Blue ocean strategy
by W.Chan Kim&Renee Mauborgne
Com 459
Jeff McNeill
Lyn Jang
Value innovation =The value-cost trade off
-the cornerstone of Blue ocean Strategy
-a new way of thinking about and executing strategy that result in the creation of
a Blue ocean and a break from the competition.
-focusing on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for
buyers and your company, thereby opening up new and
uncontested market space
Value innovation’s vies: “the deconstructionist view”
= Breaking the existing values cost trade-off and thereby creating a blue
ocean
Costs
Read ocean
strategy
Blue ocean
strategy
Compete in ex
isting market
space
Create
uncontested
market space
Beat the
competition
Make the
competition
irrelevant
Exploit existing
demand
Create and
capture new
demand
Make the
value-cost
trade off
Break the
value-cost -off
Align the whole
system of firm's
activities with its
strategic choice
of differentiation
or low cost
Align the whole
system of a
firm’s activities
in pursuit of
differentiation
and low cost
Value
innovation
Buyer value
When? Only when companies align innovation with utility, price, and price
position
Utility/Cost
company offer to buyer
generated value to company
Buyer value
** Cost down while simultaneously driving value up for buyers/
**Blue ocean strategy integrates the range of a firm’s functional and
operational activities.
Blue ocean Strategy
The Six Principles of Blue ocean strategy
Formulating principles
1.Reconstruct Market Boundaries : Create uncontested market space across
diverse industry domain
hence = attenuating search risk
2. Focus on the big picture, not the number:
visualizing approach-drives to focus on the big picture
The existing strategic plan keeps
company locked into making incremental improvements
== minimize Planning risk
3. Reach beyond existing demand= by building on the powerful
commonalities across to maximize the size of the Blue
ocean being created & new demand being unlocked
= hence, it will minimizing scale risk
4. Get the strategic sequence right: to ensure that both you &
customer win as you create new business terrain
Sequence of utility, cost ,price, and adoption.
====decrease Business model risk
Execution principles
5. Overcome key organizational hurdles( tipping point
leadership”= it shows manager how to mobilize an
organization to overcome the key organizational hurdles ( the
cognitive, resource, motivational, and political hurdles in
limited time and resources )that block the implementation of
a blue ocean strategy
==== decrease organizational risk
6. Build execution into strategy: motivating people to act on and
execute a blue ocean strategy in a sustained way deep in an
ORGANIZATION..
**Fair process: facilitates both strategy making and execution by
mobilizing people for the voluntary cooperation needed to
execute blue ocean strategy
=====decrease management risk (associating with people’s
attitudes and behaviors)
methods
•
Red ocean versus blue ocean
strategy
Red ocean strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy
• Value innovation:
“The Cornerstone of Blue ocean
Strategy”
Reading thee value curves
The strategy canvas enables companies to see the future in the present. To achieve this, must understand how to read value curves.
•
A blue ocean strategy
When a company’s value curve- meet the three criteria that define a good blue
ocean strategy-focus, divergence, and a compelling tagline that
speaks to the market- the company is on the right track
Remember: when..
1.Lacks of focus: cost structure increase, business model complex in
implementation and execution increase
2.lack of divergence : a company’s strategy is a me-too, with no reason to stand
apart in the marketplace.
3.lack of compelling tagline: a classic example of innovation for innovation’s
sake with no great commercial potential , no natural take off
capability.
A Company caught in the red ocean
When a company’s value curve converges..
it signals that a company caught within the red ocean of bloody
competition
Remember: the signal slow growth unless by the grace of luck
An internally Driven Company
The kinds of language used in the strategy canvas gives insight
as to whether a company’s strategic vision is built on an “
outside-in”perspective, driven by the demand side, or an
“inside-out”perspective that is operationally driven.
Help a company understand how far it is from creating industry
demand
Example of the strategy canvas( low cost, high value)
High
Over delivery without payback
When a company’s value curve on the strategy canvas is shown to deliver high
level across all factors.
If the company’s market share and profitability reflect these investment,
oversupplying it’s customers, offering too much of those elements
that add incremental value to buyers.
The company must decide which factors to eliminate & reduce to
construct a divergent value curve
An incoherent strategy
If a company value curve looks like a zigzag with no rhyme or reason==
company doesn’t have a coherent strategy
It makes little distinguish the company from the best competitor
Strategic Contradictions
Area where company is offering a high level on one competing factor
while ignoring others that support factor
* Strategic inconsistencies may lead a company lose marketshare
Low
Price
Need
for customer
Value (convenience,
friendliness etc)
Ch 3 “Reconstruct Market Boundaries”
Purpose: To break from the completion & Create Blue Ocean
6 basic approach to remaking market boundaries (6 path frame work)
= have general applicability across industry sectors, lead companies
into the corridor of commerciality viable blue ocean idea
From Head-to-Head Competition to Blue ocean
Creation
Head-to-Head
Competition
Blue Ocean
Creation
Industry
Focuses on rivals within
its industry
Looks across
alternative
industry
Strategic group
Focuses on competitive
position
Within strategic group
Looks across
strategic groups
within industry
Buyer Group
Focuses on better
serving the buyer group
Redefines the
industry buyer
group
Scope of product or
service offering
Focuses on maximizing
the value of product &
service offerings within
the bounds of its
industry
Looks across to
complementary
product and
service offerings
Functional
emotional
orientation
Focuses on improving
price performance
within the functionalemotional orientation of
its industry
Rethinks the
functionalemotional
orientation of its
industry
Time
Focuses on adapting to
external trends as they
occurs
Participants in
shaping external
trends over time
Key insight into Blue ocean strategy: arise from business insights into how the trend will
change value to customers and impact the company’s business mode. By looking
across time- from the value a market delivers today to the value it might deliver
tomorrow- managers an actively shape their future and lay claim to a new blue ocean.l
3 principles to access trends across time: 1) be decisive to business 2) be irreversible 3)
have a clear trajectory
Alternative: include product or service that have different Functions and forms
but the same purpose“buyers implicitly weigh alternatives, often unconsciously”
-The space between alternative industries provides opportunities for values innovative
Thought questions: whey do corporations choose to use commercial airline
For their corporate travel? = answer: Cost
-Why do people choose corporate jets over commercial travel?
Answer: Corporations buy private jets to dramatically cut total travel time, to reduce
The hassle of congested airports, to allow for point-point travel,To gain the benefit of
having more productive and energized executives Who can hit the ground running upon
arrival.
In most industries, the fundamental strategic differences among industry players are
captured by a small member of strategic groups.
•2 dimensions that ranks strategic groups: 1. Price 2. Performance
-Each jump in price tends to bring a corresponding jump in some dimensions of
performance.most companies focus on improving their competitive position within a
strategic group **The key to creating a blue ocean across existing strategic group
== To break out of narrow tunnel vision by understanding which factors determine
customer’s decisions to trade up or down from one group to another
“Buyers”- who are directly or indirectly involved in the buying decision
-Industry typically converges on a single buyer group, there is a STRONG economic
rationale for this focus
- Challenging an industry’s conventional wisdom about which buyer group to
target can led to the discovery of new blue ocean.
--what we get by looking across buyer groups? : gain new insights into how to redesign
their value curves to focus on a previously overlooked set of buyers
In most cases, other products and services affect their value
How can we find untapped value which is hidden in complementary products?
-To think about what happens before, during, and after your product is used
-to think in terms of solving the major pain points in customers total solution.
Competition in an industry tends to converge not only on an accepted notion of the
scope of its products and services but also on one of two possible based of
appeal
1)Rational: functionally oriented: Infuse commodity products with new life by adding a
dose of emotion and in so doing , can Stimulate new demand
2) emotional: emotionally oriented: offer many extras that add price without
enhancing functionality, may create a fundamentally simper, lower-priced,
lower-cost business model that customers would welcome.
When companies are willing to challenge the functional -emotional orientation of their
industry, they often find new market space
The four actions frame work : To reconstruct buyer value elements in crafting a new value curve
Apply the four actions frame work to the strategy canvas of your industry= get a revealing
new look at old perceived truths
Push companies to go beyond value
Reduce
Which factors should be reduced will below the industry’s standard?
:eliminating factors that companies in your industry have long competed on
As buyers values are changing, companies should be change and act.
maximization exercises with existing factors
Of competition. Also prompt
Companies to change the factors
Themselves, hence making
The existing rules of competition
irrelevant
Eliminate
Which of the factors that
The industry takes for granted should
Be eliminated?
= To uncover and eliminate the compromises your
industry forces customers to make
A new value curve
Create
Which factors should be created that the industry
has never offered?
To determine whether products or services
have been over designed in the race to match and beat
the competition.
** Companies over serve customers, increasing their
Cost structure for no gain
Raise
Which factors should Be raised will Above the industry’s standard?
= To helps you to discover entirely new sources of value for buyers
And to create new demand and shift the strategic pricing of the industry
Provide you with insight into how to lift buyer
Value and create new demand.
Also explore how you can reconstruct
Buyer value elements across alternative
Industries to offer buyers an entirely
New experience while simultaneously keeping
Your cost structure low
Form of Grid
Eliminate
Raise
Reduce
Create
Elimnate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid
a third tool, key to creation of blue oceans/ a
supplementary analytic to the four actions frame work
how does it work?
Push to ask all 4 questions in the four actions framework &
act on all four
gives companies four immediate benefits
1. Push them to pursue differentiation and low costs to
break the value-cost trade-off
2.it immediately flags companies that are focused only on
raising and creating and thereby lifting their cost structure
and often over engineering products and services
-a common plight in many companies.
3. It is easily understood by managers at any level, creating
a high level of engagement in its application
4. Drives companies to robustly scrutinize every factor the
industry competes on, making them discover the range of
implicit assumptions they make unconsciously in
competing.
The four actions Framework
A new value
Curve
Ch. 4 Focus on the big picture, not the number
1.Visual
Awakening
2. Visual
exploration
3. Visual
strategy fair
4. Visual
communication
-Compare your
business with
your
competitor's by
drawing your
“as is” strategy
canvas
- See where
your strategy
needs to
change
-go into the field
to explore the six
paths to creating
blue oceans
-observe the
distinctive
advantages of
alternative
products and
services.
-see which
factors you
should eliminate,
create, or
change.
-draw your “to
be” strategy
canvas based
on insights from
field
observations
-Get feedback
on alternative
strategy
canvases from
customers,
competitors’
customers, and
noncustomers.
-Use feedback
to build the best
“to be “ future
strategy.
Distribute your
before-and -after
Strategic profiles
on one pate for
easy
comparison.
-Support only
those projects
and operational
moves that allow
your company to
close the gaps
to actualize the
new strategy
Draw the value curve
of company’s
strategy
brings home the need
for Change
It serves as a forceful
wake-up call for
companies to challenge
their
existing strategies
-As comparing picture,
- find lacking factors
Learn that buyers from all markets have a basic of set of needs and
expected similar services/ able to complete their mission
(* able to draw a value curve that is a truer likeness of the existing
strategic profile than anything We produce earlier.)
To send a team into the field, putting manager face-to-face with
that they must make sense of : how people use or don’t use their products or service
*A company should never outsource its eyes- no substitute for seeing for yourself
-Great strategic insights are less the product of genius than of getting into the
Filed and challenging the boundaries of competition.
The last step to communicate
It in a way that can be
Easily understood
By any employee.
-able to move from the old
To the new value curve give
The go-ahead
A pioneer-migrator-settler(PMS)map
:A useful exercise for a corporate management team pursuing profitable growth to plot the
company’s current and planned portfolio
pioneers
Migrators
Settlers
Today
Me-too Businesses
*the more an industry is
populated by settlers, the greater
is the opportunity to valueinnovate and create a blue ocean
of new market space.
- will not generally contribute
much to a company’s future
growth, they will be stuck within
the red ocean
Business offerings better than most in the marketplace
*lot of migrators= reasonable growth can be expected.
However, it risks being marginalized by a company that
value -innovates
Tomorrow
The only ones with a mass following of customers
**have Maximum growth potential but often
consume cash at the outset as they grow and
expand
The Key point :To manage their portfolio of businesses to wisely balance between profitable growth and cash flow at a
give point in time
The 4 steps of Visualizing strategy
1.Visual Awakening
2. Visual exploration
3. Visual strategy fair
4. Visual
communication
pioneers
Migrators
Settlers
Today
tomorrow
Ch. 5 The three tiers of Noncustomers
“Unexplored” noncustomers who are in markets
Distant from yours
**people who have never thought of your market’s offerings as
an option. By focusing on key commonalities across these
noncustomers and existing customers, companies can
understand how to pull them into their new market
First Tier
Second Tier
Third Tier
*unexplored noncustomers
-have not been targeted or thought of as potential customers by
any player in the industry. That’s because their needs and the
business opportunities associated with them have somehow
always been assumed to belong to toher markets.
Your Market
“soon-to-be” noncustomers who are on the edge of your
market, waiting to jump ship
* Buyers who minimally purchase an industry’s offering out of
necessity but are mentally noncustomers of the industry. They are
waiting to jump ship leave the industry as soon as the opportunity
presents itself
“Refusing” noncustomers who consciously choose against your
market
•People who refuse to use your industry’s offerings./ buyers who have
seen your industry’s offerings as an option to fulfill their needs but have
voted against them
•Second-Tier Noncustomers
-either do not use or cannot afford to use the current market offerings
because they find the offerings unacceptable or beyond their means.
Their needs are either dealt with by other means or ignored
The Three Tiers of Noncustomers
Buyer utility
The Sequence of Blue Ocean Strategy
Is there exceptional buyer utility in your
Business idea?
No- Rethink
yes
First two steps
- address the revenue side of a company’s
business model./ Ensure that you create a leap
in net buyer value, where net buyer value
equals the utility buyers receive minus the price
they pay for it
Price
Is your price easily accessible to the mass
of buyers?
No-Rethink
yes
Cost
Can you attain your cost target to profit at
your strategic price?
No-Rethink
yes
Adoption
What are the adoption hurdles in actualizing your
business idea?
Are you addressing them up front?
No-Rethink
A commercially viable blue ocean idea
Ensures the tit creates a leap in value for itself in
the form of profit that is, the price of the offering
minus the cost of production. It is the combination
of exceptional utility, strategic pricing, and target
costing that allows companies to achieve value
innovation- a leap in value for both buyers and
companies
Last step: to address adoption hurdles
** the formulation of blue ocean strategy is
complete only when you can address
adoption hurdles in the beginning to
ensure the successful actualization of your
idea
* It includes potential resistance to the
idea by retailers or partners. Because
blue ocean strategies represent a
significant departure from red oceans,
it is key to address adoption hurdles
up front
Buyer utility
Price
Cost
Adoption
The Sequence of Blue Ocean Strategy
The Buyer Utility Map
Customer
productivity
1.
Purchase
2.de
liver
y
3. Use
4.
supple
ments
5.Mai
ntena
nce
Uncovering the Blocks to buyer Utility
6.
Dispo
sal
simplicity
Convenienc
e
Purc
hase
Delivery
Use
supplement
s
5.Main
tenanc
e
Environmental
Friendliness
Customer productivity: in which stage are the biggest blocks to customer
productivity?
Customer productivity: in which stage are the biggest blocks to customer
productivity?
Risk
Convenience: in which stage are the biggest blocks to convenience?
Fun and
image
Risk: in which stage are the biggest blocks to reducing risks?
Environmen
tal
Friendlines
s
Help managers look at issue from the right perspective
-outlines all the levers companies can pull to deliver exceptional
utility to buyers as well as the various experiences buyers can
Have with a product or service.
-allows managers to identify the full range of utility spaces that
A product or service can potentially fill
Fun and Image: in which stage are the biggest blocks to fun and image?
Environmental friendliness:in which stage are the biggest blocks to
environmental friendliness?
-To test for exceptional utility, companies should check
whether their offering has removed the greatest blocks to utility across
The entire buyer experience cycle for customers and noncustomers
**this figure shows how a company can identify the most compelling hot
Spots to unlock exceptional utility.By locating your proposition
Offering on the thirty -six spaces of the buyer utility map,
You can clearly see how , and whether, the new idea not only creates a
different
Utility proposition from existing offerings
But also removes the biggest blocks to utility
That stand in the way of converting noncustomers into
Customers.
Uncovering the Blocks to buyer Utility
The Buyer Utility Map
Customer
productivity
simplicity
Convenienc
e
Risk
Fun and
image
Environment
al
Friendliness
1.
Purchas
e
2.delivery
3. Use
4.
supplement
s
5.
Mainte
nance
6.
Disposal
Purch
ase
Delivery
Use
supplement
s
5.Maint
enance
Environmental
Friendliness
The price Corridor of the mass
The main challenge: to understand the price sensitivities
of those people who will be comparing the new product
or service with a host of very different-looking product or
service with a host of very different looking products and
services offered outside the group of traditional
competitors
Step1: identify the price
Corridor of the mass
Three alternative product/ service types:
Same form
different form
It helps managers determine how high a price they can afford to set
within the corridor without inviting competition from imitation
products or services.
* 2 principle factors: 1) the degree to which the product or service is
protected legally through patents or copyrights
different
form and
functions,
same objective
Upper-level pricing
Price corridor of the mass
Mid-level pricing
Lower-level pricing
Create blue oceans that
have same core utility as
the new one but takes a
very different physical
form
Step 2. Specify a price level
Within the price corridor.
Listing the groups of alternative products
and services allows managers to see the
full range of buyers they can poach from
other industries as well as from
nonindustries
* This approach provides a
straightforward way to identify where the
mass of target buyers is what prices
these buyers are prepared to pay for the
products and services they currently use.
High degree of legal and
Resource protection
Difficult to imitate
Some degree of legal and resource
protection
Low degree of legal and
Resource protection
Easy to imitate
When to pursue mid-to lower
1)Their blue ocean offering has high
fixed costs and marginal
variable cost
2)their attractiveness depends heavily
on network externalities
3) Their cost structure benefits from
steep economies of scale
and scope. In these cases,
volume brings with it
significant cost advantages,
something that makes pricing
for volume even more key
2) The degree to which
the company owns some
exclusive asset or core
capability such as an
expensive production
plant, that can block
imitation
Companies with uncertain
patent and asset protection
should consider pricing
somewhere in the middle of
the corridor
The price Corridor of the mass
Step1: identify the price
Corridor of the mass
Step 2. Specify a price level
Within the price corridor.
Three alternative product/ service types:
Same
Form
different form,
same function
different form
and function
same objective
Upper-level pricing
Price corridor of the mass
Mid-level
pricing
Lower-level pricing
The profit Model of Blue Ocean Strategy
The profit Model of Blue Ocean Strategy
The Strategic Price
It shows how value innovation typically
maximizes profit by using the foregoing
three levers
The Company
Start with
Deduct
The target profit
Supports profit
The target cost
Streamlining and
Cost innovations
Pricing innovation
Partnering
When the target cost cannot be met
despite all efforts to build a lost-cost
business model, the company should
turn to the third lever, pricing
innovation, to profitably meet the
strategic price.
If a company's offering successfully addresses the profit side of the business model, Ready to
advance to the final step in the sequence of blue ocean strategy.