Blue Ocean Strategy for Action 6-Step Process
Details
1. Define your Scope & Get Started
- Clearly define the boundaries of the market or industry you intend to analyze. Starting with a focused scope is crucial.
- Assemble a dedicated, cross-functional Blue Ocean Team.
- Secure commitment from a Blue Ocean Sponsor within senior leadership.
2. Visual Awakening: Visualize your Current Strategic Landscape
- Build your As-Is Strategy Canvas by identifying the key factors the industry competes on and plotting the offering levels of major players, including your own.
- Analyze the canvas to understand the degree of convergence among competitors and the current strategic profile of the industry.
3. Visual Exploration: Explore for New Market Space
- Identify your 3 Tiers Non-Customers
- Conduct fieldwork: Go out and interview/observe non-customers across all three tiers to understand their pain points, what they currently like in alternatives, and their unmet needs or dreams.
- Use the Buyer Utility Map framework during this phase to probe the entire experience cycle.
4. Visual Strategy Creation: Develop & Formulate "To-Be" Strategies
- Define and explore the Six Paths Framework to begin shifting the team's mindset beyond conventional industry boundaries and challenge existing assumptions.
- Use the insights from non-customer exploration and the Six Paths description.
- Identify the converging key insights for the non-customers (key step / key utility)
- Brainstorm multiple potential new strategies by focused ideation process: apply each Path to each key insight identified.
- Use the Eliminate and Create actions (from the 4 Actions Grid) to clearly define each of the new strategies.
- Summarize the chosen strategies using the Blue Ocean Matrix and be ready to pitch them. Visualize each potential strategy using a To-Be Strategy Canvas. Ensure each exhibits Focus, Divergence, and has a Compelling Tagline.
5. Execution: Prioritize, Test, Learn & Prove the value you create
- Evaluate the options using the Pioneer-Migrator-Settler (PMS) Map to assess growth potential.
- Select the most promising Blue Ocean moves and test them in the field!
- Develop a clear pilot plan, addressing potential organizational hurdles.
- Communicate the new strategy effectively across your organization through visual tools.
- Test for Exceptional Utility (Is there a compelling reason to buy?), Strategic Pricing (Is it priced for the mass of target buyers?), Target Costing (Can you produce it profitably at that price?), and Adoption Hurdles (Are employee and partner fears addressed up front?).
- Monitor progress, gather feedback, and adapt as much as you learn.
6. Measure the impact of your Blue Ocean move(s), Update your marketplace knowledge & Iterate
- Update your understanding of your position in the marketplace through:
- As-Is Strategy Canvas(es) by identifying potential new key factors the industry competes on and plotting new offering(s), including yours you have deployed. In the age of AI, development cycles are increasingly compressed.
- Update your PMS Map to reflect your new offering portfolio
- Identify areas within the industry that hold potential for new market exploration.
- Repeat the process
Blue Ocean Strategy for Action 6-Step Process