Good morning friend,
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I'm writing to you from Ottawa, during a family trip we've taken to Canada's capital city. Ottawa is quiet in terms of pedestrian traffic (when compared to Toronto), but it's not quiet when we reflect on the ongoing trade warfare.

As Greg Koabel puts it in an opinion article in Saturday's The Globe and Mail newspaper, "tariffs, sanctions, retaliatory duties and political grandstanding have disrupted global supply chains, squeezed margins and turned routine commerce into geopolitical chess. In Canada, where much of the economic prosperity still hinges on relationships with more powerful trading partners - most notably the United States and China - businesses are being forced to rethink assumptions, rebuild supply chains and rediscover the art of commercial improvisation."

As trade tensions escalate with America and China, traditional avenues for growth and market access are narrowing. Exporters of lumber, steel, aluminum, automobiles, light trucks, and semi-finished copper products and many other products find themselves in survival mode.

When global power structures close doors, the only way forward is to innovate, pivot and execute to the best of your abilities.

Good leaders aren't deterred when boxed out of legacy markets; they look for alternatives. They focus on innovation, with a clear vision (in the face of export options that have been shattered) and audacity (in the face of potential collapse).

As you reflect on the opportunities before you and your organization, you may want to read (or re-read) "Blue Ocean Strategy", a book written by INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, and reflect on the fact that competing in overcrowded industries is no way to sustain high performance; the real opportunity is to create blue oceans of uncontested market space. In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid.

You may consider using the Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework, which is designed to help leaders think in more innovative ways about the products/services they are creating relative to their industry. The framework will help you maximize user value and eliminate unnecessary product features by eliminating and reducing user pain, and raising and creating user gain.
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​How to create a blue ocean of uncontested market space for your organization:

• Step 1: Eliminate. Ask questions about the industry standards in your product space. First, ask yourself, which factors that the industry has long competed on should be eliminated? Think of the factors that require a lot of investment and effort, but don’t bring a lot of revenue/new customers and, in general, don’t drive key metrics up. These can also be the factors that made more sense in the past but are not as useful now - for example, a feature that differentiated a digital product in the past but became obsolete as time passed.
• Step 2: Reduce. Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard? Think of the features/characteristics of your product that are well designed to beat the competition but take too much time and resources. Can you strip this down to something more simple but still competitive and relevant to your users?
• Step 3: Raise. Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard? What are the pain points that the market does not address? Think of the way you can build features that will help your customers solve challenges that other companies are not solving.
• Step 4: Create. Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered? This is one of the most challenging questions and it requires a deep understanding of your customers’ interests and desires, as well as a good insight into where the industry is going. The goal is to think about the future and the challenges customers haven’t articulated yet.

The Four Actions Framework is a blue ocean strategy tool that is designed to help you create value innovation and break the value-cost trade-off.

I wish you continued success!

Alex Rășcanu​
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P.S. If you found this message helpful, hit reply and share your reflections. I read every message. Also, come for one of the upcoming #ExperienceTO historical tours such as the West Bend Historical Tour on Saturday, September 6th.

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