"Don’t Compete with Rivals—Make Them Irrelevant"
Companies have long engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation.
Yet in today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Kim and Mauborgne contend that while most companies compete within such red oceans, this strategy is increasingly unlikely to create profitable growth in the future.
Kim and Mauborgne argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such strategic moves—termed “value innovation”—create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivals obsolete and unleashing new demand.
Create uncontested market!
Create and capture demand.
Make competition irrelevant!
Break value/cost trade-off --> pursue differentiation AND low-cost strategy
