My ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ Challenge For The New Year

For Chrismukah (Christmas and Chanukah), my son gave me the book ‘Blue Ocean Strategy – How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrevelant’ by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

I started reading the book and finished it in less than two days. I was inspired. For me, it was another perception and confirmation of what marketing is and how to be a good marketer. There were challenge references throughout the book. For me, the challenge is in the positioning; that is, the development of a story for presentation that is based on the truth, the facts and the realities of the product and service.

Following are challenge references and personal reflections of what I highlighted while reading, as a basis of turning information into knowledge into meaning into awareness into incorporation and finally into application.

My New Year’s Challenge Marketing Resolution

To do my best to inspire and influence every reader to persuade them-selves to Drink H2Ultra Fitness Water, Use Future Spark Plugs and Conduct an Individualized Search every day and tell all their friends to do the same.

Challenges In ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’

In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success.

Blue Ocean Strategy challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant.

This book not only challenges companies but also shows them how to achieve this. We first introduce a set of analytical tools and frameworks that show you how to systematically act on this challenge and, second, we elaborate the principles that define and separate blue ocean strategy from competition-based strategic thought.

... challenges the conventional practice of aiming for finer segmentation to better meet existing customer preferences.

... the complexity of wine’s taste created flavor challenges for the average person even though it was the basis on which the industry fought to excel.

The challenge is to successfully identify, out of the haystack of possibilities that exist, commercially compelling blue ocean opportunities. This challenge is key because managers cannot afford to be riverboat gamblers.

Challenging an industry’s conventional wisdom about which buyer group to target can lead to the discovery of a new blue ocean.

... presented significant challenges in administering.

When companies are willing to challenge the functional-emotional orientation of their industry, they often find new market space.

... the challenge for Apple will be to keep its sights on the evolving mass market and not to fall into competitive benchmarking or high-end niche marketing.

This is no small challenge.

Assessing to what extent your company and its competitors offer the various competitive factors is equally challenging.

It serves as a forceful wake-up call for companies to challenge their existing strategies, which is essential to reach a common understanding of its current position.

Great strategic insights are less the product of genius than of getting into the field and challenging the boundaries of competition.

Reach beyond existing demand. To achieve this, companies should challenge two conventional practices. One is the focus on existing customers. The other is the drive for finer segmentation to accommodate buyer differences.

... challenge existing, taken-for-granted strategic orientations.

The next challenge is to build a robust business model to ensure that you make a healthy profit on your blue ocean idea.

This challenge is exacerbated when the notion of excludability is considered. A good is excludable it the company can prevent others from using it; that is, limited access or patent protection.

The main challenge in determining a strategic price is to understand the price sensitivities of those people who will be comparing the new product or service with a host of very different-looking products and services offered outside the group of traditional competitors.

Part of the challenge of meeting the target cost is addressed in building a strategic profile that has not only divergence but also focus.

... discussion of the company’s strategy for meeting the challenge of the Internet.

... the key challenge is to engage in an open discussion about why the adoption of the new idea is necessary.

The challenge of execution exists, of course, for any strategy.

Managers have assured us that the challenge is steep. They face four hurdles: Cognitive, limited resources, motivation and politics.

Atomization relates to the framing of the strategic challenge. Unless people believe that the strategic challenge is attainable, the change is not likely to succeed.

To make the challenge attainable, he broke it down into bite-size atoms that officers at different levels could relate to. As he put it, the challenge was to make the streets safe. Thus framed, the challenge was both all-encompassing and doable. For the officers, the challenge was to make their beat safe. For the commanders, the challenge was to make their precinct safe.

Challenging conventional wisdom.

Not every challenge requires a proportionate action. Focus on acts of disproportionate influence.

The next chapter addresses the challenge of aligning people’s minds and hearts with the new strategy by building a culture of trust, commitment and voluntary cooperation in its execution.

A blue ocean strategy will go without credible challenges for 10-to-15 years because of value innovation, brand image, patents, high volume and buzz.

Blue oceans were created by both industry incumbents and new entrants, challenging the lore that start-ups have natural advantages over established companies in creating new market space.