THE BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY BY ROGER WAYNE & W CHAN KIM

Key Concepts of the Book

• Blue Oceans vs. Red Oceans: Red Oceans represent all the industries in existence today (the known market space), while Blue Oceans denote all the industries not in existence today (the unknown market space).
• Value Innovation: This is the cornerstone of Blue Ocean Strategy; it occurs when a company provides a leap in value for buyers while simultaneously reducing costs, breaking the traditional "value-cost" trade-off.
• The Strategy Canvas: A diagnostic tool and action framework for building a compelling blue ocean strategy by capturing the current state of play in the known market space.
• The Four Actions Framework: To create a new value curve, companies must ask: Which factors should be Eliminated, Reduced, Raised, or Created?
• Reconstruct Market Boundaries: The book identifies six paths to systematically look across conventional boundaries of competition to find commercially compelling Blue Oceans.
• Reach Beyond Existing Demand: Instead of focusing on customer preferences, Blue Ocean Strategy encourages looking at "non-customers" and identifying commonalities in what they value.
• The Sequence of Blue Ocean Strategy: A roadmap for ensuring a strategy is commercially viable, following the order of: Buyer Utility, Price, Cost, and Adoption.
• Tipping Point Leadership: A method for overcoming organizational hurdles by focusing on the people, resources, and activities that exert a disproportionate influence on performance.