Blue Ocean Strategy

The Blue Ocean Strategy focuses on creating new market space as opposed to competing in the “Red” or current market space.According to the Blue Ocean authors traditional competition-based strategies (red ocean strategies) while necessary, are not sufficient to sustain high performance. However the idea of simply “creating” a new market space seems a bit…optimistic and simple minded. True, if one can find an untapped market that business is likely to flourish, at least until some red competition moves in. Finding this untapped market is what most businesses hope to do even if they are already completing in the red ocean. Finding that Blue Ocean market is more of a wish or hope than a business strategy…Apple in the last few years has hit combined the blue with the red by creating products such as the iPhone that reinvents an old product (cell phone) creating a new market for cell phone shoppers. However, this is only a temporary blue ocean b/c the competition is working to catch up (and will catch up), so should Apple simply move away from this product or should they continue to develop it and compete with the others much like they have with their Macs. Macs entered into a red market but have done very well…good concept, just doesn’t seem like a great overall business strategy. To succeed, a business must be able to find that blue ocean, but if a business cannot compete while search for that blue ocean product idea, success will fade as their boat drifts into the red ocean.