key resources are the resources that play the most significant role in the business. Wikipedia is a
global platform and the top management level decision makers are the main key resources who
are currently managing the operation with their ideas and decisions. But, the human resources
who are involved in the operation of Wikipedia, are also the key resources because the skilled
human resources are always the key resources of a business. Also, the affiliations of Wikipedia
are the key resources and also the reputation it has gained over years is the crucial key resource
for Wikipedia. Nevertheless, the information directory and the storage cloud of information of
Wikipedia are the key resources of Wikipedia.

Cost Structure
Wikipedia has a vast operation and for such vast business organization the cost structure must be
well developed. Wikipedia maintains the costs like variable cost, fixed cost, overhead and
variable cost, IT expenses and many others expenditure very efficiently. Besides these costs
Wikipedia also carries the legal costs, employee salaries, expenses for software development as
their expenses. All these expenses aren’t monthly basis, some are quarterly and yearly basis too.

Revenue Stream
As we all know that Wikipedia is a free platform for the visitors and users. Here people have the
access to all the information absolutely for free. The cost structure of Wikipedia is very simple
and straight forwarded. Wikipedia runs its business over the donations and sponsorships of its
affiliated companies and organizations.
Answer No. 2

eBay, an American e-commerce corporation which

is well known for the online shopping and also
online auction. eBay is the meeting platform of
buyers and sellers and a huge market place for both
B2C and C2C. This giant e-commerce site is
successfully operating its business with a vast but
well maintained business model.

Business Model Canvas of eBay

The business model canvas of eBay is being elaborated below:

Value Proposition
eBay is one of the leading online market places in the world and eBay has a very reputation for
making a platform to bring the buyers and sellers at one place. eBay is the place where a
customer can get anything he/she wishes to buy and similarly a seller can sell anything as there
are huge number of buyers with varieties of needs. Also eBay has inaugurated a facility for the
buyers where the buyers can search their desired items by uploading the photo. So, from the
point of view of value proposition, eBay provides valuable service and facilities to both buyers
and sellers.

Customer Segments
eBay has a vast market in its target and so eBay focuses on mass market where there are
potential buyers and sellers. In case of customer segments of ebay, this segments are very much
simple and clear because there aren’t any complications to find the correct target group. People
from every segments need to buy things for their own need and similarly people from any group
can sell their products if they want. So, eBay targets mass market, especially buyers and sellers
as their customer segments.

Customer Relationships
Customers are the main concern for the businesses and this is the same in case of eBay too. eBay
offers loyalty premium to the regular sellers and buyers to keep them motivated and for
maintaining a good relationship with the customers. eBay sometimes offers rewards to the loyal
and regular customers. Also, eBay maintains a user community where there are regular sellers
and buyers participate proactively. eBay has achieved a level of trust among the customers and
this made the relationship stronger.

Channels
eBay is the market place that operates its business through the digital platform. eBay’s activities
are completely based on the internet. eBay uses multiple channels to operate their business and
eBay’s operations are done through the websites, mobile apps, digital stores, social networking
sites and shipping companies.

Key Partners
Key partners can be referred to the partners who play vital roles in the business. The major
partners of eBay are the investors who finance the business, shoppers who purchases things
using their platform, the shipping companies who do the shipments of the orders, vendors, parcel
companies and the financial acquisition partner like PayPal. PayPal is a very crucial key partner
because it provides the safe and secured money transaction gateway service.

Key Activities
As eBay operates its business completely over the internet, it needs to develop and maintain their
website and app on a regular basis. eBay does its business by the customers for the customers as
eBay works as an intermediary between the sellers and the buyers. The logistics support is the
very vital activity of eBay, as the shipment is a very crucial issue. Besides all these, eBay
provides the quality customer services to the customers to ensure the maximum customer
satisfaction. As already mentioned eBay follows both B2C and C2C business model and the
online auction is the main concern of eBay, the key activities are pretty much in diversified in
this case.

Key Resources
eBay is a well-established e-commerce and online auction platform. The brands and the
partnerships, seller ratings etc. are the key resources of eBay. But in case of most valuable
resource, eBay has a huge directory of buyers and sellers information and that’s the big data. So,
eBay has a good range of key resources and the business good will of eBay is also an asset for
the eBay.
Cost Structure
Being such a gigantic company, eBay has a significantly maintained cost structure. All the
expenses for the business are included here. As eBay is a business based on the internet, the
platforms have to be maintained on a regular basis. The cost of maintenance is pretty significant.
The logistics expenses and the salaries of the employees also fall under the business cost. There
is also a certain expense behind the customer service and promotional activities of brand. So, all
these costs are included in the list of cost structure of eBay.

Revenue Stream
eBar never charges the buyers who purchase anything using the website of eBay. But eBay
charges the seller while listing their sale ads in the website of eBay. eBay is a platform of
advertising a business. eBay earns through the advertising charge from the brands and also there
are online event ticket trading system available on eBay, so they generate revenue from this too.
Being a large company eBay has a huge and vast sources of generating revenue.
Answer No. 3

LinkedIn is a very famous social media platform well

known for professional networking. LinkedIn is a platform
where the job seekers can create their own profile and also
they can upload their resumes for the recruiters. Similarly, the recruiters can post their job
vacancies to search for the candidates. Being wholly owned subsidized by the leading tech
company Microsoft, LinkedIn has already gained popularity with huge number of registered
accounts over 150 countries.

Business Model Canvas of LinkedIn

The Business Model Canvas of LinkedIn has been discussed below:

Value Proposition
Being a global social media platform, LinkedIn has a great reputation for managing the user
profiles in a professional way. LinkedIn helps the users to get identified by the right people and
also helps to get reached to the target audience. LinkedIn also works as a learning and publishing
platform both. So, LinkedIn adds huge value in creating a professional social media profile.

Customer Segments
The customer segment of LinkedIn is bit thinner than other social media. But still the internet
users fall under the target segment of LinkedIn. The recruiters of any organization, the
advertisers and marketers are also under the target segment of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is very well-
known for the professional features and facilities among the target segments of LinkedIn.

Customer Relationships
LinkedIn is a social interaction platform that allows the members to create and maintain
professional profiles and also connections. The job listings and online recruiting system also play
significant role in developing customer relationships. LinkedIn also offers the users the facility
of co-creation.
Channels
LinkedIn operates its business through various channels and ways. LinkedIn’s main channel of
operation is their website and mobile app. LinkedIn tends to create a user friendly platform so
that the user find it convenient and easy to use.

Key Partners
LinkedIn has a bunch of key partners who play important role in the operation of LinkedIn. The
community of LinkedIn, the influencer’s community, the content creators are also some of the
key partners of LinkedIn. As it is known to all the LinkedIn is now owned by Microsoft, so the
giant Microsoft is one of the most vital key partners of LinkedIn. Besides the other acquisitions
like Lynda and SlideShare are also very crucial key partners of LinkedIn who play very
important roles in the business of LinkedIn.

Key Activities
The main activities of LinkedIn is to maintain the professional networking and the features in
their social media platform. Also, the regular development of this platform is important too. As it
is always needed to upgrade to keep pace with the modern world and technology. So, the
research and development is much needed for upgrading and LinkedIn also considers R&D and
marketing activities among their key activities. Also, being a social media platform in online, the
upgradation of software and hardware, IT maintenance, operations and some other activities are
mandatory too. So, LinkedIn has a bunch of key activities that they maintain to operate their
business smoothly.

Key Resources
One of the main key resources of the LinkedIn is their very own platform. They have already
gained a well-known brand name which is also the most significant resource they have at this
moment. The management, employees and whoever are linked with the business operation are
very much crucial for the business. In today’s world, the most valuable thing is data and
LinkedIn has the big data of the users of LinkedIn. LinkedIn has around 500 million members in
their community which is undoubtedly their most valuable resource.

Cost Structure
LinkedIn has very organized cost structure which helps them to keep track of their regular
expenditure. The cost structure is pretty vast in case of LinkedIn as it is a huge platform. So, all
the expenses like administrative cost, software and hardware cost, employees’ salaries, legal
costs, taxes and many other expenditures fall under the cost structure of LinkedIn. These costs
are measured and the costs are tracked according to their fields because the cost structure should
be recorded for flawless expenditure management.

Revenue Stream
As LinkedIn has an absolutely free version for general users, they don’t earn from the free
subscriptions. But LinkedIn charges the users for premium subscription which includes advanced
services. LinkedIn also earns revenue from the talent acquisition and hiring process where the
recruiters pay for job listings, pay per click type jobs advertisements. LinkedIn earns revenue
from the marketing solutions they provide like advertising through their platform. These sources
generate earnings for LinkedIn.