Blue Ocean Strategy and Innovation: Discover New Markets

The Blue Ocean Strategy is a groundbreaking approach introduced by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in the Harvard Business Review. This strategy encourages businesses to create brand new, untapped markets outside the competition, instead of ordinary competition.

-Reduce: Reduce costs by identifying substandard factors. Thus, differentiate from your competitors and gain a competitive advantage.

-Create: Discover non-existent benefits and areas of demand. Innovation plays a critical role at this stage and emphasises the uniqueness of your business.

- Eliminate: Differentiate in the market by abandoning standardised features and reducing unnecessary costs.

-Elevate: Deliver unique value propositions by going above and beyond the norm. Offer products and services that will surprise and delight your customers.

"Businesses must find a way to operate in a market free of competitors, rather than competing ruthlessly with other businesses."

"Competing in overcrowded industries is no way to sustain high performance. The real opportunity is to create blue oceans of uncompetitive market space."

W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

So, how to sail to these Blue Oceans?

1. Understand the Current Situation

Firstly, you should understand your current way of doing business and market dynamics. You should evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your product or service and observe customer needs and expectations.

2. Identify New Opportunities and Areas

After analysing the current situation, you should identify new market opportunities and needs. These opportunities aim to address the shortcomings of existing products or services or to meet them with a new and improved approach.

3. Transform Your Product or Service

Modify your existing product or service to fit newly identified market needs. Reduce unnecessary aspects, eliminate deficiencies and improve it to provide more value to customers.

4. Innovation and Value Creation

Finally, while making these transformations, focus on continuous innovation. Target a market where there is little or no competition by offering customers a different, attractive and valuable proposition.

The Blue Ocean Strategy aims to make competition meaningless, not just to compete. Creating value in an area where there is little or no competition can ensure the long-term success of businesses, and this strategy seems to be an orientation that will become more common in the business world in the future.
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