blue-ocean-shift

<strong>Blue Ocean Shift</strong> is the long-awaited sequel to <strong><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19663250">Blue Ocean Strategy</a>.</strong>  The core premise of Strategy is to focus on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers of your company's products and services.  Shift provides a detailed roadmap to transport your business from a red ocean of relentless competition to a blue ocean of creating new markets and releasing untapped value for customers.

The key to value innovation is to define the total solution buyers seek and then to eliminate the pain points.  To understand how this is done we learn about citizenM Hotels, Red Nose Day, Kimberly-Clark Brazil, Wawa, Malaysia's Community Rehabilitation Program, and more.

We also learn about tools such as the pioneer-migrator-settler map, the strategy canvas, the eliminate-reduce-raise-create (ERRC) grid, the six paths framework, the four actions framework, and more.  The whole point of strategy is to raise the probabilities of success, and that is what the blue ocean shift process offers.

The only reason this book received four stars instead of five is that a blue ocean shift requires everyone in the organization be onboard for the strategy to be effective.  If you are a middle manager with little authority, your best chance is to have the highest ranking member of your organization learn more about blue ocean strategy and blue ocean shift and then encourage and support others in the organization to follow the steps to move toward a blue ocean.  

If you find your organization struggling financially with declining demand for your products and services and rising costs and competition, then a <strong><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19663250">Blue Ocean Strategy</a></strong> and a <strong>Blue Ocean Shift</strong> might be in your future.

Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on <strong>Business Leadership</strong> and <strong>Business Strategy</strong> at <strong><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/webapprentices/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a>.</strong>