W.Chan Kim Quotes

Value innovation is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategy. We call it value innovation because instead of focusing on beating the competition, you focus on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers and your company, thereby opening up new and uncontested market space. Value innovation places equal emphasis on value.

As companies compete to embrace customer preferences through finer segmentation, they often risk creating too-small target markets.

The key here is not to pursue pricing against the competition within an industry but rather to pursue pricing against substitutes and alternatives across industries and nonindustries.

Create. Don't Compete.

Experiences that don't involve touching, seeing, or feeling actual results, such as being presented with an abstract sheet of numbers, are shown to be non-impactful and easily forgotten.

Drawing a strategy canvas is never easy. Even identifying the key factors of competition is far from straightforward. As you will see, the final list is usually very different from the first draft

The key questions answered by tipping point leaders are as follows: What factors or acts exercise a disproportionately positive influence on breaking the status quo? On getting the maximum bang out of each buck of resources? On motivating key players to aggressively move forward with change? And on knocking down political roadblocks that often trip up even the best strategies? By single-mindedly focusing on points of disproportionate influence, tipping point leaders can topple the four hurdles that limit execution of blue ocean strategy. They can do this fast and at low cost. Let

While good strategy content is based on a compelling value proposition for buyers with a robust profit proposition for the organization, sustainable strategy execution is based largely on a motivating-people proposition.

To tip the cognitive hurdle fast, tipping point leaders such as Bratton zoom in on the act of disproportionate influence: making people see and experience harsh reality firsthand. Research in neuroscience and cognitive science shows that people remember and respond most effectively to what they see and experience: "Seeing is believing." In the realm of experience, positive stimuli reinforce behavior, whereas negative stimuli change attitudes and behavior. Simply

brand building increasingly relies heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations spreading rapidly through our networked society.

It immediately flags companies that are focused only on raising and creating and thereby lifting their cost structure and often overengineering products and services - a common plight in many companies.

Salespeople on commission, for example, are seldom sensitive to the costs of the sales they produce.

An Incoherent Strategy When a company's value curve looks like a bowl of spaghetti - a zigzag with no rhyme or reason, where the offering can be described as "low-high-low-low-high-low-high" - it signals that the company doesn't have a coherent strategy. Its strategy is likely based on independent substrategies. These may individually make sense and keep the business running and everyone busy, but collectively they do little to distinguish the company from the best competitor or to provide a clear strategic vision. This is often a reflection of an organization with divisional or functional silos.

The natural strategic orientation of many companies is toward retaining existing customers and seeking further segmentation opportunities. This is especially true in the face of competitive pressure. Although this might be a good way to gain a focused competitive advantage and increase share of the existing market space, it is not likely to produce a blue ocean that expands the market and creates new demand.

Yet few leaders exploit the power of this rapid wake-up call. Rather, they do the opposite. They try to garner support based on a numbers case that lacks urgency and emotional impetus. Or they try to put forth the most exemplary case of their operational excellence to garner support. Although these alternatives may work, neither leads to tipping superiors' cognitive hurdle as fast and stunningly as showing the worst. When

Shift from convergence to divergence

The planning process doesn't produce strategy

Beyond streamlining operations and introducing cost innovations, a second lever companies can pull to meet their target cost is partnering. In bringing a new product or service to market, many companies mistakenly try to carry out all the production and distribution activities themselves. Sometimes that's because they see the product or service as a platform for developing new capabilities. Other times it is simply a matter of not considering other outside options. Partnering, however, provides a way for companies to secure needed capabilities fast and effectively while dropping their cost structure. It allows a company to leverage other companies' expertise and economies of scale. Partnering includes closing gaps in capabilities through making small acquisitions when doing so is faster and cheaper, providing access to needed expertise that has already been mastered. A

Every company wants one, yet few companies have one: a compelling strategy.

Disengaged employees are an unfortunate reality in the workplace, and poor leadership is often to blame.

Value innovation requires companies to orient the whole system toward achieving a leap in value for both buyers and themselves.