Yesterday, I had the good fortune to attend a 1-day workshop on introduction to the Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) organized by the UCSI Blue Ocean Strategy Regional Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was well facilitated by Jason Hunter, Director of Training, UCSI Blue Ocean Strategy Regional Centre.
I've read the BOS book and also attended a half-day seminar conducted by the one of the authors, Prof. Chan Kim, way back in 2006. From the BOS workshop yesterday, I gained further insights and learnings about the BOS concept and process.
From my 1-day exploratory trip, I've uncovered the following 25 knowledge nuggets:
1. BOS is about strategic thinking and not about strategic planning.
2. BOS is about seeing/observing things around you and not about looking ahead.
3. BOS is about focusing on your non-customers and not about listening solely to the voice of existing customers.
4. BOS is about understanding the pain points of the non-customers and not about the pleasure points of existing customers.
5. BOS is about reducing pains and not about increasing pleasure for the customers.
6. BOS is about searching for alternatives and not about improving existing products/services.
7. BOS is about applying outside-in thinking and not about adopting the inside-out approach.
8. BOS is about having a paradigm of "We don't know" and not about a mindset of "We know".
9. BOS is about problem creation and not about problem solving.
10. BOS is about making sense of the uncommon sense and not about uncommon nonsense.
11. BOS is about reducing costs and raising value and not about cost reduction or value enhancement.
12. BOS is about supply-side thinking and not about demand-side thoughtings.
13. BOS is about focusing on users, purchasers and influencers and not about users only.
14. BOS is about simplicity and not about complexity.
15. BOS is about breaking away from the pack and not about staying with the herd.
16. BOS is about creating a new industry and not about new products/services.
17. BOS is about value innovation and not about value improvement.
18. BOS is about asking WHY and not about answering WHAT.
19. BOS is about value creation and not about value addition.
20. BOS is about prioritising utility over price and cost structures.
21. BOS is about having strong stomach and heart to eliminate and reducing familiarities and not about finetuning acts within the comfort zone.
22. BOS is about having ardent desires, strong commitment, enthusiasm, hard work, staying power and flawless execution.
23. BOS is about exploration and not about efficiency.
24. BOS is about aligning the 3 propositions of value, product and people and not about having one or two of the other.
25 BOS is about looking for opportunity all around us if only we search for it in the right way.
From the above, I believe that for an organization to successfully navigate BOS pathway, it should possess the core competencies of strategic thinking, value creation, emotional intelligence, learning orientation, respect for diversity, integrity, accountability and achievement orientation.
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At this moment Blue Ocean Strategy seemed abit ideal. Let us look at individual level. Someone may have opted to study Psychology for Space Travellers. Well it is a niche area, and I assume here that it falls within the BOS. However, in reality there are always more demand for courses in laws, medicine and business. Why explore and take risk when it is proven that medicine have better prospect?
ReplyDeleteKim also used the circus industry as an example. However, how many of us really can think of an "out of the box" business idea. Many of the so-called BOS are actually chance discovery. Kim failed to provide data to showed that any workshops based on BOS will produce any BOS. Infact I would bet that only 1% entrepreneurs will be able to produce a BOS.
It is always easy to say "breaking away from the pack and not about staying with the herd." Unfortunately, a person's ability to have that ability has alot to do with culture, their educational background, aptitude etc. Try to convince a Wan Tan mee seller to sell Borscht, and see what happens.
There is also the issue of 2nd Mover Advantage. The first mover plant the idea and absorb the risks and costs (and then die in the lonely Blue Ocean), and whereas the 2nd mover reap the benefits and enjoy the glory (in the Red Ocean).