Focus on The Big Picture,
Not The Numbers
Blue Ocean Strategy – Ch. 4
Kelsey Combest
Katie Ficken
Ryan Lacy
Chapter Focus
• How to align strategic planning process to focus
on the big picture in order to arrive at a blue
ocean strategy.
blueoceanstrategy.com
The Typical Strategic Planning Process
• Starts with lengthy description of industry and
competitive situation
• Increase market share, capture new segments, cut costs
• Followed by numerous goals
and initiatives
• Full budget with graphs and
spreadsheets (large amounts
of data)
www.cyclelicio.us
Strategy Canvas
• Shows a strategic profile of an industry by
depicting the factors that affect competition
• Shows the strategic profile of current and
potential competitors by identifying which
factors they invest in strategically
• Shows the company’s strategic profile (value
curve), depicting how it invests in the factors of
competition now and in the future
Formulating Blue Ocean Strategy
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
1. Visual Awakening
2. Visual Exploration
3. Visual Strategy Fair
4. Visual Communication
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
Visual Awakening
• The first step is to draw your company’s value
curve.
• Compare your business with your competitors’
by drawing your “as is” strategy canvas.
• See where your strategy needs to change.
Apple - iPad Value Curve
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
Visual Exploration
• Field Study
• Must put managers face-to-face with what
they must make sense of.
• Learn how people use or don’t use their
products.
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
Visual Exploration
• Customers
• Learn what the customer values
• Identify complementary products and
services-bundling
• Identify alternatives- examine advantages
and characteristics
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
Visual Exploration
• Non-customers
• Why are they not customers?
• In cases when customer is not end users—
observe the users.
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
Visual Strategy Fair
• Presentation of strategy canvases to:
• Executives, noncustomers, customers of
competitors, and most demanding customers
• Attendees chose most compelling strategy and give
feedback
• Allows company to compose a new, more
successful value curve based on feedback
The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy
Visual Communication
• Communicate new strategy to employees
• Employees will understand where the company is
now and what actions need to be taken to move
toward blue oceans.
European Financial Services (EFS)
• Visual Awakening
– 2 Teams: Value curve production and emerging online
foreign exchange business
– Pictures revealed defects in the company strategy
– Curves were similar to competitors
• Visual Exploration
– Sent mgrs into field for four weeks to interview
– Propose a new strategy, new value curve, and a
compelling tagline.
European Financial Services (EFS)
• Visual Strategy Fair
– Presented strategy canvases
to senior executives and
other representatives.
• Visual Communication
– Distributed a one-page picture showing new and old
profiles.
– All investment decisions had to fit this picture
Visualizing Strategy at a Corporate Level
• When business units present their strategy
canvases to one another, they deepen their
understanding of the other businesses and the
corporate portfolio.
Pioneer-Migrator-Settler (PMS) Map
• Helps visualize, plan, and predict a company’s
future growth and profit.
– Pioneers
– Migrators
– Settlers
my-ticketstation.com
Takeaways
• Create a strategy canvas to focus on the big
picture and formulate your own blue ocean
strategy.
• Strategic planning should be more about
collective wisdom building than top-down or
bottom-up planning.
mccallum.com.au
References
• Kim, W. Chan., and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy: How
to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition
Irrelevant. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2005. Print. p.
82-99.
• http://uxplanner.com/strategy-and-value-curve-for-the-ipad