Actors are the people, systems, or external entities interacting with the system. They can initiate actions, receive outputs, or influence the system’s behavior. In MoSy, defining actors is crucial as they represent the who in a system, ensuring that all key stakeholder interactions are accounted for.
To keep consistency with the business objectives and promote a common language to classify the actors, MoSy uses the same definitions as in a Business Model Canvas to differentiate between distinct types of actors:
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Customers are typically the most critical actors since they are the ones you aim to serve with your system. Customers are real people who interact with your system, and you can classify them into one or more segments. In MoSy, you add one actor block per Customer Segment.
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Examples: e-commerce website visitor, social network user.
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Key Resources in a business model can be physical, financial, intellectual, or human. They enable you to offer value to your customers. In MoSy, we’ll focus only on human key resources since they typically interact with your system and become actors in MoSy.
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Examples: technical support employee, social network’s internal moderator.
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Key Partners, in Mosy’s scope, are typically other organizations that manage part of the system flows by providing functional or technical services.
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Examples: email marketing platform, payment gateway.
There is a fourth type of actor not listed above: your system. In MoSy, the system is depicted as a central single actor with which the rest interact.
Actors in MoSy
Customers, Key Resources, and Key Partners interact with the system at two granular levels: flows and actions.