Blue Ocean Strategy Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

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Brief Summary

A blue ocean company must look for gaps in the marketplace, appeal to non-customers, and give limited focus to their competition. It is important that they stay relevant by constantly reevaluating their long-term visions in the changing marketplace in regards to what customers need and want.

About the Author

Chan Kim is a South Korean business theorist and Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD. He is the co-director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontainebleau, France. He is the co-author of the 2005 book Blue Ocean Strategy.

He graduated from Ross School of Business. He serves as an advisor for multiple countries and is the Fellow of the World Economic Forum.

Topics

Entrepreneurship Management & Leadership

Blue Ocean Strategy Book Summary Preview

By W. Chan Kim & Renee A. Mauborgne

Key Insights

The key to making your business soar is to navigate through uncharted waters. The marketplace is full of gaps that entrepreneurs can easily fill.

But, how?

“We call it value innovation because instead of focusing on beating the competition, you focus on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers and your company, thereby opening up new and uncontested market space.”- W. Chan Kim

In “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant” by. W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne, you will learn how to create your own ‘blue ocean’ business that will rise above your competitors through finding an untouched customer base that will lead to expansive growth opportunities.

Through these insights, you will discover why just creating a new product isn’t enough to rise above the market.

Create A New Market

To build a blue ocean business, you must tap into a market that is untouched, which requires finding new value in what you’re selling and what people need.

Building a blue ocean business allows you to enter into a new marketplace without any competition.

For success, the business must be aligned. The price of the product or service for the consumer, the usefulness, and the cost for the company must all make sense.

A blue ocean business must work to keep their costs to a minimum while still creating value for their consumers. They must also keep their opportunities high and their risks low.

It’s important to note that not every company is meant to be a blue ocean company, there are some companies that may do better amongst other competitors.

A solid example of a blue ocean business is Tesla Motors. Instead of competing with the traditional top-dogs of the automobile world such as GM, Ford, and Chevrolet, Tesla decided to develop an electric car. This was the first of its kind because of the way it was marketed to consumers appeal rather than appealing to green technology and government regulations.

What Is A Red Ocean Business?

A red ocean business tends to focus on their competition. This oftentimes leads to them resembling their competition.

Red ocean businesses should become blue ocean businesses by observing the gaps in the marketplace and taking notes on what the competition isn’t doing rather than what they are doing. A good strategy is to look at market trends and try to predict what is needed.

Blue ocean companies look for a new group of consumers rather than trying to appeal to the ones their competition is serving.

“Blue ocean strategy challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant.”- W. Chan Kim

Zocdoc is a prime example of a blue ocean company. There were already many scheduling programs in the market, however, none of them were consumer-faced, which means the patient still had to go through the doctor’s office. Zocdoc made it easy and convenient for a patient to go on an app and make...