bluesyemre

• As part of a new goal to start reading sources outside the library world for ideas, I have been reading Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant and I must say it is surprisingly insightful. For those unfamiliar with the concept, blue ocean strategy contrasts with red ocean strategy, where firms in the industry compete head-on among traditional lines. They typically compete along price lines or the same traditional factors/attributes that the industry always competes along, competing for the same market user base that may be static or even declining. This results in declining profits among firms in the industry as costs rise fighting for the same consumer dollars. A blue ocean strategy, aims to make the competition irrelevant. A pithy line in the book says “The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition”. That sounds paradoxical, but only if you define “beat” in a limited way, competing along the usual industry defined lines. The insight (in some ways obvious) is that firms should instead  try to create brand new markets.

http://j.mp/IrwGhm