There are two kinds of business strategies that any company can employ.
Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
The cornerstone of the Blue Ocean Strategy is Value Innovation.
Cost savings are made by eliminating and reducing the factors an industry competes on.

Buyer value is lifted by creating and raising elements the industry has never offered.
Value innovation is created in the region where a company’s actions favorably affect both its cost structure and its value proposition to buyers. Cost savings are made by eliminating and reducing the factors an industry competes on.
Buyer value is lifted by raising and creating elements the industry has never offered. Over time, costs are reduced further as economies of scale kick in due to the high sales volumes that superior value generates. This is how a leap in value for both the company and its buyers are achieved.
The Four Actions Framework developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne is used to reconstruct buyer value elements in crafting a new value curve or strategic profile. To break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost in creating a new value curve, the framework poses four key questions, shown in the diagram, to challenge an industry’s strategic logic.
The strategic tool for Value Innovation is ERRC Grid.
Eliminate
Which factors that the industry has long competed on and are taken for granted should be eliminated?
Raise
Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard?
Reduce
Which factors sholud be reduced
well below the industry’s standard?
Create
Which factors sholud be created
that the industry has never offered?
Eight Principles of Blue Ocean Strategy | |
---|---|
Formulation Principles | Risk Factors Each Principle Reduces |
Reconstruct Market Boundaries | Search Risk |
Focus On The Big Picture, Not The Numbers | Planning Risk |
Reach Beyond Existing Demand | Scale Risk |
Get The Strategic Sequence Right | Business Model Risk |
Execution Principles | Risk Factors Each Principle Reduces |
Overcome Key Organization Hurdles | Organizational Risk |
Build Execution Into Strategy | Management Risk |
Align The Value, Profit, And People Propositions | Sustainability Risk |
Renew Blue Oceans | Renewal Risk |
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”
Peter F. Drucker