Differentiate your self from the competition

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The Blue Ocean Strategy Simulation (BOSS) is a business strategy simulation which allows you to test new strategies and methods while respecting market realities.
 
The Blue Ocean Strategy simulation was designed with extensive input from the authors of the bestselling book Blue Ocean Strategy. You will truly experience the power of Blue Ocean Strategy by applying the theory and using the methodologies and tools described in the book.
 
Innovative, fun and highly effective business strategy game - BOSS will train you in strategic thinking and team-building. BOSS helps you develop the skills you need to lead a BOSS initiative in their company.
 
Choose from two different scenarios in the B2C durable goods industry or the (NEW!) retail industry. 
In this business strategy game participants work in teams to manage a fictitious consumer electronics company or a fixed price point variety goods company over a six-year period. The simulation framework allows you to:
•   break away from the competition;
•   create a blue ocean of new market space for their virtual company.
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BOSS will immerse your course participants in a blue ocean strategic mindset, so they can successfully move from a highly competitive Red Ocean to a Blue Ocean of new market space.

The Key Lessons covered throughout a BOSS exercise are the following:

  • •   Forget about positioning as you knew it: Strategy should go beyond positioning within the existing industry’s structural conditions.
  • •   Think of strategy as reconstruction – growing the industry and growing demand.
  • •   The Six Paths reveal ways to reconstruct market boundaries and open up avenues to noncustomers which, if nurtured, will allow an organization to create and capture new demand, consequently generating high growth.
  • •   You can achieve high growth in an existing Red Ocean industry by creating a Blue Ocean.
  • •   Desegment markets rather than segment them.
  • •   Reach out to noncustomers rather than just to the industry’s existing customers.
  • •   Searching for commonalities across noncustomer groups will allow organizations to see how to capture the largest share of noncustomers.
  • •   Pursue both differentiation and low cost.
  • •   Organizations can achieve both differentiation and low cost, which are no longer tradeoffs, by reconstructing market boundaries and focusing on the four actions framework of Eliminating, Reducing, Raising and Creating.
  • •   Strategic price to unlock early demand and keep competitors at bay.
  • •   The importance of strategic pricing and price corridor of the mass is highlighted. There are many cases in which the failure to price strategically has led to locked demand and lack of pressure on new entrants and competitors to lower their cost structures.
  • •   Blue Oceans can become Red. Strive for a Blue Ocean as competitors imitate.
  • •   Companies have the option to create Blue Oceans in services and distribution and not only with their products, as most organizations still believe to this day. They can rotate the creation of Blue Oceans between Products, Services and Delivery Platforms. Most organizations limit their strategic options by focusing on only one dimension of strategy.
  • •   Dramatic profit growth depends primarily on the strategic move. There are no permanently excellent organizations. They are only as good as their strategic moves.
  • •   BOSS provides a visual exploration of the market, using the Six Paths Framework in order for the course participants to reconstruct market boundaries.
  • •   Teams develop their Blue Ocean Strategy offerings using BOS tools, such as:
⁃   the strategy canvas;
⁃   the value curve;
⁃   the Four Actions Framework;
⁃   the ERRC grid.
  • •   Teams make numerous decisions within different business functions throughout our BOS simulation:
⁃   R&D;
⁃   Production;
⁃   Marketing;
⁃   Sales;
⁃   Geographic  Expansion;
⁃   Corporate initiatives.

Change the way you think about achieving strategic success!

⁃   Nine periods.
⁃   Four rounds.
⁃   Two stages.
⁃   One goal.
 

The Red Ocean stage familiarizes your course participants with the simulation environment while demonstrating how difficult it is for their fictitious company to achieve great results in a Red Ocean filled with sharks.

  • •   Teams manage a fictitious company for up to three simulated years. In doing so, they make numerous decisions on areas such as R&D, Production, Marketing, Sales, Pricing, and so on. They upgrade their products by reducing and/or raising competitive factors.
  • •   With a low market growth and tough competitors, higher costs are required to satisfy increasing customer needs as price pressure increases.

 The Blue Ocean stage helps your course participants learn and practice the Blue Ocean Strategy theory, methodologies and tools.

  • •   It includes three rounds, each of them featuring specific pedagogical objectives and key learning points:
○   Round 1: Creation of Blue Oceans.
○   Round 2: Additional focus on strategic pricing and cost reduction.
○   Round 3: Use distribution and service opportunities to once again break away from competition.
 

 •   Each team’s objective is to draw the current strategy canvas of the industry (based on the case insights) and then develop a Blue Ocean Strategy using BOS tools, such as: 

○   strategy canvas
○   value curve;
○   Four Actions Framework;
○   ERRC grid.