Five Frameworks, One System
BlueSigma is the model Dr. JWise built at YU, LLC. It pulls all five frameworks into a single three-phase sequence. Phase 0 (READ) uses Porter's Five Forces to find where competitive pressure is highest, then translates each force into a specific offer decision. Phase 1 (SCAN) redesigns the offer in direct response to those forces, drawing on Blue Ocean Strategy's logic of asymmetric investment. Phase 2 (LOCK) makes every SCAN decision stick using the empirical discipline of Lean Six Sigma. Each framework finds its purpose inside this sequence rather than standing alone.
Porter's Five Forces
A framework for reading the five forces that shape competition in any industry. By mapping where power sits among suppliers, buyers, rivals, new entrants, and substitutes, you can see where profit gets squeezed and where room to grow actually exists.
🚪 Threat of New Entrants
How easily can competitors enter your market? High barriers like capital requirements, regulation, and brand loyalty reduce this threat and protect your margins.
🔄 Bargaining Power of Suppliers
When few suppliers exist or switching is costly, they set the terms. Your costs go up and your margins shrink.
🏭 Industry Rivalry (Center Force)
The intensity of competition among existing players. All other forces either increase or reduce this pressure.
🛒 Bargaining Power of Buyers
When customers have many choices or buy in large volume, they push for lower prices or better terms. Your margins shrink either way.
🔁 Threat of Substitutes
Other products or services that meet the same need. When substitutes are easy to find, you lose pricing power.
- A clear, repeatable method for reading any industry
- Shows exactly where competitive pressure is greatest
- Useful when deciding whether to enter, exit, or reposition
- Easy to share with leadership because the logic is straightforward
- Works across nearly every type of industry
- It is a snapshot. It does not account for markets that shift fast.
- Assumes your industry has clear, defined boundaries
- Says nothing about your internal strengths or weaknesses
- Less useful in platform or network-based markets
- Can push teams into defensive, reactive thinking
In BlueSigma, Porter's Five Forces is not just a standalone analysis. It is Phase 0 (READ) — the diagnostic input that tells you which SCAN moves to make before you touch your offer. Rate each force, then follow the signal.
Blue Ocean Strategy
A theory that argues lasting success does not come from beating rivals in crowded markets. It comes from creating new market spaces where there is no competition to beat. The key idea is that you can offer more value to customers and lower your costs at the same time. Kim and Mauborgne called this value innovation. BlueSigma is built on this foundation.
🔴 Red Ocean
Compete in existing markets. Fight for existing customers. Accept that improving value means raising costs. Win by being slightly better than rivals who are doing the same thing.
🔵 Blue Ocean
Create a market where you are the only option. Bring in customers who were not buying before. Raise the value you deliver while reducing what it costs to deliver it. Stop competing entirely.
- Gets you out of head-to-head competition entirely
- You can lower cost and raise value at the same time
- Opens up customer groups that nobody else is serving
- The strategy canvas gives teams something concrete to react to
- Proven in real companies: Cirque du Soleil, Nintendo Wii, Southwest Airlines
- Competitors will eventually follow. The window closes.
- The new market space you target might not grow the way you expect
- You need real customer insight. Assumptions will get you in trouble.
- Hard to pull off inside a large organization with established habits
- A good strategy does not guarantee good execution
Four Actions Framework
The ERRC Grid (Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create) is how you put Blue Ocean Strategy into practice. It forces four decisions about every factor your industry competes on. You cut what customers do not really value and build what no competitor has ever offered. The output is a concrete redesign of your offer, not just a direction to move in.
✂️ Eliminate
What has the industry always competed on that customers do not actually value? Remove it. Not a smaller version of it. Remove it.
📉 Reduce
What are you spending on that customers barely notice? Pull back below industry standard. You are spending more than you need to here.
📈 Raise
What do customers genuinely want more of? Invest in it at a level that competitors would consider unreasonable. This is where customers feel the difference.
✨ Create
What has the industry never offered? There is no competitor template to copy. You build it from scratch. This is where a Blue Ocean actually starts.
ELIMINATED
Animal acts, star performers, aisle concession sales, multiple show arenas
REDUCED
Fun and humor, thrill and danger elements
RAISED
Unique venue experience, refined theatrical environment
CREATED
Narrative theme, artistic music and dance, multiple productions
- Simple format any team can sit down and use
- Gets people to question things the industry has always done
- Cuts costs and raises what customers care about at the same time
- Gets people talking across departments who do not normally work together
- You walk out with a redesigned offer, not just a strategy statement
- You need real knowledge of what customers actually value, not assumptions
- The quality of what comes out depends on the quality of what goes in
- It does not tell you whether your team can actually deliver the new offer
- The Create quadrant is the hardest. You cannot force a genuinely new idea.
- Teams tend to go easy on the Eliminate quadrant. Cutting is uncomfortable.
Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma brings two methods together. Lean removes waste and speeds things up. Six Sigma reduces errors and variation using real data. Together they make delivery faster, less expensive, and more consistent. This is the execution side of BlueSigma. Without it, a good strategy stays on paper.
🏎️ Lean: Speed and Flow
Removes the 8 wastes known as TIMWOODS: Transport, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over-processing, Defects, and underused people. The goal is to do more with less and do it faster.
📊 Six Sigma: Quality and Precision
Targets 3.4 defects per million opportunities. That is 99.99966% quality. Uses statistics to find the real root of a problem and remove it for good. The goal is output you can count on every time.
- Based on real numbers. Takes the guesswork out of where to improve.
- Cuts costs and raises quality at the same time
- Works in manufacturing, healthcare, finance, services, and more
- Builds a team culture that keeps looking for ways to get better
- Belt certifications create people who are accountable and trained
- Strong results record. GE reported over $12 billion in savings.
- Training and certification require real investment of time and money
- DMAIC projects take months. That is too slow when things are moving fast.
- A culture built around metrics can crowd out new thinking
- Built for steady improvement, not big leaps or new ideas
- It needs leadership to fully commit or the team resists and reverts
BlueSigma
BlueSigma is the model Dr. JWise built at YU, LLC. It integrates three traditions into one sequential model. Phase 0 (READ) uses Porter's Five Forces to find where competitive pressure is concentrated and translates each force into a directional signal. Phase 1 (SCAN) redesigns the offer in direct response to those signals. Phase 2 (LOCK) turns each SCAN decision into a verified, durable change using the empirical discipline of Lean Six Sigma. All three phases are required. The model does not end. The Keep step in LOCK watches for force shifts and sends the cycle back to READ.
High → New Build something imitators cannot copy
High → Shed Compress Reduce supplier-dependent dimensions
High → Amplify New Get out of the fight or outrun it entirely
High → Amplify Shed Give buyers a reason to stop looking elsewhere
High → New Amplify Make substitutes irrelevant by comparison
You stop doing it. Not less of it and not a smaller version. You table it off the table entirely.
You keep it but stop competing with it. Less resources, less attention, and less effort than anyone else in your market puts in.
You pour into it. More than feels comfortable, more than your competitors would think is smart. This is where you want people to feel the difference.
You add something your market has never offered. There is no competitor template to copy. You build it from scratch.
Write the outcome down in one sentence before you do anything else.
Find the real number. Not what you think it is. What it actually is right now.
Trace the problem back to where it starts, not where it shows up. Then change it there.
Put something in place that catches slippage before your customer notices it. A check, a review, a dashboard. Something standing.
⚔️ READ ← Porter's Five Forces
Porter diagnoses where pressure exists but does not say what to do about it. READ turns each force rating into a directional SCAN signal. High rivalry → Amplify or New. High buyer power → Amplify or Shed. High supplier power → Shed or Compress. The forces become instructions, not just observations.
🌊 SCAN ← Blue Ocean + Four Actions
SHED mirrors Eliminate. COMPRESS mirrors Reduce. AMPLIFY mirrors Raise. NEW mirrors Create. The logic is the same as the ERRC Grid, but SCAN is applied to a single venture's offer rather than an industry, and every decision is grounded in what READ revealed. The language removes the room to hedge.
⚙️ LOCK ← Lean Six Sigma DMAIC
LOCK runs parallel to DMAIC. Locate maps to Define. Observe maps to Measure. Correct maps to Analyze and Improve. Keep maps to Control. DMAIC is a full project process. LOCK is faster and built to hold each SCAN decision in place right away — and the Keep step watches for force shifts that trigger the whole cycle again.
Strategy
Create market space where there is no competition. SCAN decides what your offer looks like and what sets it apart.
Execution
Remove waste. Reduce errors. Raise quality. LOCK makes sure each decision from SCAN becomes a change that actually happens.
Continuous Improvement
Client success through integrated excellence. SCAN and LOCK run in a loop. The gains keep building over time.
- READ grounds every SCAN decision in real competitive data, not assumptions
- The three phases answer the full sequence: what forces exist, what to change, and how to make it hold
- SCAN forces clear decisions. There is no room to hedge.
- LOCK stops the most common failure: decisions that look good on paper and never change anything
- The Keep step closes the loop — force shifts trigger READ, which updates SCAN and LOCK automatically
- The language is plain and direct. Works for any size of organization.
- READ requires honest force ratings. Optimistic numbers produce wrong SCAN signals.
- SHED requires an honest look inward. Teams resist cutting what they built.
- AMPLIFY takes real resource commitment. Leadership has to mean it.
- LOCK requires baseline numbers before any intervention is made
- NEW cannot be delegated or scheduled. Genuine new ideas take time.
- All three phases are required. READ without SCAN and LOCK is analysis that goes nowhere.
"Differentiate Boldly. Deliver Excellence. Improve Continuously." · BlueSigma by Dr. JWise, YU, LLC · READ · SCAN · LOCK