Blue Ocean Strategy – Book review of the week-ish

Lots of folks think they’re good at strategy. I know many folks who talk at length about their innovative ideas. Yet, in practice, it seems most are good only at copying their competitors. And vice versa. How many people have you run into claiming they are “just like MySpace, but different,” or “like YouTube, with a twist?”

The folks who truly innovate, who truly offer something new to the marketplace, find the unexplored areas and fill them with a service or product customers truly want. While many business books claim the secret to this “find and fill” action, few deliver. One notable exception is W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne’s "Blue Ocean Strategy." With a subtitle of “How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant,” Kim and Mauborgne set the bar high. However, they manage to clear that bar with room to spare, providing a clear roadmap to developing strategies that truly differentiate you from your competition. The book’s first two sections focus on what the authors mean by “Blue Ocean Strategy” and how businesses can create one. What separates "Blue Ocean Strategy." from other books of its kind, however, is its third part, which focuses on how companies can execute their blue ocean strategies. The authors not only chart a course for intrepid strategists to follow, they help companies pilot their way through rough waters to success.