Explore the open blue ocean

Presenting one aspect of Competitive Strategy - avoid the clutter, cut through the noise, perception of the core value etc., calls for a lot of effort in wading through a pool already crowded with numerous strategies and peripheral analysis. A company tends to expend resources and intellectual bandwidth in trying to squeeze every last drop of merit in an already depleted reource or industry - akin to flogging a dying horse.

Blue Ocean strategy is remarkably refreshing in that it just asks the consultant or the XIO to think outside the box - and cultivate an understanding of the opportunities that lie un-harnessed in as yet un-discovered areas falling within the organization's core competence spectrum. An example would be that of an automobile ancillary manufacturing company ELECON diversifying into heavy engineering gear-box manufacturing, because its initial business of manufacturing gear-boxes for the automobile industry was being threated by decreasing profit margins due to imports and increasing cost of playing the economics-of-scale game. Heavy engineering gear box manufacturing would have been the niche playing field of foreign players, that is now being targeted by the smaller, nimble-footed and hungry Indian firm.

This strategy of exploring the unexplored, can work equally well in the Service industry. Creating a retail opportunity out of Vada Pav - the ubiquitous Marathi snack-on-the-go has led to enviable operating margins for the Jumbo King chain. Ten years ago, it would have been considered infra-dig to commercialze the common man's food. But exploring possibilities and converting them into realizable value propositions never hurt anyone. All it takes is a bit of courage, the wherewithal to stick it though thick-and-thin and valuable strategic far-sightedness.