The fourth installment in Andrea Simon’s fascinating “How Do I Do a ‘Blue Ocean’ Strategy®?” blog series is currently being featured on Vistage International’s Executive Street.
This latest article, ”How Do I Do a ‘Blue Ocean’ Strategy®?”: Step 4,” focuses on “Getting the Strategic Sequence Right” in your development of a Blue Ocean strategy. To help you organize your process, Dr. Simon offers the following flow chart:
According to Dr. Simon, Blue Ocean thinking reverses everything.
“First, your traditional way of thinking 
about strategy is totally going to be inverted,” she writes. “Since you are trying to create demand in a new market, you have to shift the focus into new directions. How does your new idea open up a market by eliminating the pain people, your future buyers, have felt in trying to do something? At what price point can you open a new market space (preferably a mass market space), thereby creating demand for your idea because of its simplicity, or the way it improves user’s productivity, or its ability to turn something functional into something fun?”
Dr. Simon emphasizes that the adoption hurdles are critical to your success.
“These are as likely to be your current distributors or clients as your internal staff. Employees are often resistant to change, reluctant to risk their jobs by changing the business model, and uncomfortable with new ideas that point a company in new directions. In building a Blue Ocean market, getting alignment is as important as getting traction. For innovation to truly happen, your entire team has to participate in creating the changes you are envisioning, and in so doing, metamorphose from Red Ocean dippers into Blue Ocean swimmers.”
To read Andrea’s blog in its entirety on Executive Street, click here.
About Dr. Andrea Simon and Simon Associates Management Consultants
New York-based Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC) serves clients in a wide range of industries from manufacturing, OEMs, customer care, hospitals, and other healthcare institutions to colleges and service industry companies, among others.
One of the keys to SAMC’s success is helping the leadership at companies to “see, feel, and think” in new ways. For more information, visit www.simonassociates.net. You also can follow SAMC on Twitter (@andisamc) or Facebook.
