Book Review: Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Harvard Business School Press, £16.14, ISBN-10: 1591396190, 256 pages.

Simply put, Blue Ocean Strategy is about thinking out-of-the-box and creating new attractive value through an innovative business model rather than a new innovative technology. The book offers several practical analysis tools and methodologies that can be easily adopted and added to an existing tool box, which already include SWOT analysis, Porter's generic competitive strategies, Porter's five forces, a comprehensive industry analysis, and other methodologies used in strategic planning.

The major concept presented in the book is that companies compete in red oceans, which are markets that are blood red from the battles among the incumbents. The authors encourage leaders to develop pristine blue markets, which have not yet been tapped. To tap these markets, the authors present the Strategy Canvas which is the primary tool used to define a new high level business approach. Generally, the Strategy Canvas lists the factors that are the building blocks of the overall strategy of each company competing in the industry. This provides a clear visual representation and enables one to construct a strategy which breaks away from the pack by addressing a different market using a different business model.

There are two primary thought processes that are part of strategy definition. The first explores constructing the Strategy Canvas and the second develops a feasible business model that will use the chosen strategy. The authors take the reader through these thought processes and offer simple tools and examples to maintain that valuable out-of-the-box thinking.

The authors use many real life examples such as South West Airlines, CNN, Cirque du Soleil. The writing is flowing and engaging although at times it felt somewhat repetitive. The chapter about executing the strategy seems to be about change management and the tipping point leadership concept, which in my opinion may be more appropriate to turnaround situations rather than an innovative strategy to address a new market.

Overall, the terms, ideas and frameworks presented in this book are very simple and clever. They may well be adopted by consultants, entrepreneurs, business strategists and executives, as part of their regular business jargon..

Michael Morein

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