Strategy is heavily influenced by its roots in military strategy. The very language of strategy is deeply imbued with military references— chief executive “officers” in “headquarters,” “troops” on the “front lines.” Described this way, strategy is all about red ocean competition. It is about confronting an opponent and driving him off a battlefield of limited territory.

Today, one hardly talks about strategy without using the language of competition.

strategy perforce becomes a zero-sum game where one company’s gain is another company’s loss

strategy is about confronting an opponent and fighting over a given piece of land that is both limited and constant.

Our research reveals that most companies’ strategic planning process keeps them wedded to red oceans. The process tends to drive companies to compete within existing market space.

If you ask companies to present their proposed strategies in no more than a few slides, it is not surprising that few clear or compelling strategies are articulated.

The traditional units of strategic analysis—company and industry—have little explanatory power when it comes to analyzing how and why blue oceans are created.(..)The most appropriate unit of analysis for explaining the creation of blue oceans is the strategic move—the set of managerial actions and decisions involved in making a major market creating business offering.

Drawing a strategy canvas is never easy. Even identifying the key factors of competition is far from straightforward. As you will see, the final list is usually very different from the first draft

strategic planning should be more about collective wisdom building than top-down or bottom-up planning.