Red Ocean Traps Harvard Business Review Classics

As established markets become less profitable, companies increasingly need to find ways to create and capture new markets. Despite much investment and commitment, most firms struggle to do this. What, exactly, is getting in their way? World-renowned professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, the authors of the best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy have spent over a decade exploring that question. They have seen that the trouble lies in managers' mental models--ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world works. Though these models may work perfectly well in mature markets, they undermine executives' attempts to discover uncontested new spaces with ample potential (blue oceans) and keep companies firmly anchored in existing spaces where competition is bloody (red oceans). In this bound version of their bestselling Harvard Business Review classic article, they describe how to break free of these red ocean traps. To do that, managers need to: (1) Focus on attracting new customers, not pleasing current customers; (2) Worry less about segmentation and more about what different segments have in common; (3) Understand that market creation is not synonymous with either technological innovation or creative destruction; and (3) Stop focusing on premium versus low-cost strategies. The Harvard Business Review Classics series offers you the opportunity to make seminal Harvard Business Review articles a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world--and will have a direct impact on you today and for years to come.

Chart a path to creating uncontested market space and winning the future. This collection of work by globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne brings together their perennial bestseller book Blue Ocean Strategy with their classic articles “Blue Ocean Leadership” and “Red Ocean Traps.” Blue Ocean Strategy, the global phenomenon that has sold over 4 million copies and is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written, argues that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), Kim and Mauborgne argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating “blue oceans”—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. The book presents a systematic approach to making competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any organization can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. In the article “Red Ocean Traps,” the authors show how managers’ mental models—ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world works—undermine attempts to discover uncontested new market spaces. The authors provide a framework for avoiding spaces where competition is bloody (red oceans) and moving to blue ocean spaces with ample potential.

Ten years ago, world-renowned professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne broke ground by introducing "blue ocean strategy," a new model for discovering uncontested markets that are ripe for growth. In this bound version of their bestselling Harvard Business Review classic article, they apply their concepts and tools to what is perhaps the greatest challenge of leadership: closing the gulf between the potential and the realized talent and energy of employees. Research indicates that this gulf is vast: According to Gallup, 70% of workers are disengaged from their jobs. If companies could find a way to convert them into engaged employees, the results could be transformative. The trouble is, managers lack a clear understanding of what changes they could make to bring out the best in everyone. In this article, Kim and Mauborgne offer a solution to that problem: a systematic approach to uncovering, at each level of the organization, which leadership acts and activities will inspire employees to give their all, and a process for getting managers throughout the company to start doing them. Blue ocean leadership works because the managers' "customers"--that is, the people managers oversee and report to--are involved in identifying what's effective and what isn't. Moreover, the approach doesn't require leaders to alter who they are, just to undertake a different set of tasks. And that kind of change is much easier to implement and track than changes to values and mind-sets. The Harvard Business Review Classics series offers you the opportunity to make seminal Harvard Business Review articles a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world--and will have a direct impact on you today and for years to come.

Chart a path to creating uncontested market space and winning the future. This collection of work by globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne brings together their perennial bestseller book Blue Ocean Strategy with their classic articles “Blue Ocean Leadership” and “Red Ocean Traps.” Blue Ocean Strategy, the global phenomenon that has sold over 4 million copies and is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written, argues that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), Kim and Mauborgne argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating “blue oceans”—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. The book presents a systematic approach to making competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any organization can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. In the article “Blue Ocean Leadership,” the authors apply their concepts and tools to what is perhaps the greatest challenge of leadership: closing the gulf between the potential and realized talent and energy of employees. The authors offer a systematic method for uncovering, at every level of the organization, which leadership acts and activities will inspire employees to give it their all and a process for getting managers throughout the company to undertake these tasks. In the article “Red Ocean Traps,” the authors show how managers’ mental models—ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world works—undermine attempts to discover uncontested new market spaces. The authors provide a framework for avoiding spaces where competition is bloody (red oceans) and moving to blue ocean spaces with ample potential.

The collection you need to create more blue oceans. W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne changed the field of strategy and the language of business with their pathbreaking "blue ocean strategy," a model for creating uncontested markets that unlock new demand and new opportunities for growth. This book brings together three of their classic blue ocean strategy articles, all first published in Harvard Business Review. "Blue Ocean Strategy" highlights the distinct differences between market-competing (red ocean) and market-creating (blue ocean) strategy and what it takes to create the new markets of tomorrow. In "Red Ocean Traps," Kim and Mauborgne reveal the faulty assumptions that keep managers tethered to existing overcrowded markets (red oceans). "Blue Ocean Leadership" applies the concepts and analytic frameworks of blue ocean strategy to an innovative leadership approach that releases employees' untapped talent and energy while conserving their most precious resource--time. This collection is the ideal start, or refresher, for creating more blue oceans.

The best of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s articles on blue ocean strategy, all in one place. The seminal book Blue Ocean Strategy has sold over 4 million copies globally and is in print in 46 languages. But much of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s work on creating new market spaces was originally published in the pages of Harvard Business Review. This book brings the best of those articles together all in one place. Piece by piece, these articles explain the process of creating “blue oceans”––uncontested market spaces, untainted by competition. Kim and Mauborgne introduce tools for exploring and exploiting these markets, such as the Value Curve, the Strategy Canvas, the Price Corridor of the Mass, and the Business Model Guide—tools that have come to make up the blue ocean strategy framework. This collection also features the authors’ latest Harvard Business Review article, “Red Ocean Traps.” Whether or not you’re familiar with blue ocean strategy, this book will give you a new perspective on this important framework—and help you implement it in your organization. This volume includes the articles “Value Innovation: The Strategic Logic of High Growth,” “Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy,” “Creating New Maket Space,” “Knowing a Winning Business Idea When You See One,” “Charting Your Company’s Future,” “Tipping Point Leadership,” “Blue Ocean Strategy,” “How Strategy Shapes Structure,” “Blue Ocean Leadership,” and “Red Ocean Traps: The Mental Models That Undermine Market-Creating Strategies.”

Chart a path to creating uncontested market space and winning the future. This collection of work by globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne brings together their perennial bestseller book Blue Ocean Strategy with their classic article “Blue Ocean Leadership.” Blue Ocean Strategy, the global phenomenon that has sold over 4 million copies and is recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written, argues that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), Kim and Mauborgne argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating “blue oceans”—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. The book presents a systematic approach to making competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any organization can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. In the article “Blue Ocean Leadership,” the authors apply their concepts and tools to what is perhaps the greatest challenge of leadership: closing the gulf between the potential and realized talent and energy of employees. The authors offer a systematic method for uncovering, at every level of the organization, which leadership acts and activities will inspire employees to give it their all and a process for getting managers throughout the company to undertake these tasks.