Blue Ocean Strategy

W. Chan KIM

Renée MAUBORGNE

 

For the past twenty-five years the field of strategy has focused principally on how to build competitive advantages to beat the competition within established market boundaries. While important, with supply exceeding demand in more and more industries this often leads to a red ocean of bloody competition. Instead of battling rivals, companies need to go beyond this. They need to create blue oceans of uncontested market space to prosper in the future. This article addresses the following key questions: What makes the creation of blue oceans increasingly imperative? How can companies create blue oceans in an opportunity-maximizing risk-minimizing way? Why has the field of strategy to date paid scant attention to how to reconstruct market boundaries to open up blue oceans of uncontested market space?

W. Chan Kim is The Boston Consulting Group Bruce D. Henderson Chaired

Professor of International Management and
Professor of Strategy and International Management at INSEAD.

Renée Mauborgne is The INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and

Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD.