Simplifying Success: A Four-Step Guide to Blue Ocean Strategy

The Blue Ocean Shift Process, as outlined by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in their book Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing, provides a comprehensive framework for organizations seeking to move from a competitive "red ocean" market to a new, uncontested "blue ocean" market space. This structured approach is meticulously designed to guide companies through a five-step journey that includes practical tools and methodologies for identifying and creating blue oceans. However, when comparing this original five-step process with an alternative, streamlined four-step guide to applying the Blue Ocean Shift Process—as proposed by Brian Le—there are notable differences in emphasis, structure, and application.

Original Blue Ocean Shift Process

1.Get Started:

Objective: Define your current strategic situation and your desired future state.

Focus: This step emphasizes setting the stage by understanding where your company currently stands and where it wants to go. It's about establishing a clear starting point and destination for the blue ocean journey.

2.Understand Where You Are Now:

Objective: Analyze your industry, market boundaries, and current strategic positioning.

Focus: This step involves a deep dive into the current market conditions, competitive landscape, and how your organization is positioned within it. The goal is to gain clarity on the present state to inform the next steps.

3.Explore Alternatives:

Objective: Investigate successful shifts made by others and identify innovative ideas that can be applied to your strategy.

Focus: This step is about looking outward, learning from others who have successfully made the shift to a blue ocean, and generating ideas that could be adapted to your situation.

4.Make Your Move:

Objective: Develop and implement your new strategy to reach and sustain a blue ocean.

Focus: Here, the focus shifts to action. It’s about creating and executing a strategic plan that will allow your organization to enter and dominate a new market space.

5.Sustain Your Blue Ocean:

Objective: Continuously monitor and adapt your strategy to maintain your competitive advantage.

Focus: The final step emphasizes the importance of long-term sustainability. It’s not just about creating a blue ocean, but also about maintaining and defending it over time.

Brian Le's Four-Step Guide to Applying the Blue Ocean Shift Process

In contrast, the four-step guide proposed by Brian Le offers a more streamlined approach that distills the Blue Ocean Shift process into four key actionable steps. Each step is designed to be direct and pragmatic, focusing on core actions that can be easily implemented in real-life scenarios.

1.Identify Key Pain Points:

Objective: Understand the existing problems, limitations, or frustrations in the current market or industry.

Focus: This step emphasizes the importance of customer pain points as the starting point for innovation. By identifying what’s wrong in the current market, organizations can find opportunities for creating blue oceans.

Difference: Unlike the original first two steps that focus on understanding the current strategic position and market analysis, this step directly addresses customer frustrations, making it more action-oriented and customer-centric from the outset.

2.Explore Alternatives:

Objective: Investigate different approaches or technologies that can address the identified pain points.

Focus: Similar to the original process, this step involves exploring innovative solutions. However, in Brian Le's approach, the focus is more on practical, immediate alternatives rather than broader strategic shifts.

Difference: The original process's broader exploration of successful shifts made by others is condensed into a more targeted search for immediate, practical alternatives that directly address identified pain points.

3.Identify Target Audience:

Objective: Determine the specific group of customers who will benefit most from the new solution and are likely to adopt it.

Focus: This step narrows the focus to identifying the precise audience that will respond to the new value proposition.

Difference: While the original process implicitly includes audience targeting within the strategic development phase, Brian Le's guide makes this a distinct step, emphasizing the importance of understanding and segmenting the target market early in the process.

4.Introduce a New Form:

Objective: Develop and launch an innovative product, service, or solution that addresses the pain points and meets the needs of the target audience.

Focus: The final step is about execution—introducing the new product or service to the market in a way that clearly differentiates it from existing offerings.

Difference: This step aligns closely with the original process's "Make Your Move" phase but is more focused on the practicalities of product development and market introduction, rather than broader strategic implementation.

Key Differences

Emphasis on Customer Pain Points: Brian Le’s approach places a stronger emphasis on understanding customer frustrations right from the beginning, whereas the original process begins with a broader strategic assessment.

Streamlined Exploration: While the original process encourages a broader exploration of industry shifts and innovative ideas, Brian Le’s guide focuses more on practical, immediate alternatives that can directly address the identified pain points.

Distinct Target Audience Identification: The four-step guide treats audience identification as a separate, crucial step, emphasizing the importance of understanding and targeting the right customer segment early in the process.

Practicality in Implementation: The "Introduce a New Form" step in Brian Le’s guide is highly pragmatic, focusing on the actual development and introduction of the new solution, whereas the original process includes a broader focus on sustaining competitive advantage.

Conclusion

Both the original Blue Ocean Shift process and Brian Le's four-step guide offer valuable frameworks for organizations looking to break free from competitive markets and create new, uncontested spaces. The original process is more comprehensive, offering a detailed roadmap that covers everything from strategic assessment to long-term sustainability. In contrast, Brian Le’s four-step guide is more streamlined and action-oriented, making it particularly useful for companies seeking a more direct, customer-focused approach to innovation. Depending on the organization’s needs and context, either approach can be effectively applied to achieve significant growth and market success.