Feeling overwhelmed by a long list of tasks and activities? Struggle to prioritize what needs to get done first? Sorting key activities is a simple but essential skill. It can help you manage your time and achieve your goals more effectively.

In this guide, we’ll break down the process of sorting key activities into manageable steps. This way, you can take control of your to-do list and tackle your important tasks with confidence.

What are Key Activities in a Business?

Businesses have key activities that deliver value to customers. These may include production, problem-solving, and platform/network activities.

Production involves designing, manufacturing, and delivering a product. Problem-solving activities create solutions for customer problems. Platform/network activities focus on managing, provisioning, and promoting a platform or network.

For instance, a manufacturing firm prioritizes production, a consultancy focuses on problem-solving, and an e-commerce platform like eBay emphasizes managing its website.

Essentially, the main activities in a business enable it to create, deliver, and capture value.

Why Key Activities Matter for Your Business

Businesses have many important tasks. These include production, problem-solving, and platform/network activities. Production involves making and delivering products in large quantities and high quality. Problem-solving focuses on solving individual customer problems. Platform/network activities manage a platform, provide services, and promote the platform.

These tasks are crucial because they directly impact the value provided to customers. It’s important for startups to identify and prioritize these tasks so they can focus on what really matters to their business. If a business doesn’t recognize its key activities, it may waste time and resources on less important tasks, which can hinder its success.

The top 3 priority tasks for a business are usually those that directly contribute to creating and delivering value to the customers. Identifying these priority tasks is essential for the business to streamline its operations and achieve its strategic objectives.

Everyday Jobs: What You Must Do

Business professionals identify main activities by figuring out what’s needed to deliver value to customers. These activities fall into three categories: production, problem-solving, and platform/network.

Production activities are important for manufacturing firms and involve designing, making, and delivering products. Problem-solving activities are crucial for consultancies, hospitals, and service organizations, requiring the creation of new solutions and ongoing training.

Platform/network activities are seen in businesses with platform-based resources and cover platform management, service provision, and promotion.

These basic business actions are important for everyday jobs as they help create value and maintain a competitive edge. Each activity needs focused attention in a business model to ensure effective and efficient execution.

Making Stuff: Is This What Your Business Does?

Businesses have three main categories of activities: production, problem-solving, and platform/network related.

For instance, production involves creating, making, and delivering products in large quantities. Meanwhile, problem-solving includes finding new solutions for individual customer problems, common in consultancies and service organizations.

Platform/network activities focus on managing interfaces, service provisioning, and platform promotion, as seen in companies like eBay, Visa, and Microsoft.

To determine the most important jobs in a business, it’s important to prioritize these activities and identify the ones essential for delivering value propositions to customers. This is especially important for startups.

Problem-Solving: Helping Your Customers

Businesses can effectively help customers solve their problems by implementing strategies such as knowledge management and continuous training. These activities ensure that employees have the necessary skills to develop new solutions to individual customer problems. Key activities involved in problem-solving for customers include consultancies, hospitals, and other service organizations.

These activities also relate to platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion for businesses with a platform or network as a key resource. By categorizing key activities as production, problem-solving, and platform/network related, businesses can identify the necessary activities to deliver value propositions to their customers. This approach allows organizations to prioritize key activities effectively and deliver exceptional problem-solving to their customers, especially for startups.

Platforms and Networks: Is Your Business a Hub for Others?

Businesses can play a vital role by positioning themselves as platforms or networks. They may develop software or brands that link various entities within an industry. This involves activities such as platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion. Continuous development is necessary to ensure the platform effectively serves different users. By connecting entities, a business helps create a network that facilitates interactions and transactions.

For example, Visa manages a credit card transaction platform, facilitating connections and transactions in the financial industry.

Choosing the Most Important Jobs in Your Business

The most important jobs in a business directly contribute to its success. They ensure that value propositions are delivered to customers. This is crucial for the quality of products and their ability to solve specific customer problems.

Identifying the most important jobs involves prioritizing key activities, especially for startups. Prioritizing helps allocate resources efficiently and effectively.

Key activities can be categorized into production, problem-solving, and platform/network activities.

The impact of these crucial jobs on overall operations and performance is significant. Examples of vital jobs include designing, manufacturing, and delivering a product, developing new solutions to customer problems, and managing platform networks and service provisioning.

The effectiveness of these key activities directly affects the business’s success.

The Things You Do First: Top 3 To-Dos

When starting a business, the first three things to do are:

1. Identify production activities.
2. Problem-solve.
3. Build platforms/networks to deliver value propositions to customers.

Prioritizing and choosing the most important jobs in a business involves analyzing the business model and categorizing key activities. For example:

• Producing substantial quantities of high-quality products.
• Coming up with new solutions to customer problems.
• Maintaining platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion.

The initial business activities should focus on:

• Designing, manufacturing, and delivering products.
• Finding new solutions to individual customer problems.
• Building and maintaining a platform or network for the business model to function at its best capacity.

Are You Starting a Business?

Starting and running a business involves various important activities. Understanding these tasks is crucial for success. Key activities include production, problem-solving, and building networks.

For example, producing and delivering a product falls under production, while consultancies and hospitals focus on problem-solving. Businesses with a network or platform as a key resource require specific activities related to management, service provisioning, and promotion. It’s important for individuals to align these activities with their skills and interests, as this significantly impacts the venture’s success. Having a clear understanding of these activities is critical for entrepreneurs.

Types of Key Jobs for Different Businesses

Making Things: Production Jobs

Production activities involve designing, manufacturing, and delivering products in large quantities and/or of high quality. In a business, these activities may include tasks like designing new products, optimizing manufacturing processes for efficiency, and ensuring timely and cost-effective delivery of goods to customers. They directly impact the quality, availability, and cost of the products offered.

Key responsibilities of production jobs include managing inventory, maintaining equipment, implementing quality control, and seeking ways to improve the production process. These tasks are crucial for consistently meeting customer needs and expectations.

Helping Customers: Jobs in Service

Service jobs are important for helping customers in different industries.

Some key jobs in service include problem-solving, knowledge management, continuous training, and service provisioning.

For example, consultancies and hospitals use problem-solving to provide personalized solutions to customer issues. Businesses with platform-based models, like eBay and Visa, need platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion to support their customers.

Additionally, software companies like Microsoft manage the interface between software vendors and operating systems to ensure a smooth experience for their customers.

Creating Connections: Platform and Network Jobs

Platform and network jobs include platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion. These activities are important for businesses that rely on networks, matchmaking platforms, and software, as well as brands that function as a platform.

For example, eBay continually develops and maintains its platform, while Visa requires activities related to its credit card transaction platform. Similarly, Microsoft manages the interface between other vendors’ software and its Windows operating system platform.

These jobs are important because they help businesses create and maintain connections with customers, merchants, and banks. These connections are crucial for sustained business growth and success.

For instance, eBay’s platform connects buyers and sellers, Visa’s platform connects merchants, customers, and banks, and Microsoft’s platform connects software vendors and its operating system.

Businesses can create these connections by recognizing the significance of activities related to platform management, service provisioning, and platform promotion. By investing in these activities, businesses can establish and strengthen connections with their target audience, leading to business growth and success.

Typical Jobs: Research, Making, and Selling

Studying and Making New Things: Research & Development

Businesses engage in key activities such as production, problem-solving, and building platforms/networks. These activities directly impact the delivery of value propositions to customers.

Production activities involve designing, manufacturing, and delivering products, and are important for manufacturing firms.

Problem-solving activities are crucial for consultancies and service organizations to come up with new solutions.

In the digital age, building platform and network activities are vital for businesses such as eBay, Visa, and Microsoft.

Identifying key activities is important for startups to prioritize tasks and allocate resources effectively.

Businesses can assess their business model canvas and understand critical activities through research, data analysis, and continuous evaluation of customer needs and market trends.

Creating Products: More on Production

Creating and delivering a product in large quantities and high quality are important parts of the production process for a business. This includes designing, making, and distributing the products. The production activities are important for ensuring that the products meet quality standards and reach customers on time. Specific tasks in production may involve sourcing raw materials, setting up efficient manufacturing processes, quality control, and managing inventory.

These tasks are vital for smooth and efficient product production, ultimately leading to the success of the business.

Getting the Word Out: Marketing Strategies

Effective marketing strategies for getting the word out about a business include:

1. digital advertising.
2. content marketing.
3. social media marketing.
4. search engine optimization.

These strategies help businesses reach a broad audience and engage with potential customers. By creating compelling content and using the right platforms, businesses can effectively reach and engage with their target audience.

Building platforms and networks play a crucial role in marketing strategies for businesses. They can leverage platforms and networks to expand their reach and connect with their audience in new and innovative ways, such as through matchmaking platforms, software, or brand partnerships.

An effective marketing strategy also involves managing the interface between other vendors’ software and platforms, service provisioning, and platform promotion. All of these key activities contribute to successful marketing strategies for businesses.

Sales and Support: Talking to Your Customers

Communicating well with customers can make a big difference for a business. Listening to their feedback, addressing concerns, and giving them the information they need can help build trust and satisfaction. Understanding and meeting customer needs during sales and support involves things like giving personalized recommendations, responding promptly to inquiries, and being honest about products or services.

It’s also important to train and support sales and support teams so they can communicate effectively, using tools like CRM systems to keep track of interactions. These strategies are really important for keeping customers happy and boosting sales.

Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Business Jobs

How Do You Figure Out Your Main Activities?

To determine the main activities for a business’s success, focus on tasks related to creating, delivering, and capturing value. For manufacturing firms, this includes production activities. Consultancies and service organizations should focus on problem-solving activities. Businesses built on a platform should prioritize platform/network activities.

Identifying and prioritizing key tasks and responsibilities involves thorough market research, analyzing competitors’ business models, and continuously reassessing the business landscape to stay ahead of emerging trends.

Production activities are crucial for creating a quality product, problem-solving activities are vital for addressing customer needs, and platform/network activities play a significant role in expanding the reach and impact of a business. These activities are paramount for startups to establish a competitive edge in the market and deliver value propositions to customers.

What’s a Good Example of an Important Business Job?

Some important business jobs are crucial for the success of a business. These include production, problem-solving, and the creation and maintenance of platforms or networks.

The activities associated with these jobs are essential for the sustainability and profitability of a business. These activities involve designing and delivering a product, coming up with new solutions, and managing networks or platforms.

Determining the most important business jobs for a specific business involves examining the core tasks critical to delivering value to customers. This requires identifying unique activities or services that set a business apart from its competitors, aligning with its value proposition and customer needs.

Three key business activities that are essential for the operation of a business are:

1. Production.
2. Problem-solving.
3. Building platforms/networks

These activities are instrumental in creating value for customers and establishing a competitive advantage in the market.

Can You Name Three Kinds of Business Activities?

The six basic business actions are: production, problem solving, and platform/network management.

Production involves designing, making, and delivering products, especially important for manufacturing firms.

Problem-solving activities focus on finding new solutions to individual customer problems, common in consultancies, hospitals, and service organizations.

Business models reliant on a platform as a key resource require activities related to platform and network management, like eBay, Visa, and Microsoft.

Identifying necessary activities to deliver value propositions to customers is essential, especially for startups prioritizing key activities for success.

The blog emphasizes accurately determining key activities and offers guidance on how to do this effectively.

What are Six Basic Business Actions?

The six basic business actions are:

1. Production.
2. Problem solving.
3. Platform/network

These are based on research by scholars Charles B.

Stabell and Øystein D. Fjeldstad. Key activities are vital for a business as they deliver value propositions to customers. Choosing the most important jobs in a business involves identifying the primary activities required in production, problem-solving, and building platforms/networks. Prioritizing key activities is especially crucial for startups. Guidance on determining key activities can be found in the context of the business model canvas.

Managing Well: Five Key Management Jobs

To understand the main activities in a business, you start by identifying the activities needed to deliver value to customers. Problem-solving is an important business task as it involves finding new solutions for customer problems.

There are three main types of business activities: production, problem-solving, and platform/network building. These activities are vital for various business models, from manufacturing firms to consultancies and service organizations. Each type of activity plays a crucial role in delivering value to customers and staying competitive in the market.