Winning by Not Competing: A Fresh Approach to Strategy

Since the dawn of the industrial age, companies have 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 these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.

In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue 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 a hundred years and thirty industries, the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans": untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves-which the authors call "value innovation"- create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.

Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this book charts a bold new path to winning the future.

W. Chan Kim is the Boston Consulting Group Bruce D. Henderson Chair Professor of Strategy and International Management at INSEAD. Renée Mauborgne is the INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and Professor of Strategy and Management.

Fast Company's Book Club runner ups
Get Your Motor Running
s+b Best Business Books 2005
Amazon's Best Books of 2005
800-CEO-READ's Best Selling Books of 2005
GetAbstract's Best Books 2005
Fast Company's Best Books of 2005
Going Over the Books — Library Journal's Best Business Books 2005
BusinessWeek Best-Seller List - Hardcover, June 2006
The Personal MBA: 42 resources that will help you learn about business on your own time
How To Hit A Moving Target: books on competition

Beating the Competition the Blue Ocean Way: Inc. Reporter Darren Dahl recently sat down with the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, to discuss their counterintuitive approach to beating the competition. (@ Inc Magazine)
Head For Virgin Territory: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (@ Business Week)
Jack Covert Selects--Blue Ocean Strategy: what caught my attention with this book was Blue Ocean Strategy's focus on developing strategy in new, nonexistent markets. (@ 800ceoread.com)

Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation by Pinchot, Gifford
Competitive Advantage : Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Porter, Michael

Disruptive Strategic Thinking
A must read strategy book for entrepreneurs and practitioners, The Blue Ocean Strategy has stood the test of time. This breakthrough work provides insights on how to take advantage of "white spaces" in the marketplace and compete against non-competition. The primary argument by Chan and Mauborgne is that organizations should focus on making markets instead of competing within them. In a classic example, the authors reference Cirque du Soleil, who created a high-end market space in the circus business, creating a new brand of entertainment, capturing market share and charging a price premium of more than 10 times that of a traditional circus. In an age when markets can be transformed overnight, Blue Ocean provides a framework for focusing on the most productive and profitable market segments.