What Is a Strategy Canvas? How to Create a Strategy Canvas

A strategy canvas is a line graph that plots a business’s key factors (such as price, customer service, convenience, etc.) against the level to which those factors meet customer needs. The key factors are set on the horizontal axis (x), and the level of value offered is set on the vertical axis (y). Business strategists W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne developed the strategy canvas template and published it in their book Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Create Uncontested Market Space And Make The Competition Irrelevant (2005).

A strategy canvas is similar to a business model canvas, except that it presents data in a more simplified snapshot. The main goal of a strategy canvas is to help visualize the current state of play within an industry. This helps businesses determine which factors of competition they should invest in. It’s also helpful when developing a differentiation business strategy. Companies can plot their own competing factors and analyze them against their competitors.

There are several notable benefits of using a strategy canvas.

1. 1. Provides a snapshot of the current state of play: Strategy canvases allow you to analyze the industry benchmark and the performance of your competitors. Whether you’re looking to improve an existing strategy or develop a new strategy, this action framework can help you invest in key factors that your customers value.
2. 2. Can help increase your value proposition: Companies can use a strategy canvas to identify untapped customer segments when developing a competitive strategy. Startups entering an established market are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. Using a strategy canvas, startups can visualize the current state of play and potentially spot new market opportunities.
3. 3. Helps identify strengths and weaknesses: Plotting your competitive factors against the industry benchmark can help reveal areas of your business that need improvement. This benefits strategic planning and can influence business decisions, such as introducing a new product or service.

Here’s how to create a strategy canvas for your business:

• Identify your competition. Make a list of all of your direct competitors. If there are too many to list individually, you can put them together in smaller, semi-homogenous groups.
• Identify your factors of competition. Conduct a brainstorming meeting with all key stakeholders to identify the factors your customer values. Focus only on factors that add value to the customer. You might want to conduct market research via surveys or interviews to get the most accurate customer data.
• Evaluate your competition. Once you’ve gathered data on your and your competitor’s factors of competition, it’s time to draw the graph. Plot key factors along the x-axis and the offering level along the y-axis.
• Create a strategic profile. Now that you can quickly see how your competing factors stack up against your competitors, use this data to tweak an existing business strategy or create a new one.

A furniture brand wants to know how its products and services stack up against its competitors. They identify five value propositions: price, variety, quality, customer service, and delivery. They plot their own company’s offerings and see that while they offer less variety than their competitors, they offer higher quality. They decide to continue focusing on quality as a differentiating factor and create a marketing strategy built around their superior materials.

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