Strategy Canvas: Example and How to Draw Your Value Curve

A good strategy canvas example shows, on one page, how your offer compares with competitors on every factor customers weigh, and where you choose to differ. List the factors your industry competes on along the bottom, score each player from low to high, and join the dots into a line called the value curve. If your curve looks like everyone else’s, you compete on price. If it diverges, you have a position.

Below is a documented case from the creators of the tool, a worked example for a small service company, and a step-by-step method with a template you can copy.

What is a strategy canvas?

The strategy canvas was developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, professors at INSEAD, and is a central tool in their book Blue Ocean Strategy (2005). Their official site describes it as both a diagnostic tool and an action framework.

The canvas answers two questions at once:

1. Where is the industry investing? The factors on the horizontal axis show what everyone competes on today, often things nobody has questioned for years.
2. How different are we really? If your value curve runs parallel to your competitors’ curves, customers see the same offer at slightly different prices.

Kim and Mauborgne contrast “red oceans”, crowded markets where companies fight over the same customers, with “blue oceans”, new market space where competition matters less because the offer is different. The canvas is the tool that shows which one you are in.

How does a strategy canvas work?

Each part of the canvas has a specific job.

• Factors of competition (horizontal axis). The things the industry competes on and invests in: price, range, speed, service level, brand image, extras. Use factors from the customer’s point of view, not internal processes.
• Offering level (vertical axis). How much buyers receive on each factor, usually scored from 1 (low) to 5 (high). For price, a high score means a high price.
• Value curves. One line per player: your company, your main competitors, and sometimes an alternative customers use instead, such as doing the job themselves.

You do not need special software. A spreadsheet line chart, a whiteboard or a sheet of paper works. What matters is the conversation it creates.

Two practical tips make the canvas easier to read. First, put price on the far left, because it is the factor every buyer checks first and it anchors the rest of the curve. Second, order the remaining factors so that those where the industry invests most come next and the newer or neglected factors sit on the right. When you later add factors the industry has never offered, they appear at the right-hand end, and the eye immediately sees where your curve breaks away from the pack.

Strategy canvas example: yellow tail wine

The best-known strategy canvas example comes from Kim and Mauborgne’s own work on [yellow tail], a wine launched in the United States in July 2001 by Casella, a winery in Australia.

According to the official Blue Ocean Strategy site, winemakers had competed on largely the same set of factors for a very long time, factors that had hardly changed. Instead of benchmarking other wineries, Casella’s team looked at alternatives to wine, such as beer and ready-to-drink cocktails.

The resulting value curve:

• Created three factors new to the US wine industry: easy drinking, easy to select, and fun and adventure.
• Eliminated or reduced the other traditional factors, rather than trying to match established wineries on them.

The official site summarises the strategy with one tagline: “a fun and simple wine to be enjoyed every day.” It also reports that Casella had expected to sell 25,000 cases in the first year and sold nine times that amount.

The lesson for a small company is not about wine. Casella did not try to be better on the factors everyone else competed on. It changed the factors.

A worked strategy canvas example for a small company

The following example is hypothetical. Imagine a 20-person commercial cleaning company that serves small offices in one city. Its two main competitors are a national provider and a group of low-cost local cleaners. The team interviews eight clients and scores each player from 1 to 5.

Strategy canvas example: commercial cleaning (hypothetical, scores 1–5)

	National provider	Local budget cleaners	Our new curve
Price	4	2	3
Range of services	5	2	2
Contract length	5	1	1
Same team every visit	2	2	5
Quality report after each clean	2	1	5
Complaint fixed within 24 hours	2	1	5
Brand recognition	5	1	2

What the canvas reveals:

• The national provider and the budget cleaners look different on price and range, but both score low on what clients complained about most: different cleaners every week and no proof the work was done.
• The company decides to stop competing on range. It drops specialist services such as carpet and window cleaning and partners with a specialist instead.
• It removes long contracts, because interviews showed clients felt trapped by them.
• It raises consistency and proof: the same team every visit, a photo checklist after each clean, and a 24-hour promise on complaints.

Plotted as lines, the new curve crosses the competitors’ curves instead of running parallel to them. That crossing is the visual sign of a real position. To check whether the new strengths can last, run them through the VRIO framework.

How to draw a strategy canvas in 6 steps

Draw your strategy canvas

1. 1Pick the arenaOne customer segment and the job they hire you for.
2. 2List the factorsSix to twelve factors buyers weigh, in their words.
3. 3Choose comparisonsTwo or three rivals, plus one alternative.
4. 4Score and plotRate each player 1 to 5 using customer evidence.
5. 5Read the curvesWhere are lines parallel? Where do customers want more?
6. 6Design a new curveUse eliminate, reduce, raise and create.

Step 1: Pick one arena

A canvas works for one customer segment at a time. “Small offices in our city” works. “All businesses” does not, because different segments weigh the factors differently.

Step 2: List the factors of competition

Look at competitor websites, proposals and price lists, and ask customers what they compare. Write factors as customers say them: “same team every visit”, not “workforce stability”. Keep the list between six and twelve.

Step 3: Choose who to compare

Pick the two or three competitors customers mention most. Add one alternative if it matters, such as customers doing the work in-house. Alternatives often reveal the most interesting factors, as the beer and cocktails comparison did for yellow tail.

Step 4: Score and plot

Score each player on each factor using evidence, not opinion. Customer interviews are the best evidence; mystery shopping and public price lists help. Plot the scores in a line chart, one line per player.

Step 5: Read the curves

Look for three patterns: factors where all lines bunch together (the industry’s standard), factors where everyone invests heavily but customers barely care (cost you can cut), and needs customers mentioned that no factor captures yet (space to create).

Step 6: Design a new curve and test it

Use the four actions described in the next section. Then draw the new curve and test it with three or four customers before you change your offer. Show them the old and new curves side by side and ask two questions: Which of these offers would you choose, and why? What would you miss from the old one? If customers miss something you planned to eliminate, move it to “reduce” instead.

Who should be in the room

Draw the first canvas with four to six people: the owner or general manager, someone from sales, someone who delivers the work, and ideally someone who handles complaints. Each sees different factors. Sales people know what prospects compare. Delivery staff know what drives cost. The person handling complaints knows what customers miss. A canvas drawn by the owner alone usually reflects the owner’s view of the market, which is exactly the bias the tool is meant to correct.

Plan two sessions of about 90 minutes. In the first, agree on the arena and the factors, and assign homework: interviews, competitor research, price checks. In the second, score the players with that evidence and build the ERRC grid. Keep the finished canvas visible, on a wall or the first page of your planning document, so it guides decisions after the meeting ends.

How do you use the four actions framework?

Kim and Mauborgne pair the canvas with the four actions framework. Their Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create (ERRC) grid turns the four actions into a worksheet. It forces you to cut as well as add, which is how a company can stand apart and keep costs under control at the same time.

The ERRC grid: four actions to build a new value curve

How far

PartlyFully

EliminateWhich factors the industry takes for granted can go completely?

CreateWhich factors has the industry never offered?

ReduceWhich factors can fall well below the industry standard?

RaiseWhich factors should rise well above the standard?

CutDirectionAdd

For the cleaning company in the example, the grid looks like this: eliminate long contracts; reduce the range of services; raise team consistency; create a quality report after every clean and a 24-hour complaint promise.

What makes a good value curve?

The official Blue Ocean Strategy site describes three marks of a strong value curve:

1. Focus. The company does not spread its effort across every factor. It invests heavily in a few.
2. Divergence. The shape of the curve differs from competitors’ curves, usually because the team looked at alternatives instead of benchmarking rivals.
3. A compelling tagline. The curve can be summed up in one clear message customers understand.

If you cannot write the tagline, the curve probably lacks focus. Our guide to value proposition vs USP shows how to turn a value curve into words customers remember.

Why is the strategy canvas worth the effort?

The canvas takes a few hours. The payoff is clarity about whether you are competing on the same terms as everyone else. Kim and Mauborgne’s 2004 Harvard Business Review article reports a study of 108 business launches: 86% were line extensions, meaning improvements within existing markets, and 14% aimed at creating new market space.

Share of revenue and profit from 108 business launches

Line extensions: share of revenue 62%

New-market launches: share of revenue 38%

Line extensions: share of profit 39%

New-market launches: share of profit 61%

The same article describes Cirque du Soleil, founded in 1984 by street performers, which increased its revenue 22-fold over ten years in a circus industry that was in long-term decline. According to the authors, it moved away from costly traditional elements such as animal shows and star performers, kept the acrobats, and added elements from theatre such as a storyline and original music.

Treat this as evidence from the framework’s authors, not a guarantee. A small company does not need to invent a new industry to benefit. Moving your curve away from the pack on two or three factors that customers care about is often enough to escape a price war. It also gives your pricing a reason to differ from the market average.

Strategy canvas template you can copy

Copy these rows into a spreadsheet, add one column per player, and score from 1 to 5. A line chart of the table is your canvas.

Strategy canvas template: what to prepare

• Arena: one customer segment and the job they hire you for
• Six to twelve factors of competition, in customers' words
• Columns: your company, two or three rivals, one alternative
• Scores from 1 to 5, each backed by a customer quote or fact
• ERRC grid: at least one factor in each of the four boxes
• New curve: scores after the changes you plan
• Tagline: one sentence that describes the new curve

Summary

A strategy canvas, developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, shows the factors an industry competes on and the level each player offers, so you can see your value curve next to competitors. The yellow tail case shows the idea at work: Casella created new factors instead of matching rivals on old ones. To draw your own, pick one segment, list six to twelve customer factors, score each player with evidence, then use eliminate, reduce, raise and create to design a curve with focus, divergence and a clear tagline. It is one of the most practical ways to act on our guide to building a sustainable competitive advantage, and it belongs on the same page as your one-page business plan.