WSJ Online: Think Big, Think Blue Oceans

WSJ Online: Think Big, Think Blue Oceans

Blue Ocean Strategy: Saturday’s edition of the WSJ Online included a stimulating article by Dr. David Aaker, professor emeritus of marketing strategy at the Haas School of Business, the University of California at Berkeley. The article, referring to Blue Ocean Strategy, discusses the importance for companies to ‘think big,’ and to focus on what customers buy, as opposed to what brand they buy:

While creating new product categories and subcategories is not always possible -- and can be risky -- research has shown it produces far greater rewards than sticking with the tried and true. In 2004, two professors at the French business school Insead made a study of 108 business launches over a recent five-year period, some 14% of which represented innovations that went beyond incremental improvements in an existing market space. The study, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, found that those 14% produced 38% of the revenue and 61% of the profits for the entire group.