Focus on The Big Picture, Not The Numbers

Blue Ocean Strategy – Ch. 4

Kelsey CombestKatie FickenRyan 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

• Followed by numerous goals and initiatives

• Full budget with graphs and spreadsheets (large amounts of data)

• Starts with lengthy description of industry and competitive situation

• Increase market share, capture new segments, cut costs

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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 Awakening2. Visual Exploration3. 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

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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.

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References• Kim, W. Chan., and Renee 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