CONCEPT
Four Actions Framework
Kim and Mauborgne's operational grammar of blue ocean creation — four simultaneous questions (eliminate which factors? reduce? raise? create?) whose answers define a value curve that opens uncontested market space through <em>value innovation</em>.
The four actions framework is the prescriptive tool at the heart of blue ocean strategy — the structured process through which organizations systematically create new market space. It asks four questions that must be answered together: What factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated? What factors should be reduced well below the industry standard? What factors should be raised well above the industry standard? What factors should be created that the industry has never offered? The framework's power resides in the simultaneity of the four actions. Elimination and reduction lower costs. Raising and creation increase buyer value. When all four happen at once, the result is value innovation — a leap in value at lower cost that opens blue ocean space. The framework is not a menu from which the strategist selects one or two actions. It is a system in which all four reinforce each other: the savings from elimination fund the investment in creation, the reduction of low-value