Book review of The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey: Blue Ocean Strategy ( Chapter 2 ) Analytical Tools and Frameworks – High School Musical 3, Step Up 3D & Street Dance 3D

In this chapter, Professor W. Chan Kim introduces the strategy canvas. This is the diagnostic and action framework for building a compelling blue ocean strategy. You can evaluate the investment, factors, customers’ feedback and product features etc.

Today I choose 3 dancing movies which are High School Musical 3 (2008), Step Up 3D (2010) and Street Dance 3D (2010). These 3 movies are dancing movie with romance and courage for teenage audience. I plot up the principle factors and value curve to show the graphic depiction of 3 movies.

High School Musical 3 (2008)

Budget	$11 million
Gross revenue	$252,909,177
Profit ratio	2299.1%

Step Up 3D (2010)

Budget	$30 million
Gross revenue	$159,152,693
Profit ratio	530.5%

Street Dance 3D (2010)

Budget	£1.5 million / $ 2.4 million
Gross revenue	£9,617,687
Profit ratio	641.1%

High School Musical 3 is the 3^rd and final installment of High School Musical Trilogy. This is the first chapter showing in cinema apart from TV channel. The total budget of this movie is $11 million. This movie was showing in 2008 and it was linked up with Nintendo NDS and Wii video games. This movie is focusing in high school stories with sport and dance. All the actors are singing and dancing as on the opera stage. It was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. According to the result of profit ratio, it shows that the High School Musical series are all having successful outcome.

After showing the sensational 3D movie Avatar, Hollywood movies are tending to perform a set of series of 3D viewing in the cinema. In 2010, two dancing movies which are showing in 3D are Step Up 3D and Street Dance 3D. They have the similar story lines of HSM3. However, they would like to shift the strategic focus on 3D viewing. This kind of 3D motion performance can let the audience to have a vision of standing on the dancing floor. The audience with the 3D eyewear can let them to join the contest in the movie at the same time.

Professor W. Chan Kim indicates that to reconstruct the buyer value elements in crafting a new value curve, a new concept of framework which can be used to redefine a new the business model. It is the four actions framework. Reduce, Create, Raise and Eliminate.

Compare with HSM3, both of the movies won’t add sport factor and won’t combine with video games products. They eliminate these factors as they are not longer to compete on or a good value factor. They reduce the songs and romance in the stories. As these two movies are not from musical and these factors are increasing the cost with no gain. Courage and dance performance are added in order to perform a dancing show to the teenage audience. 3D viewing motion pictures are new buyer value which can create a new demand and experience to the audience for a dance movie.

The Eliminate – Reduce – Raise – Create Grid is the tool to create blue ocean strategy.

Eliminate Sport & video games products	Raise Courage & dance
Reduce Songs and romance	Create 3D motion picture

3 characteristics of a good strategy which are: focus, divergence and compelling tagline. Apply these 3 characteristics, the manager can as a guideline to redefine value curve. The movie producers are focusing on 3D, courage and dance components and diverges the sport, songs, romance and video games products. The strong compelling tagline is the 3D viewing effect. This clear message can bring the HSM3 and non HSMS fans come to join to see these 2 new 3D dancing movies. This good tagline must be short and clear. The audience can understand and attract them to have this experience which is does not showing in HSM3.

The managers should list up the Eliminate – Reduce – Raise – Create Grid clearly, they should pursue differentiation and low costs to break the value – cost trade off. They can focus the relative factors and eliminate the high cost factors. Ultimately they can find out the implicit assumptions of creating new elements. Finally, the managers should plot the strategy graph in a coherent strategy which they can easily to distinguish the strategy canvas.

High School Musical 3: The Trailer