Blue Ocean Strategy Path 4: Look Across Complementary Products and Service Offerings

Blue Ocean Strategy Articles - Blue Ocean Strategy Path 4: Look Across Complementary Products and Service Offerings

Continuing in our series which takes a closer look at each of the paths in Blue Ocean Strategy’s Six Paths Framework, our focus shifts to the fourth path—looking across complementary products and service offerings. During the upcoming weeks we will continue to highlight the remaining two paths, with each becoming accessible in the Blue Ocean Strategy Basics archives. Today, for the fourth path, we turn to page 65 - 66 of the book Blue Ocean Strategy (co-authored by Professor W. Chan Kim and Professor Renée Mauborgne):


Blue Ocean Strategy Path 4: Look Across Complementary Products and Service Offerings

Few products and services are used in a vacuum. In most cases, other products and services affect their value. But in most industries, rivals converge within the bounds of their industry’s product and service offerings. Take movie theaters. The ease and cost of getting a babysitter and parking the car affect the perceived value of going to the movies. Yet these complementary services are beyond the bounds of the movie theater industry as it has been traditionally defined. Few cinema operators worry about how hard or costly it is for people to get babysitters. But they should, because it affects demand for their business. Imagine a movie theater with a babysitting service.

Untapped value is often hidden in complementary products and services. The key is to define the total solution buyers seek when they choose a product or service. A simple way to do so is to think about what happens before, during, and after your product is used. Babysitting and parking the car are needed before people can go to the movies. Operating and application software are used along with computer hardware. In the airline industry, ground transportation is used after the flight but is clearly part of what the customer needs to travel from one place to another.

Source: http://blueoceanstrategy.typepad.com/creatingblueoceans/2008/02/blue-ocean-st-2.html