The Four Actions Framework is the practical heart of blue ocean strategy. It is a set of four questions applied to every element of an existing industry, forcing the strategist to question assumptions that competitors have long since stopped examining. Eliminate: which factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated entirely? These are often things the industry does because it has always done them, not because customers actually value them. Reduce: which factors should be reduced well below the industry standard? These are areas where the industry is over-delivering on something customers only need at a lower level. Raise: which factors should be raised well above the industry standard? These are areas where customers are genuinely frustrated by the current offering and would value a significant improvement. Create: which factors should be created that the industry has never offered? These are often things that serve a need customers have but the industry has not yet recognised as in scope. The four actions work together. Eliminating and reducing cuts costs, freeing resources. Raising and creating direct those resources toward what customers genuinely value. The combination produces a value curve, a visual map of how your offering compares with competitors, that looks fundamentally different from the industry norm. A genuinely different value curve is the signature of a blue ocean move.