Looking to make a splash in the business world? Dive into the blue ocean with a strategy canvas!

This powerful tool can help you chart a course for success by visualizing your company’s unique value proposition and identifying opportunities for innovation and differentiation.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, the strategy canvas is a valuable resource for navigating the competitive waters and setting your business apart.

Let’s explore how this simple yet effective tool can help your business thrive in a sea of competition.

Understanding the Strategy Canvas

What is a Strategy Canvas?

The Strategy Canvas is a useful tool for developing a blue ocean strategy. It shows the current strategic landscape and an organization’s future prospects in a simple picture.

This tool helps compare an organization’s offerings with those of its competitors. It outlines the factors of competition, the level of offerings received by buyers, and the cost structures of both the organization and its competitors.

By plotting the market leader’s offering levels and connecting the dots, a company can identify the key competitive factors in their industry. This helps in creating a unique value proposition for customers.

The Strategy Canvas allows an organization to see where they and their competitors are investing, the factors the industry is competing on, and what customers receive from existing offerings. This enables the company to stand out by providing the most value to customers.

How a Strategy Canvas Works

A Strategy Canvas can help identify the key factors of competition within a particular industry.

It does this by graphically depicting the factors that industry players compete on.

This is achieved by plotting the offering level delivered by market leaders across each factor.

Then, the dots are connected to draw the strategic profile or value curve of each player.

These factors include price, quality, design, and other relevant components specific to the industry.

When plotting the current state on a Strategy Canvas, one must:

• Name the industry.
• Identify the key competitive factors.
• Rate the relative offering levels of each factor using a 5-point scale on the vertical axis.
• Connect the dots to create the as-is strategic profile or value curve, providing a visual representation of the current state.

When drawing the future, considerations should be made regarding the industry leader’s strategic profile.

This involves connecting the dots to create the to-be strategic profile or value curve, demonstrating the targeted future state.

This process is essential for visualizing and understanding strategic direction and future prospects.

Building Your Strategy Canvas

Identify the Big Players in the Market

The big players in the market are the industry leaders or the strongest competitors. They have a significant impact on shaping the competitive landscape and market dynamics. These major players influence the market through their strategic investments in factors such as price, quality, convenience, and innovation. Their dominance is attributed to the high offering levels they provide across these key factors.

Spot the Key Factors Your Industry Competes On

Different industries compete on various factors. These can include price, quality, features, customer service, speed, and reliability. Businesses can prioritize these factors by assessing customer needs, conducting market research, analyzing competitors, and evaluating industry trends. Strategies to stand out can involve unique features, top-notch customer service, optimized pricing, product quality, and fast, reliable delivery.

By focusing on these and implementing tailored strategies, businesses can establish a competitive position, ultimately driving customer preference and market share.

Discover What Customers Really Value

In today’s competitive market, companies can understand what customers truly value by identifying key factors in their specific industry. They can use methods such as customer surveys, focus groups, and analyzing customer feedback. Once these factors are determined, companies can visualize customer values on a strategy canvas. This tool helps them see their own and their competitors’ strategic profiles and cost structures, as well as the offering level across these factors.

By using the strategy canvas, businesses can drive innovation and competitive advantage. This understanding allows companies to design a new value curve and pursue blue ocean opportunities.

For example, Medellin’s transformation through the creation of a unique public transportation system known as ‘Metrocable’ showcases this concept in the real world.

Plot the Current State on the Canvas

The canvas should represent the competition and the buyers’ level of offerings. These help show the current strategic landscape. Market leaders’ offerings in each factor can be plotted to draw the value curve of each player. This visually represents the company’s or industry’s current position. Using a 5-point scale on the vertical axis accurately reflects the current state in an easily understandable way.

Connecting the dots creates the value curve, highlighting strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors.

Think of Ways to Change the Game

Businesses can change the game in their industry by innovating in different ways. One way is to create a unique value proposition that sets them apart from the competition. This can involve offering unique features, improving existing ones, or addressing unmet customer needs. Another approach is to explore untapped market spaces to create new opportunities for growth. This could mean redrawing market boundaries and identifying areas where the industry does not currently compete.

By doing so, organizations can differentiate themselves and ultimately change the game in their industry. An example of this kind of innovation is Medellin’s transformation from the ‘Murder Capital of the World’ to the ‘Most Innovative City’ through the creation of the Metrocable transportation system, which improved enjoyment and accessibility while reducing poverty and crime.

Exploring Blue Ocean Possibilities

Finding Untapped Market Spaces

Businesses can identify untapped market spaces within their industry by using the strategy canvas tool. This involves analyzing key factors of competition and the offering level buyers receive. By visually identifying areas where the industry is falling short, companies can find potential opportunities for innovation and growth.

To explore new possibilities, companies can identify which factors the industry is currently competing on. They then decide which factors could be created or removed to add value for customers and open up new market spaces.

Additionally, organizations can focus on value innovation to create value for customers and develop a unique value proposition in untapped market spaces. For example, Medellin’s pioneering ‘Metrocable’ public transportation system repurposed chairlift technology from ski resorts to create an urban cable car system. This offered a unique and enjoyable transportation experience while reducing poverty and crime in the city.

Creating Value for Your Customers

Identifying what the industry competes on is important for creating value for customers. A thorough market analysis provides insight into what customers truly value. This helps businesses focus on improving and creating innovative products and services, ultimately providing significant value to their customers. Exploring untapped market spaces also plays a role in providing value.

By identifying overlooked market spaces, businesses can effectively create value for customers by addressing their unmet needs and requirements, while differentiating themselves from competitors. An exceptional example of this is Medellin’s creation of the Metrocable, which used existing ski resort technology to build a unique and cost-effective public transportation system, connecting poor neighborhoods to the city and reducing poverty and crime.

Crafting Your Unique Value Proposition

To craft a unique value proposition, first identify the key factors your industry competes on. Then, consider how your brand can differentiate to create value for customers. By exploring untapped market spaces, businesses can carve out new demand and make competition irrelevant.

Innovation beyond the competition will drive the business towards new horizons, setting it apart from others. An example of this is Medellin’s Metrocable, which repurposed chairlift technology to create the world’s first urban cable car system. This provided rapid and low-cost transportation for residents, reducing poverty and crime.

With this innovative thinking, businesses can craft a unique value proposition that creates a leap in value at low cost. This ultimately makes competition irrelevant and establishes a blue ocean of new market space.

Drawing Your Future on the Canvas

Redrawing Market Boundaries

A Strategy Canvas is a visual tool for creating a blue ocean strategy. It shows the current strategic landscape and future prospects in a single picture.

The canvas helps depict how an organization configures its offering in relation to competitors. By plotting the offering level of market leaders and connecting the dots, the strategic profile of each player can be seen.

This tool allows a company to identify key competitive factors and rate them on a 5-point scale. Redrawing market boundaries and exploring blue ocean possibilities helps organizations understand where they and their competitors are investing.

It also highlights the product, service, and delivery factors the industry competes on and what customers receive from existing offerings. This process focuses on creating a new value curve that breaks the trade-off between value and cost.

Innovating Beyond the Competition

By using the strategy canvas, a company can identify untapped market spaces and create value for customers to innovate beyond the competition. This tool allows for the plotting of the offering levels delivered by industry leaders across competitive factors. Through this visual depiction, organizations can recognize where they and their competitors are currently investing and reimagine them.

To redraw market boundaries and set their sights on new horizons in order to innovate beyond the competition, a company can rate the relative offering level of each factor using a 5-point scale and then connect the dots to create their strategic profile or value curve. By doing so, they can decide on the best player to plot their offering against and repeat the process, selecting the industry leader or their strongest competitor.

Crafting a unique value proposition in order to innovate beyond the competition and create a blue ocean strategy involves ensuring that the company’s value curve diverges from traditional industry profiles, and that they focus on providing a leap in value at low cost. An example of this is the approach taken by Medellin in Colombia, which transformed its public transportation through the innovative ‘Metrocable’, ultimately reducing poverty and crime in the city.

Setting Your Sights on New Horizons

When building a strategy canvas, it’s important to identify the big players in the market. This involves visually comparing the offering level of market leaders across key competitive factors in an industry.

To do this, they can rate the relative offering level of each factor on the vertical axis, using a 5-point scale, and connect the dots to create the strategic profile or value curve.

This helps to see where they and their competitors are currently investing and what customers are receiving from existing competitive offerings.

To innovate beyond the competition and explore new possibilities, businesses should decide on the best player to plot their offering against and repeat the process, selecting the industry leader or their strongest competitor.

This process allows businesses to uncover new opportunities and potential value innovations that set them apart from the competition.