Simon Associates Founder Certified as Blue Ocean Strategist

New York, NY, February 13, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Andrea Simon, Ph.D., founder and President of Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC), has just received her official practitioner certification as a Blue Ocean Strategist following a three-day, action-learning course last week from the Blue Ocean Strategy Network.

This certification comes after more than five years of Simon’s client work on Blue Ocean Strategy and over 140 workshops conducted for business leaders entitled, “Change Matters: How to Find New Market Space,” weaving Blue Ocean Strategic thinking into her own ChangeMap™ process.

Blue Ocean tools and strategic thinking have become important elements in Simon’s ChangeMap process, because they help companies:
· re-invent their products and services
· re-imagine new approaches to deliver value in innovative ways,
creating new markets (Blue Oceans), instead of just competing within existing ones (Red Oceans)
· re-think their business models and brand positioning.

“My ChangeMap™ process emerged as it became apparent to me that new ideas needed a mapping system that enabled a company’s employees to better ‘see, feel and think’ about where they were going,” said Simon. “The process often involves ‘backward planning’ in order to find a fresh starting point and then you need to stay on course with a new plan, as old plans interfere with new solutions.”

During last week’s certification course, Simon learned more tips about how to apply Blue Ocean Strategy/Value Innovation tools, methodologies, and frameworks to help private and public sector clients thrive through creative innovation.

“Despite all of my previous work in the Blue Ocean space, I felt it was important to put the icing on the cake and become certified, especially since requests from clients for Blue Ocean sessions have gone up by 30 percent since last year,” added Simon. “Often clients come to us, knowing that they’ve stalled and can’t stimulate new ideas. Now, we can combine our expertise as corporate anthropologists, and our work from the past with some new tools from this course. Then we can help our clients even more effectively implement strategies to discover successful innovations.”

Any business leaders that are finding themselves stalled should visit the Simon Associates website, read Simon’s blog, or contact her to discuss Blue Ocean strategies.