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Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant By W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2005; XV+ p. 240; Rs. 1255 ISBN: 1-59139-619-0
Blue Ocean Strategy or Old Wine in New Bottle? A critique on the book Blue Ocean Strategy by Prof. Chan Kim and Prof. Renee Mauborgne
The concept of creating uncontested market space was already available and hence authors Prof. W Chan Kim and Prof. Renee Mauborgne haven't created any blue ocean of ideas through their book Blue Ocean Strategy.
Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne of INSEAD, has been adorning the top 10 business best-sellers list most of the time since its publication in 2005. Many business schools have included BOS in their curriculum for the strategic management course. Many have started offering management development programs on BOS.
What is Blue Ocean Strategyl According to the authors, BOS is aimed "to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant". Companies have long engaged in head-to-head competition for sustained, profitable growth. Kim and Mauborgne argue that in today's overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in a bloody 'red ocean' of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool and is unlikely to create profitable growth in future. They argue that tomorrow's winners will succeed by creating 'blue oceans' for growth.
Such strategic moves-termed "value innovation" create leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, unleashing new demand and rendering competition irrelevant. They suggest Four Actions Framework for creating a new value proposition consisting of 'eliminating' those factors that companies in one's industry have long competed on, taken for granted by customers; 'reducing' those products or services that have been overdesigned in the race to beat the competition, which the customer does not value; raising by eliminating the compromises one's industry forces customers to make by setting new standards well above competitors and creating through discovering entirely new sources of value for buyers thus creating new demand and strategic price shifts.
The formulation of BOS essentially involves reconstructing the market boundaries, focusing on the big picture of the strategic canvas rather than getting too involved in the operational details. The implementation part does not differ from many...