Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing

I’ve just finished Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing. It has a lot of info. So I’m breaking it into a couple of posts. Here’s a recap of the first half of the book:

Red oceans are hyper-crowded and competitive, and blue is entirely new markets or models.

The two primary red ocean strategies are value-driven by giving exceptional service or low cost. The blue ocean strategy focuses on unserved markets.

Beyond looking at unserved markets, a blue ocean approach uses “humanness” to engage employees to make the change and tools to turn a blue ocean idea into an offering. Humanness is recognizing people’s fears and needs for a purpose.

Blue ocean uses non-disruptive creation where a market isn’t destroyed or replaced but is a net new market

To illustrate the four pillars of a blue ocean strategy, the authors share the story of Comic Relief. First, Comic Relief took an entirely new approach to fundraise and avoided previous typical fundraising approaches like galas. Second, blue ocean approaches don’t try to beat competitors; instead, they have new competition through creating a new market. In the Comic Relief example, they used “Red Nose Days,” where money was raised through small donations, not significant events. Third, a blue ocean approach looks for a new market. Comic Relief meant focusing on everyday people buying red noses instead of wealthy donors at galas. Fourth, they empathized with people’s concerns and shared their role in making it all happen.

I’ll cover the key elements and tools to make a Blue Ocean shift in the next post.

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes