Here’s some timeless wisdom from an old source, Henry David Thoreau: “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”
Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, is such a mind-changing book. Basically, its authors get you to take a look at your business’ competition in a completely new way. They challenge you to re-think standard concepts of market share and differentiation while creating profitable, sustainable growth. How? By finding “blue oceans” of new market space (red oceans are ever shrinking as the sharks fight over a smaller and smaller market).
I think it’s a particularly tall order to find blue ocean in the EMS space, where QCircuits is, and where there’s competition all over the place. But Blue Ocean Strategy gives readers a systematic way to explore the possibilities of uncontested market space. Whether you’ll find it within your industry is another question.
It’s worth taking a look because it’s a whole lot easier to operate without head-to-head competition. And it’s significantly easier to grow your profits in a competition-free environment.
The book discusses six basic principles to help readers create and execute blue ocean strategies, and they are guaranteed to make you open your mind to new ideas. The six principles are about how to:
- recreate markets,
- focus on the big picture,
- reach beyond existing demand,
- formulate a strategy that works,
- overcome organizational hurdles and
- execute successfully.
As a marketing book, it’s reasonably mind-bending, with a very inviting premise to swim in a shark-free ocean. Come on in, the water’s fine.
