It's not about the "BIG" idea...

The concept of the "Blue Ocean Strategy" has surfaced on the cover of NFDA's Director magazine. The process involves a complex and probably error prone (unless you are a strategic planning specialist of some kind) approach to measuring your business' place in your market place and possibly finding a new business offering.

Underlying this approach rests the assumption that one big idea will make your business successful, as the article points to Starbucks Coffee and Southwest Airlines as examples of companies which found "blue oceans" within which to operate. Of course, at the time of the founding of these companies, the people involved had no idea that their WAG (wild-assed guesses) would turn into national phenomena. Just passionate people with an idea that happened to work out, but not one reached through some sort of fancy chart and graph planning process.

For instance, if I remember correctly, Southwest started as a triangle drawn on a cocktail napkin with the corners representing three cities in Texas. After they got going, Southwest realized they had a concept with "legs" and the capacity to move beyond the boundaries of one state. Lots of trial and error and willingness turned Southwest into the powerhouse we see today.

So it takes passion, hard work, luck (lots of passionate people have started airlines and failed)  and constant learning and trying new things. In the end, the trying and the learning at the grass roots of an organizaton will get you to bigger business opportunities much faster than a formal strategic planning process which drops in from out of the blue.

Try, listen, learn, do some more. That's the essence of building any business  or project.

BT

P.S. Here's a commentary which ran in the New York Times a week ago. A reminder that innovation rarely comes from the "Eureka!" moment, most often from persistent grind-it-out hard work and learning. Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work

Comments

[Dale Clock]

Awe come on BT. That’s 2 times in the last several weeks you’ve bashed the blue ocean strategy. Now I haven’t read the book, or attended any training session. But I have listened to Bill McQueen talk on the subject several times (He’s the guy who brought the Idea to the funeral industry) and I have spent some time on the blue ocean website and gotten the basic jist of what they are saying; to quote their website;

“In simple terms, red ocean strategy is about how to out-pace rivals in existing market space; it is a market-competing strategy. In contrast, blue ocean strategy is about how to get out of established market boundaries to leave the competition behind; it is a market-creating strategy.”

Anyone can read more at http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/qa/FullAnswer.php?qid=1

But as far as funeral service is concerned, to think in blue ocean terms is to forget about your competitor. And really think about your customer. What does he want and why? How come he just wants cremation and then they’ll have a party on their own. Is there something you can provided for him or help him do. Not try to re-educate him to get him to fit into your nice funeral home with chandeliers and lovely sofas. But listen to what he’s saying or not saying and see if you can get him what he needs and wants instead of just offering what you have. That’s the Big Idea. I watch (or Tivo) “The Big Idea” on MSNBC every night at 10PM for inspiration. I know that those big successes didn’t come over night but they all came about because somebody figured out what the customer really wanted or needed. That’s what blue ocean strategy means to me.

Dale Clock

[BT]

Hi Dale,

You are right. Good business is all about responding effectively to real customer needs. And yes the general concept of finding your "blue ocean" has merit.

However, the process the book takes you through is cumbersome, prone to error and tends to encourage the "thinkers" at the top of an organization to hole up in a meeting room somewhere trying to imagine what customers want as opposed to getting closer to the line staff and customers themselves where the learning can occur much more quickly, and accurately.

Funeral homes could learn much more from a company like Toyota, which uses a "continuous improvement" approach to transforming their business over time. That's the kind of organization that Bill McQueen has built. That's where most of his success comes from. Quality people with autonomy to serve families well and a committment to learn from the people working in the trenches.

Outside of that they run full-service funeral homes and they run low-cost funeral homes with a centralized removal and prep center. At the "big picture" level they look very much the same as loads of other funeral businesses. Their success comes from the details and those details have come about through gut, instinct and lots of listening to staff and consumers and transforming the company steadily over time.

If you're a good funeral director/funeral home owner, show up to lots of funerals and listen to lots of people and if there's a "blue ocean opportunity" among your customer base, you'll hear it. Then act upon it. Simple. Just don't get caught up in the process. Graphs and charts will just tend to slow you down or confuse the hell out of most funeral home staffs.

Keep it simple. That works best.

BT

[Dale Clock]

BT,

Thanks for the reply. You and I are really on the same page. The challenge is trying to find the balance between "just do it" and "do it right, do it once". Sometimes my engineering degree gets in the way of the Nike moment. There is merit in both methods. But I know if I think about it to much(whatever the "it" of the week is)sometimes "it" never gets done. That's why my wife works with me, to kick me in the but sometimes.

Dale

[BT]

Yes, we are on the same page. And yes it's always a difficult balance between idea and execution.

With your engineering background you always have to remember that people are not things. A piece of metal, for instance, has specifications which do not vary over time and which you can rely upon for planning and design purposes. But with people, whether customers or staff, their specs change every time you turn around. Organizations require LOTS of trial and error and of course learning from the experiences. Take what you know now. Start with the new. Learn from the experience (and don't get hung up on your mistakes). Repeat. That's the never ending realitity of business.

Have a fabulous week,

BT