The Blue Ocean Strategy

Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne

Standing out in the right way can be one of the most important things for a company’s success. It is good to come up with a way to create a different type of business than just comparing it with competing companies that share the same customer groups. Too many companies, even today, focus solely on how to compete with others. With the good examples in the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” I understood the importance of focusing on changing your own business to clearly differ from others. When that is done well, there is no need to even think about competitors. You can keep on focusing on what your business does best.

One of the first examples from the book that really stuck with me was the example of Cirque du Soleil. For a long time, the popularity of all circus shows was fading. People began to be against animal acts and because of changing trends old-fashioned circus tricks were not that interesting any more. People didn’t show up for the shows. What made Cirque du Soleil ultimately stand out was that they changed things up and became completely different than other known travelling circuses. And with this they became famous even though the popularity and culture of circus was dying. In their performances, Cirque du Soleil emphasized only the use of humans as performers. Their impressive shows include beautiful mixes of dance, acrobatics and music. By not using animals anymore and concentrating on the level of performance and the atmosphere they bring, Cirque do Soleil made it impossible for other circuses to compete with them.

The book emphasizes the importance of finding new market areas. You can easily develop your company to be successful with only thinking a little more broadly about the different ways of developing your products or services. Why not bring something different to your customers, something that has not been done or come up with before? This kind of thinking is called the ”Blue Ocean strategy ”. The ” Red Ocean ” refers to an already existing market where many other companies are competing in.

When being an entrepreneur you constantly have to keep these things in mind. How to stand out and make customers find you and keep coming back. The difference can be with any aspect of your company, for example the products or service, the image or the brand. Or everything combined. Small businesses shouldn’t concentrate on competing with each other. They should rather concentrate on making themselves better.

The good part of creating a new business strategy is that the companies in the “blue ocean” get more profit than the “red sea” companies. Although the term “blue ocean strategy” is pretty new, there already is a lot of companies following the ideology. Companies have come up with new approaches and are differentiated as technology has evolved.  These days it is, however, a little more difficult to come up with new business ideas. A new entrepreneur who wants a company to be successful should know what their customers want as well as knowing the reasons why some consumers may not want to become a customer. This will give a better overview for the company to learn from and possibly ideas of ​​how to develop their products or services the company offers. And target them even for those customers who were not interested before.

Examples of existing companies and their success stories were interesting to read about. They helped me understand how to think about for example the strategies of a potential company, and how to make sales grow. An important way of increasing sales according to the ” blue ocean strategy” is also to look closely at the price of the product you offer or service you sell. Is there any way of reducing the cost of producing your product and selling the finished product at a lower cost?

It is important to consider different methods of changing production, for example. Obviously the quality of the product should not be affected. The book emphasized that it is not worth trying to waste your time by looking at the numbers of your company, but it is important to understand and focus on things as a whole. When the company’s idea works, it’s already far advanced.

The book stresses the importance of customer relationships and making strategic changes with them. It is also important to keep customers happy and to maintain a good customer relationship in order to continue the success of your business. With this, you will be able to maintain a good reputation for your business. A company can also change to follow the ” blue ocean ” strategy by changing its old habits that have not worked before. If the company’s idea is good, the next thing is to concentrate on how things are done without any problems. Even the slightest changes make a difference. ”The Blue Ocean Strategy ” made me think of a brand new way to develop my business ideas. The book’s tips are good especially for a small start-up company in my opinion.