Blue Ocean Strategy (ERRC) — free online maker
Stop competing on the industry's terms — eliminate, reduce, raise, and create. Guided prompts on every block, autosave in your browser, and one-click PDF export.
30-45 minutes to a first draft4 blocks How to fill it in
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What is the Blue Ocean Strategy (ERRC)?
Blue Ocean Strategy argues that competing head-on in an existing market — a 'red ocean' — traps everyone in feature parity and price wars. The alternative is to create uncontested space by changing which factors you compete on at all.
The ERRC grid is the tool that makes this concrete. Four questions: which factors the industry takes for granted should be eliminated, which should be reduced well below the standard, which should be raised well above it, and which should be created that the industry has never offered. Eliminate and reduce cut your cost base; raise and create build differentiation. Doing all four at once is what makes low cost and differentiation compatible rather than opposed.
Developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne at INSEAD, published in Blue Ocean Strategy (2005). The ERRC grid is the framework's central analytical tool.
Use it when…
- A crowded market where everyone competes on the same handful of factors
- Designing a new offer that must be both cheaper and better
- When feature parity with a bigger competitor is unwinnable
- Reviewing what your industry does out of habit rather than customer demand
The 4 blocks, in the order to fill them
- 1
Eliminate
Which factors should be removed entirely?
Factors the industry has long competed on that could be removed altogether. These usually survive because everyone assumes they are required, not because customers value them.
How to fill this block - 2
Reduce
What should drop well below the industry standard?
Factors worth keeping but deliberately delivered below the industry norm. Over-delivery is usually the result of competitors matching each other rather than anyone asking customers what they need.
How to fill this block - 3
Raise
What should go well above the industry standard?
Factors where you deliberately overshoot the norm because customers genuinely care and everyone currently under-delivers. Look for the compromises the industry forces on customers and treat them as opportunities.
How to fill this block - 4
Create
What should be offered that the industry never has?
Entirely new sources of value that the industry has never offered, often reached by looking at non-customers — the people who considered your category and chose nothing at all. Their reason for refusing is usually the specification for this block.
How to fill this block
Worked Blue Ocean examples
Complete, realistic canvases with an analysis of what each one reveals. Open one on its own page, or load it straight into the editor above.
Blue Ocean FAQs
What is the ERRC grid?
Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create — the four actions at the centre of Blue Ocean Strategy. Eliminate and reduce lower your cost structure; raise and create build differentiation. Completing all four is what allows an offer to be simultaneously cheaper and better, which conventional strategy treats as a contradiction.
What is the difference between a red ocean and a blue ocean?
A red ocean is an existing market where the boundaries and competitive factors are agreed by everyone, so firms compete on the same dimensions and margins erode. A blue ocean is uncontested space created by changing which factors matter, making the existing comparison less relevant. The ERRC grid is how you get from one to the other.
Do I have to fill in all four boxes?
Yes — that is the discipline. Teams naturally fill Raise and Create because adding is comfortable, and leave Eliminate and Reduce thin. But without the left-hand columns you have no cost saving to fund the right-hand ones, and the result is just a more expensive product in the same red ocean.
Who are non-customers and why do they matter?
People who could buy from your category but do not. Kim and Mauborgne describe three tiers: those on the edge who buy minimally, those who have consciously refused, and those who have never considered the category at all. Their reasons for staying out are the richest source of ideas for the Create block, because existing customers can only describe improvements to what already exists.