Blue Ocean Strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy moves you off a crowded market by redesigning what you offer - cutting some things, adding others - so you compete on a different set of factors altogether.
Four boxes - eliminate, reduce, raise, create - reshape the same value curve into something competitors aren't drawing.
Reach for this when…
- You're locked in a price war and margins keep thinning.
- Every competitor's offer looks the same on paper.
- You want to grow demand instead of fighting for the same customers.
How to run it
- Plot the industry's competing factors on a strategy canvas.
- Draw your value curve against rivals'.
- Apply the Four Actions: Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create.
- Redraw the value curve and check it for focus, divergence and a compelling tagline.
- Identify the non-customers this new curve could pull in.
A worked example
Situation. Amira Al Falasi ran Pho Marina, a noodle chain in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, competing on the same broad menu and rock-bottom prices as every other pho shop on the street.
Applied. She ran the Four Actions Framework: eliminated half the menu, reduced the shop's decor spend, raised broth quality and service speed, and created a zero-waste bring-your-own-container takeaway none of her rivals offered.
Result. Office workers who'd never queued for pho started queuing for hers. She dropped prices on nothing and still sold out by 1pm.
The catch
The strategy canvas makes a market look simpler than it is - factors that matter to some customers get flattened into one line. And 'uncontested' rarely stays that way; a genuine blue ocean gets fished out once competitors see it working. Treat it as a way to find the gap, not a permanent moat.
If you can't say what you eliminated, you haven't done the exercise - you've just added more.
Origin: W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne