How do you use the blue ocean strategy to create and capture new market spaces?
The blue ocean strategy is based on the idea that there are two types of markets: red oceans and blue oceans. Red oceans are existing markets where competition is fierce and profit margins are low. Blue oceans are new markets where demand is created, competition is irrelevant, and profit potential is high. The blue ocean strategy aims to help you move from competing in red oceans to creating and capturing blue oceans, by offering a value proposition that is different and superior to what the market currently offers.
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Yemmie Olaleye (CMSA®) ✪
I help individuals make informed & strategic decisions in the financial market; charts into profitable opportunities. Market Analyst| Coach| Mentor| Thought leader| Futurist CFI: FMVA®| CMSA®| CBCA™| BIDA®| FTIP™| FPWM
Blue ocean thinking is the king and many monopolists entrepreneur know that certainly. It aligns with creative and productive energy critically by analyzing the unique strength of your market creation strategy. This all bore down to offering unique values in the market that competitors will try really hard to imitate. There is a reason an entire country somewhere refers to toothpastes as "maclean", seasonings as "maggi" and noodles as "indomie"
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Sami Lei
CEO @ SAMI Consulting | Data driven pitch decks, financial modeling, and data rooms to build the best business & communicate it to decision makers (investors, budget allocators, etc)
Red ocean = heavy competition, blood in the water from players attacking each other. "Only one can win" type of mindset Blue ocean = you are unique in this space. Important! Blue ocean does not mean we have no competitors, it means that no one offers EXACTLY what you do. Netflix and Hulu are technically competitors. They offer similar products. But if you want to watch Queen's Gambit, you HAVE to be on Netflix. Suddenly instead of competing in the space of "entertainment subscriptions" where they have competitors, Netflix can capture someone in the space of "where can I watch Queen's Gambit" where Hulu cannot play. What can you do to offer something truly valuable no one else is, in a market someone else has already validated for you
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H.E. Prof. Dr. Amb. Tal Edgars M.Inst.D, PhD
Govt, INFF, MNE & ILO Expert | Diplomat | Yale GJP Fellow | Corp. & Sustainable Finance Expert |Keynote Speaker|Global Strategist | African Scholar | Thought contributor on law, academia, economics & strategy |↘Follow↘
The Six Principles of Blue Ocean Strategy: 1. Reconstruct Market Boundaries 2. Focus on the Big Picture, not the Numbers 3. Reach beyond existing demand 4. Get the Strategic Sequence Right 5. Overcome Key Organizational Hurdles 6. Build Execution in the Strategy
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Prof Jack Wong
❌ (Retired) Tax Advisor | Author | Blair Singer Senior Leader & Facilitator in Sales, Team & Personal Development | Master TetraMap Facilitator | Teacher Are Leaders Who Lead, Teach & Inspire Others Through Facilitation
From my experience, the Blue Ocean Strategy emphasizes creating new markets and rendering competition irrelevant. However, it's often overlooked that understanding and integrating the core strengths and values of your own business is crucial. In over 30 years of facilitating growth and strategic development, I've learned that sustainable blue oceans require introspective innovation. It's about aligning your unique capabilities and culture with unmet market needs in a different and hard-to-replicate way. Dive deep into your organization's collective intelligence and creativity to redefine possibilities. This approach ensures a distinctive value proposition and fosters resilience and adaptability, enabling transformative growth.
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Felipe Bovolon
Making Strategy Great | 20 years experience in business strategy | Passionate self-learner | MBA at IESE | Electronic Engineer | Director at Strategy&, part of the PwC network
Strategic navigation requires weathering storms to reach blue horizons: • Innovation thrives in turbulence, not tranquility. • Great strategies adapt—even in red oceans. • Competitive landscapes are ecosystems, not battlegrounds. • Market creation is evolution, not just discovery.
The blue ocean strategy works by using four key concepts: value innovation, the strategy canvas, the four actions framework, and the errc grid. Value innovation is the core of the blue ocean strategy, and it means creating a leap in value for both customers and the company, by aligning innovation with utility, price, and cost. The strategy canvas is a tool that helps you visualize your current position in the market, and how you can create a new value curve that stands out from the competition. The four actions framework is a method that helps you formulate your value proposition, by asking you to eliminate, reduce, raise, and create factors that affect your customers' value and cost. The errc grid is a matrix that helps you summarize and communicate your value proposition, by showing what factors you eliminate, reduce, raise, and create compared to the industry standard.
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Prof Jack Wong
❌ (Retired) Tax Advisor | Author | Blair Singer Senior Leader & Facilitator in Sales, Team & Personal Development | Master TetraMap Facilitator | Teacher Are Leaders Who Lead, Teach & Inspire Others Through Facilitation
In my experience, applying the blue ocean strategy in personal development and public speaking involves understanding the unmet needs of your audience. It's about identifying market gaps through empathetic engagement and innovating to fill those gaps. For instance, clients often seek tools for emotional resilience and practical application. Therefore, my approach goes beyond conventional content delivery, focusing on creating experiences and tools that address these needs. This perspective is crucial for genuinely innovative and impactful value creation in a field driven by human emotions and personal growth.
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Felipe Bovolon
Making Strategy Great | 20 years experience in business strategy | Passionate self-learner | MBA at IESE | Electronic Engineer | Director at Strategy&, part of the PwC network
Innovation can’t wait for calm waters. You have to sail even when the sea is rough: • Action trumps analysis in dynamic markets. • Customers dictate currents; businesses must follow. • Strategy is an ongoing journey, not a static map. • Value is a narrative, not a number.
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Tony Colucci
International Space Industry Business & Strategy Executive & Advisor
One highly effective way to implement a Blue Ocean strategy is to utilize existing and proven technologies, products, and services in an innovative way to create a new product/service that adds substantial unexpected value for customers. Utilizing existing and proven technologies, products, and services enables rapid, low-risk market entry with a product/service that customers can be confident in because little or no product/service development is required.
The blue ocean strategy consists of six steps to guide you through the process of creating and capturing new market spaces. To begin, analyze the current state of the industry and identify the factors that define the competitive landscape. Then, reconstruct the market boundaries to explore alternative industries, strategic groups, buyer groups, and more. Draw your current strategy canvas and compare it with your competitors' value curves to identify similarities and differences. Apply the four actions framework and the errc grid to generate ideas for value innovation. Select the best idea and refine it into a compelling value proposition. Execute your idea and align your resources, processes, and culture with your value proposition. Finally, communicate your value proposition clearly to your target market.
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Felipe Bovolon
Making Strategy Great | 20 years experience in business strategy | Passionate self-learner | MBA at IESE | Electronic Engineer | Director at Strategy&, part of the PwC network
Successful voyages are well-planned but still full of rhythm and improvisation: • Disruptive strategies require agile footwork. • Each step is a leap of faith into the market’s arms. • Flexibility is the compass; adaptation, your North Star. • Strategic steps are milestones, not checkmarks.
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Graham Norris
Organisational Psychologist, Futurist & Speaker
The failure of blue ocean strategies is a failure of imagination. Analysis of the current situation can only take you so far. The blue ocean is a future that is different from today, and it could be different in myriad ways. Only be engaging our imaginations can we really experience the possibilities of the blue ocean.
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Tony Colucci
International Space Industry Business & Strategy Executive & Advisor
1. You must be intimate with the market in order to identify fundamental unmet market needs. 2. That market intimacy enables you to sit down with prospective customers to delve into their needs and tailor your solution to address those needs. 3. Refine your solution to create significant unexpected value for customers. If your solution is based on existing and proven technologies, products, and services, you can: 4. Move rapidly to deploy the product/service and capture customers, creating value for the customers, and thereby creating customer loyalty and a barrier to competitors that will inevitably emerge.
The blue ocean strategy offers several advantages for entrepreneurs and innovators who want to create and capture new market spaces. It can help you stand out from the competition and avoid price wars and commoditization, as well as offer a superior solution to meet customer needs and desires. Additionally, it can help you expand your market potential and reach new customers, reduce costs, and increase profit margins. Moreover, it can foster a culture of innovation and creativity, by challenging the status quo and exploring new possibilities.
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Marwan ALNABOUDA
Strategic Leadership | Planning & Execution | New Business Development | Financial Analysis | Project Management Professional | Investment Strategy | Innovation | Board Member
Blue Ocean Strategy empowers me to venture beyond the saturated market battles, focusing on untapped markets where competition is irrelevant. It encourages an innovative mindset, pushing me to rethink traditional boundaries and create unique value propositions. This not only enhances customer satisfaction by addressing unmet needs but also paves the way for sustainable growth and profitability in areas previously unexplored. Embracing this strategy has been a game-changer, enabling me to redefine market norms and carve out new spaces for growth.
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Ritesh Mohan retailritesh
I help retailers to scale their business by 4X by leveraging sales data insights, retail ops & marketing strategies.👉Retail Sales growth hacker, 📖Franchise expert, International Business,Digital, Retail leasing & BD
Use blue ocean strategy to find gaps in the marketplace and filling those gaps with innovative niche products. The best example is mineral water , the market is saturated and there is tough competition in packaged bottled mineral water category. The innovation using blu ocean strategy was to launch the mineral water in aluminum can - emvironmentally safe as there is no plastic and looks premium than the plastic bottle. This packaging innovation gave birth to a new category which is unique and breaks the clutter.
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Paolo Serrano
Growth-Driven Executive I Marketing & Sales
Create New Demand: Attract entirely new customer segments by offering unique experiences or catering to underserved needs. Break Cost-Value Trade-Off: Blue Ocean encourages innovation that delivers value without skyrocketing costs. Escape Price Wars: By creating a unique customer experience, Blue Ocean strategies allow restaurants to command a premium price point. Increase Profitability: With less competition and a loyal customer base, Blue Ocean restaurants can enjoy higher profit margins.
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Felipe Bovolon
Making Strategy Great | 20 years experience in business strategy | Passionate self-learner | MBA at IESE | Electronic Engineer | Director at Strategy&, part of the PwC network
Don’t just sail aimlessly. Cultivate new markets over time. Create your own life and color: • Differentiation is the seed; innovation, the sunlight. • Benefits grow from customer roots. • New markets bloom with cross-pollination of ideas. • Sustainable advantage sprouts from customer care.
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Tony Colucci
International Space Industry Business & Strategy Executive & Advisor
By bringing new products/services to market that add significant unexpected value for customers, a Blue Ocean strategy creates value for the company and its investors.
The blue ocean strategy is not without its challenges and requires a lot of strategic thinking, research, experimentation, and execution to succeed. Identifying and validating new market opportunities can be difficult, especially in mature or saturated industries. Additionally, deviating from the established norms of the industry or facing resistance from customers, competitors, or regulators can be risky. Sustaining your competitive advantage and protecting your blue ocean from imitation or substitution can be hard if you do not have strong intellectual property rights or loyal customers. Lastly, aligning your organization and stakeholders with your value proposition and overcoming inertia or conflicts that may arise from changing your business model or processes can be complex.
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Fólúsọ́ Àríbísálà
Managing Partner/CEO @ Workforce Group | Strategy, Human Capacity Building, Organisational Effectiveness and Growth
Resistance to change is a common & significant challenge. Convincing stakeholders to venture into new & unproven markets requires a blend of strong leadership & clear communication. Leaders must be adept at articulating the vision & potential benefits of pursuing uncharted markets, underscoring how these initiatives align with the broader organisational goals. To address this resistance, start with small, low-risk initiatives to demonstrate the potential of blue ocean strategies, gradually building stakeholder confidence & investment. These pilot initiatives serve as a tangible proof of concept, demonstrating the viability of exploring new markets. Furthermore, showcasing early wins & learning from these pilot projects is crucial.
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Felipe Bovolon
Making Strategy Great | 20 years experience in business strategy | Passionate self-learner | MBA at IESE | Electronic Engineer | Director at Strategy&, part of the PwC network
Every great explorer is part cartographer, part gambler: • Challenges are the crucible for refining strategy. • In uncharted waters, learning to swim is non-negotiable. • The greatest threat in new markets is inertia. • Embrace the unknown as the breeding ground for innovation.
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Lauren Elizabeth Pearl
CEO-turned-FracCFO on a Mission to Fix Finance for Startups | 3X Founder | Co-Founder @ Pearl & Elmore Offsite Facilitation | Startup Finance Instructor @ NYU | Author of ~The Daily CFO~ (Sign up below!👇)
Blue ocean strategies - much like the oceans of their namesake - are powerful but dangerous waters to swim. Many entrepreneurs are drawn to blue ocean ideas. The appeal of potentially being the first entrant to the market, holding a monopoly, being the pioneer in a field, not needing to fight for share with any competition. However, there are huge downsides. Number one is realizing that your ocean isn't blue because no one else has discovered it yet; but that it's empty because others have tried, failed, and died. Or have realized, correctly, that the market isn't worth it. If the market IS viable, there's another problem: You bear the customer education and R&D cost for the market, potentially giving your competition an advantage.
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Angelica Castañeda
Project Manager / MBA /Digital Marketing Specialist
As I embark on my MBA journey, breaking free from conventional boundaries and unlocking untapped innovation in new market spaces has become a recurring theme. The idea of the blue ocean strategy has captured my imagination, offering a refreshing perspective on how businesses can thrive. While acknowledging that competition may not be completely irrelevant, I've come to realize that focusing solely on the competition can limit our creative thinking process. The blue ocean strategy encourages us to explore beyond the confines of existing markets, seeking out untapped opportunities where we can create and capture value in unique ways.
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Graham DeNoyer, MBA
Relocating to Wilmington, NC in 2024 | Innovation Leader | Retired Army CW3🎖️ Entrepreneur w/ 1 Startup Exit
There is a challenge of balancing innovation with practicality. While the goal is to create uncontested market space, it's crucial to ensure that the new offering is not only differentiated but also viable and sustainable. Getting caught up in the excitement of a groundbreaking idea without thoroughly assessing its feasibility can lead to investing significant resources into a concept that may not have sufficient demand or may be too complex to execute effectively. Stakeholders at all levels must understand and buy into the vision, even if it represents a significant departure from the status quo. Leaders must be skilled at articulating the strategy, rallying support, and maintaining momentum in the face of uncertainty.
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Donna Nelham
Founder of Unstitution * building bridges bridging divides * catalyzing community * mission critical regenerative pathways * emergent strategic * collectively creating alternatives aligned with purpose
Inviting a nonlinear trajectory. “Blue Ocean Strategy” as a marketing moniker - like many - offers "new" ways to leap ahead in the market…paradoxically gaining a competitive leg-up by not focusing on the usual (incremental) competitive market patterns. Okay…and the underlying spirit/principles as conceived by its originators - are sound/virtuous…Yet too often the shiny label catches on, and the deeper substance is lost. Challenging us to widen our strategic lens to transcend the pervasive consumptive market mentality focused on ways to “grow,” that tantalise consumers to "buy" more… “Business-as-usual,” - adopting the slogans - is stuck in insular, grooves ultimately failing to serve enlightened self/collective interests. Cont'd...
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Cristina Noreña
| Gerente Logística | Juntas Directivas | Gerente de Proyectos | Gerente de Estrategia | Eficiencia Operacional & Productividad | Retail | Sostenibilidad | Mentorías |
A pesar de tener una idea brillante para un nuevo espacio de mercado, la ejecución efectiva es crucial para el éxito de la estrategia del océano azul. Esto puede implicar superar obstáculos operativos, financieros y logísticos para llevar la idea al mercado y convertirla en realidad.
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