Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing - Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth by W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne

Author:W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne [Kim, W. Chan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Economics / Consulting, Business &#38, Economics / Industrial Management, Economics / Development / Business Development, Economics / New Business Enterprises, Economics / Strategic Planning
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2017-09-26T06:00:00+00:00

Is What You See What Buyers See and Experience?

With the completed buyer utility map in hand, the team can bring the insight it contains to life. To initiate the discussion, ask the team members to juxtapose the insights gleaned from the as-is strategy canvas with those revealed through the buyer utility map. Have them first recap what they learned and the conclusions they reached from the as-is strategy canvas. Provide prompts as necessary: That competition is intense? That the strategic profiles of the industry’s players have largely converged? That the room for future profitable growth is viewed as limited? That it is hard to find opportunities to break away from the competition? Jotting down the key takeaways to these questions creates an additional opportunity for team members to internalize the lessons from drawing the as-is strategy canvas.

With that done, shift to the completed buyer utility map, asking: “What, by contrast, does the map we collectively created reveal?” “Is the industry, knowingly or unknowingly, imposing pain points on buyers across their total experience?” “Could these pain points be limiting current customers’ use of our industry’s product or service?” “Would existing customers jump ship and champion an organization that eliminated these blocks to utility, and even use more of its offering?” “Could these blocks to utility also be discouraging or intimidating other people—noncustomers—from patronizing our industry?” “How many of the 36 utility spaces does our industry genuinely focus on?” As one executive put it, while answering this last question, “We are here [pointing to two utility spaces on the map], when there’s all that out there [dragging his finger across all the “Xs” on the rest of the map].” That’s when the team first begins to appreciate and see the real possibility of creating blue oceans.

As the discussion above suggests, creating the buyer utility map for their offering enables the team to see that red oceans need not be inevitable, and that insights into new opportunity spaces begin to be revealed just by applying this one analytic tool. Completing the map can be tough, however, in industries where, over the years, management has seemingly become disconnected from market reality and buyers’ experience. We have been called into industries fraught with hassles and inconveniences where, at the same time, management stares almost blankly at the buyer utility map. Understanding the obstacles that buyers experience in using their industry’s products or services, or even their own product or service, is hard for them to get their heads around.

In some cases, organizations are so close to their industry that they fail to see what hassles still exist. In others, the players have historically held unique positions, which gave them little or no incentive to focus on buyers’ experience and the blocks to utility they themselves created. In still other situations, the organization itself has unwittingly put rose-tinted glasses on management’s eyes, creating a gulf between the way they see and experience their industry and the way ordinary people do. One of the top three US

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