ERRC Grid (Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create)
Reference model
Eliminate and reduce lower the cost structure; raise and create lift buyer value.
About this model
Four questions turn the value curve from the strategy canvas into a redesign: which factors to eliminate, which to reduce, which to raise and which to create. Eliminating and reducing cut cost; raising and creating lift buyer value; doing both at once is value innovation.
W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne — Blue Ocean Strategy (the four actions framework and the ERRC grid) · 2005
How to read it
- Eliminate: factors the industry takes for granted that buyers no longer value. Reduce: factors that have been over-engineered in a race with rivals.
- Raise: factors whose level should go well above the industry’s. Create: factors the industry has never offered.
- Check the four boxes against each other: a grid with nothing eliminated or reduced adds cost without the offsetting saving, and one with nothing raised or created is only a cost cut.
What this does
Forces four blunt questions on the value curve — what to Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, and Create — turning a Blue Ocean insight into a concrete redesign.
When to use it
Right after a Strategy Canvas has surfaced a differentiation opportunity, to make it actionable rather than aspirational.
What happens next
The redesigned offering feeds the Business Model Canvas's Value Proposition block.
Golden thread
Builds on ←
- blueocean
Feeds into →
- bmc
Framework library: Strategy and environment (layer L1), lifecycle stages 0 to 4.
Use this tool, free
Sign in to open the worksheet. Your work saves as you type, the AI can draft the parts you have not filled in, and you finish with an analysis and a 30/60/90-day action plan.
Hand-built by Eccellere and reviewed by Eccellere on 02/11/2026. Guidance, not advice: apply your own judgement.