Blue Ocean Strategy: From Theory to Practice

Abstract

By focusing on strategies of competition in established industries, companies and researchers have overlooked the value of creating new market spaces where there are no competitors.These market spaces are called “blue oceans.” Although established industries (“red oceans”) are growing increasingly cluttered, few companies are currently attempting to create new markets. The U.S. wine industry provides an example of how various tools and frameworks can be applied in the creation of blue oceans.One such framework, the strategy canvas, captures the current states of play in the known market space.The four actions framework reconstructs buyer value elements by posing four key questions that challenge an industry's strategic logic and business model.When a particular wine manufacturer applied the four actions framework to the strategy canvas, it created a wine whose strategic profile broke from the competition and created a blue ocean. A third tool, the eliminate-reduce-raise-create grid, pushes firms to act on all four questions posed by the four actions framework and to create a new value curve.When expressed through a value curve, an effective blue ocean strategy has three complementary qualities: focus, divergence, and a compelling tagline. Embedded in the value curves of an industry is a wealth of strategic knowledge on the current status and future of a business. For example, when a firm's value curve zigzags, it means that the firm does not have a coherent strategy.(SAA)