Can the HANDY Blue Ocean success be replicated?

Blue Ocean Strategy - Can the HANDY Blue Ocean success be replicated?

“Creating Blue Oceans is not a static achievement but a dynamic process. Once a company creates a blue ocean and its powerful performance consequences are known, sooner or later imitators appear on the horizon. The question is, How soon or late will they come?" (Blue Ocean Strategy, p. 185)

Remember the HANDY parking meter introduced by Mobilkom Austria? It’s the one that allows you to park your car and pay for the spot with an SMS—without any need to search for the correct amount of coins in your pocket or to look for the parking meter. CNN Money reports that a similar concept will be making it’s way to parking spaces in the United States:

Since 50 percent of parking fines go unpaid, according to one San Francisco study, city halls are on the lookout for a more convenient - and effective - kind of meter.

Not only does the Photo Violation Meter allow you to swipe a credit card rather than hunt for quarters, but it will also call your cell phone when your time is up and give you the option of putting additional minutes on the meter without having to return to your car.

If all goes well and the cities buy the PVM when the trial ends in July 2008, the company’s CEO anticipates making as much as $200 million in five years.

Blue Ocean Strategy shows us that by heightening barriers to imitation, companies can defend the Blue Oceans they created for some time. One possible way Mobilkom Austria can defend the Blue Ocean it has created with the HANDY parking meter is to emphasize the difference in payment methods between the two technologies (the HANDY meter accepts SMSes for payment while the PVM accepts credit card payments), which is linked directly to cultural preferences.