How to align strategic planning process to focus on the big picture in order to arrive at a blue ocean strategy. blueoceanstrategy.com

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

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

The Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy 1. Visual Awakening 2. Visual Exploration 3. Visual Strategy Fair 4. Visual Communication

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.

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.

Visual Exploration Customers Learn what the customer values Identify complementary products and services-bundling Identify alternatives- examine advantages and characteristics

Visual Exploration Non-customers Why are they not customers? In cases when customer is not end users— observe the users.

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

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.

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.

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

When business units present their strategy canvases to one another, they deepen their understanding of the other businesses and the corporate portfolio.

Helps visualize, plan, and predict a company’s future growth and profit. – Pioneers – Migrators – Settlers my-ticketstation.com

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

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, Print. p