Why Blue Ocean Strategy Now?

The idea of pursuing “Blue Oceans” has been around for a while. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne popularized the strategic planning technique with a book by the same name. They have a whole business built around the concept now with books, online courses, seminars, consulting, etc.

The relevance now, of course, is that we all need to rethink our current strategy in light of the pandemic – and this approach offers some powerful concepts. In particular with more traditional strategic planning we may start with an analysis of our current industry by mapping the current value propositions of the key players, however the Blue Ocean approach really emphasizes looking for unique ways to offer value by combining offerings across industries, radically altering value proposition from competitors within your industry.

Leave the “red ocean” of cost and feature wars to a “blue ocean” without (temporarily) competition.

For extra context, they summarize what they consider the Blue Ocean mindset here.

Creating a “strategy canvas” per the Kim and Mauborgne model may be just the ticket to helping us think through what our “relaunch” should look like – both for near and long term success.

Happy Sailing,

Joel