Strategy Canvas (Blue Ocean Value Curve)
Type: template
Stage: Stage 2: Positioning Proof
Difficulty: intermediate
Plot the factors customers care about on the x-axis and each competitor's offering level on the y-axis. A divergent curve signals an uncontested market space — your Blue Ocean positioning territory.
Overview
The Strategy Canvas is the central diagnostic tool from W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy framework. It makes visible the assumptions your industry competes on — and shows you which of those assumptions you can challenge. A positioning that diverges dramatically from the industry's value curve is a positioning that competes in uncontested space.
How the Strategy Canvas works
The canvas has two axes:
• X-axis: the factors of competition — the attributes that companies in your category invest in and buyers use to evaluate options (e.g., price, feature depth, ease of setup, integration count, customer support, compliance documentation)
• Y-axis: offering level — how much of each factor each competitor delivers (rated low to high)
You plot a line for each competitor, connecting their offering level across each factor. The result is a 'value curve' — a visual signature of how that competitor competes.
The goal: draw your own value curve, then look for divergence. If your curve follows the same shape as every competitor's curve, you're competing on the same dimensions they're competing on — which means differentiation is minimal and competition is direct. If your curve diverges significantly, you've found a positioning angle that competitors aren't occupying.
Identifying your factors of competition
The factors on the x-axis should come from your customers, not your internal assumptions.
To identify the right factors:
1. Review your customer interview notes from Stage 1 — what criteria did customers mention when describing how they choose between options?
2. Look at competitor comparison pages and G2/Capterra reviews — what attributes do reviewers evaluate?
3. Consider the 'weird competitor' factors — if buyers are using spreadsheets instead of your category, what does the spreadsheet offer that the category doesn't? (Control, transparency, no subscription cost, familiarity)
Include factors where you intend to invest heavily and factors where you intend to deliberately underinvest. Both matter — reducing investment in a factor that competitors are all competing on is how you fund investment in the factor that differentiates you.
Reading the 'go' signal
A 'go' signal on the Strategy Canvas appears when your proposed value curve:
• Eliminates or reduces investment in factors that competitors all compete on but your target customer doesn't actually value highly
• Raises investment significantly in factors that your target customer values but competitors are underdelivering on
• Creates a new factor that doesn't currently appear on any competitor's curve
The divergence between your curve and the industry's curves is the visual representation of your positioning differentiation. The more dramatic the divergence, the more clearly you've identified uncontested positioning territory.
A 'no-go' signal: your proposed curve follows the same shape as the industry average, just shifted slightly higher or lower. That's incrementalism, not differentiation.
Using the ERRC framework alongside this template
The Strategy Canvas pairs directly with the ERRC Four Actions Framework (Template 6 in this Stage 2 set). Once you've drawn your canvas:
• Eliminate: which factors are you removing entirely that the industry takes for granted?
• Reduce: which factors are you delivering below industry standard because your target customer doesn't need them?
• Raise: which factors are you delivering above industry standard?
• Create: which factors are you introducing that no competitor currently offers?
Running ERRC alongside the Strategy Canvas forces you to make explicit decisions about competitive differentiation rather than letting the curve emerge from default product decisions. The resulting curve is a strategic choice, not an accident.