Book Review: Blue Ocean Strategy

Book Review: Blue Ocean Strategy

I'm posting this one rapidly in hopes that I can cover up my last post before anyone sees it. :) "Blue Ocean Strategy" is a very thought provoking book that puts structure behind strategic planning. It reminds me a lot of "Purple Cow" type of thinking and is definitely worth a read. My only real complaint is the authors don't make the book all that exciting or entertaining. It did a good job putting me asleep on more than one occasion.

The sub-title of the book is "How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant." The focus of the majority of the book is strategies for discovering your Blue Ocean. I liked their ideas on how to put a process around strategic thinking.

Damn, too late, AMartin is already on my case for the Martha post.... :)

So, what is a Blue Ocean? Just think about how instead of one-upping your competition with the next big feature, how can you make the competition irrelevant by creating a new market space where there is no competition. For example, "Curves for Women" created a new type of health club aimed at the millions of women who hated working out at home, but also hated spending hours at a high priced, intimidating health club. Typical health clubs want you to spend a lot of time there, spend a lot of money, and use equipment that is complicated. On top of that, there are a ton of bulky guys there starring. Curves created a new environment that had equipment that was easy to use and didn't require a lot of time to workout. Curves made regular health clubs and home workout equipment irrelevant by moving into this uncontested market space.

Damn, second comment on my blog, I can tell I'm in trouble so I'll go ahead and post this one!