Operations
How the model is delivered and sustained
9
Channels and Customer Relationships
Operations Block — How You Reach and Support Stakeholders
Channels and Customer Relationships
Channels and Customer Relationships define how you reach users, economic buyers, and influencers, and how you establish and maintain relationships with them over time.
In healthcare, channels are rarely simple. They may include direct sales teams, distributors, clinical partnerships, digital platforms, or integration into existing workflows and systems.
Customer relationships extend beyond the initial sale. They include onboarding, training, support, and ongoing engagement. In many cases, sustained adoption depends as much on these relationships as on the product itself.
Your task is to define how you will reach each stakeholder group, how trust will be established, and what is required to maintain long-term adoption and use.
10
Key Partners
Operations Block — External Organizations Essential to Delivery
Key Partners
Key Partners are external organizations that are essential to delivering your value proposition. They are strategic operational relationships, not routes to market.
In healthcare, key partners may include manufacturers, suppliers, contract research organizations, clinical research sites, academic medical centers, distributors, reimbursement advisors, or platform providers.
Your task is to identify which external relationships are truly critical to delivery, validation, regulatory progress, or scaling. The test is simple: would losing this relationship materially impair your ability to deliver your value proposition?
Distinguish between operational partners and strategic partners. Operational partners fill capability gaps. Strategic partners are integral to the business model itself and may be foundational to growth beyond the beachhead market.
11
Key Activities
Operations Block — What You Do In-House
Key Activities
Key Activities are the things your company must do itself to deliver its value proposition and sustain its competitive position. These are not generic business functions. They are the activities that are central to making your model work.
In healthcare innovation, key activities often include product development, regulatory execution, evidence generation, quality management, clinical implementation, sales, training, and customer support.
Your task is to identify which activities must be performed internally because they are core to quality, differentiation, or strategic control. If an activity is essential to your competitive position, you should be cautious about outsourcing it.
A strong Key Activities block makes clear what your company must repeatedly do well in order to succeed.
12
Key Resources
Operations Block — Critical Assets That Make the Model Work
Key Resources
Key Resources are the assets your company must have to deliver its value promise and sustain a defensible competitive position. These may be physical, intellectual, regulatory, financial, clinical, or organizational.
Your task is to identify which resources are essential, not merely helpful. These can include intellectual property, proprietary datasets, clinical evidence, regulatory approvals, specialized talent, manufacturing capability, capital, or relationships that cannot be easily replicated.
A strong resource base does more than enable delivery. It creates defensibility. In healthcare, the resources that matter most are often difficult to build and slow to replace.
Always distinguish between resources that are necessary for initial operation and those that are critical for long-term competitive advantage.
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