Blue Ocean Strategy - Where is your market space?

I had the opportunity to attend a conference in Minneapolis this past week. The keynote speaker was Roch Parayre, Ph.D. who spoke on the Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS). The Blue Ocean Strategy is in comparison to the competitive "Red Ocean" where competition is cut throat and only the strongest survive. Blue Ocean is finding your competitive edge and co-existing in the expansive marketplace. An example Dr. Parayre taught was in Ringling Bros Circus and Cirque du Soleil. Cirque has been increasing in value and profitability AND Ringling Bros. is not losing marketshare, it is increasing. In others words, Cirque is a circus but different and they are also marketing to a different segment than Ringling Bros. Both are growing and Cirque is not "taking" from Ringling. They each have their space in the blue ocean...get it?

From www.blueoceanstrategy.com:

"Companies have long engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation.

Yet in today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne contend that while most companies compete within such red oceans, this strategy is increasingly unlikely to create profitable growth in the future.

Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, Kim and Mauborgne argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such strategic moves—termed “value innovation”—create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivals obsolete and unleashing new demand."

Alan Anderson
ChamberWest