Margaret Mead famously said, “I am unique – just like everyone else”.

With all of this uniqueness going around maybe our offer can be more focussed, perhaps for a more specific target market.  This is the focus of the Kim and Mauborgne Blue Ocean Strategy model.  Driving costs down, even as you create more value for your clients creates a space they called “Value Innovation”.  This is where you may find creativity to design new markets.

Singapore Airlines provide an exemplar.  In his strategy model, Michael Porter required organisations to choose to design their offer either around Cost or Differentiation.  Singapore Airlines decided to focus on both.  They showed how to avoid service mediocrity and financial difficulty by offering massive value at low cost (HBR July 2010).

Blue Ocean is ideal for defining the ‘Customer Perspective’ of Strategy Map .  The authors provide tools which translate well into focussed conversations to find untapped markets where your competition is irrelevant.  And defining a compelling offer lies at the heart of strategic thinking.

Continuously innovating into new market spaces requires focussed innovation.  And this does not preclude the necessity to make your stand to face down your competitors.

Kim and Mauborgne offer four steps to define your offer:

  1. Market boundaries are an academic construct.  They are therefore, open to challenge.  The authors offer six methods to focus this challenge.
  2. In this topic it is easy to get lost in detail.  Strategy Canvas keeps the conversation focussed on the big picture.
  3. They include questions to challenge your traditions about who ‘should’ be in your target market.
  4. Finally they offer a process and tools to design your offer.  Some of the steps in the process are counter intuitive.  For instance, it is better to agree a pricing structure before you design your costs.

Singapore Airlines stimulated their success by managing four beautiful strategic paradoxes:

  1. Achieve service excellence while driving costs down.
  2. Promote centralised and decentralised innovation.
  3. Be a technology leader and follower.
  4. Use standardisation to achieve personalisation.

Singapore Airlines have consistently performed effectively since the 2010 article. 

But how have they handled the pandemic?  Without a domestic market to support recovery they are vulnerable.  They have been creative in flexing their offer within lockdown parameters, offering “staycation” sightseeing flights.  In August 2020, 6000 staff took unpaid leave.  However, the executives are also taking hard decisions to preserve the airline and outlined a plan in September 2020 to cut 4 300 jobs across the group.

Kim and Mauborgne also offer a model for executing strategy on which we have drawn extensively.  A topic for another note perhaps…