International Bestseller is what the cover of the copy of the book I have says. So I assume a lot of people would have found this book wonderful. My one-line take on the book Blue Ocean Strategy: Another View of the same data after a bit of slicing and dicing. I often wonder why such books are so popular. Are they really going to change the lives of the businesses or the people who read them?
Blue Ocean Strategy by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
The book talks about a strategy that instead of fighting in the red ocean of competition, tries and create blue oceans of untapped markets. Or value innovation, and make the competition irrelevant. To me, this is common sense which every entrepreneur understands inherently. Authors have tried to give some tools and frameworks to assess your strategy.
This assumes that you have a strategy and these tools can help you know if it will work or not. They can help you ask some questions that you may not have thought through. To this extent, the tools could be useful. But does the book help you actually find out those spaces where the potential blue oceans can be, I doubt it.
Use the Tools
I would say use the tools mentioned in the book to see if your strategy is different from your competitors or not. Is there something new that you are taking to your customers that they would buy or that would make sense for them? But if you are looking for a way to find blue oceans for your idea or business, you probably have to do it yourself.
It’s a quick read. You can finish in one or two sittings. Written in a pretty simple language that can be understood by anyone. The examples mentioned are so popular and commonplace that you would want to skip through them. As they are quite predictable.
Buy this book – Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne at Amazon India.
Read more:
- Dream with Your Eyes Open by Ronnie Screwvala
- Startup Capitals by Zafar Anjum
- The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
Almost every person in senior management talks about this book now. Thankfully, one can sound knowledgable about the concepts in this book without even going through this book.