How Do You Find New Opportunities?
How Do You CHANGE your strategy?
The research on business strategies has been robust for a long time, particularly Michael Porter and his Five Forces. Yet all too often, we find that companies have paid little attention to their “big picture” strategy—where they are going and how they will get there.
As the business environment is changing very rapidly, companies are struggling with how to adapt to these shifts while using the old models of strategy. No longer can they do a “SWOT” analysis and continue to thrive only by leveraging their strengths and addressing weakness—because, guess what? Threats are all about them. The strengths of the past may not work in the very near future. And the opportunities may be coming from places outside of their comfort zone. It is time for a new strategic approach — A blue ocean one.
“Blue Ocean Strategies®” to find those new opportunities
“Andi became a certified Blue Ocean Strategist having met Renée Mauborgne, the co-author of the groundbreaking book, Blue Ocean Strategy, in 2006, right after the book was published. For a corporate anthropologist, the theory, method, and tools of Blue Ocean Strategy perfectly fit the way we approached companies and their strategic perspectives.
For well over the last decade, Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC) has been working with companies large and small, in a wide range of industries, on how to find a new “blue ocean” when their current markets are bloody red with too much competition and commoditization.
The challenge, we find, is that when businesses are thriving, the demands of customers often drive the business…not the strategy. This more often than not gets sidelined, rarely turned into operational or tactical action plans. In addition, staff often does not know what the strategy is and therefore if their efforts are on-strategy or not.
When SAMC works with companies, “where you are going” becomes critical in the change process. Without a clear understanding of this, it is very difficult to align an organization so that it can find nonusers and new market space, not to mention reinventing the skills and talent they will need tomorrow.
How we begin our business strategy process
If we were working with you, we would begin our process by re-thinking your “big picture” strategy. We challenge all of the underlying premises to help break through the barriers of the brain and help you see opportunities in new ways. How? We begin with the Blue Ocean Strategy strategic canvas.
The canvas becomes an important tool to help map out the business today and where there are new opportunities for you and your business in the future. Then we help you turn that realization into a business strategy where you are searching for nonusers and unmet needs. It is a process designed to build a strategy together, testing it along the way with clients and prospective clients.
We help you go visually exploring to capture insights from the markets around you. We look at trends and focus on new growth opportunities that might be on the edge of your current capabilities. Once you have landed on that strategy, we work with you to make it happen.
We help you set up strategic councils so you can actually manage the strategy on a regular basis. We know this requires allocating resources and time to implement the strategy, often requiring you to shift your focus and rethink how you do things. Simultaneously, your team has to learn how to think about the “big picture” so that it can drive the change necessary for you to grow.
Blue Ocean Strategy®
As trained Blue Ocean Strategists, we apply the concepts, theories and tools of Blue Ocean Strategic thinking to help our clients better “see, feel and think” about their business with fresh perspectives. With our clients, we focus on five things that are fundamental to Blue Ocean thinking:
- Focusing on Unmet Needs
- Searching for Nonusers
- Creating Demand—not just fulfilling existing demand
- Value plus Innovation
- Making thecompetitionn irrelevant
In the process, we help clients open new market space, thereby making the competition irrelevant.
What type of strategy are you ready for?
All organizations need a simple, integrated, strategic story that will help organize actions and investments as well as provide a shared vision of the future. Perhaps we can help you assess your strategy today and redirect it for the future. To focus your thinking, you might find this blog of ours interesting: “Resistant to Change? My Managers Don’t Want To Find a Blue Ocean”.
If you would like to discuss how we might help you rethink your strategy, please reach out and let’s talk. Your blue ocean is right around you. Can we help you see it?
