Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) is the systematic pursuit of new market and new demand creation through the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and lower cost (Value Innovation). It is called Blue Ocean because it is about creating unknown market space where companies do not compete head-to-head against the competition but rather out compete them by creating new markets where no competition exists. While innovation is seen as random and experimental process, BOS provides a systematic and reproducible methodology and process to pursue innovation for both new and existing firms.

Five years ago a revolutionary management book was released that changed the way companies do business. This book did not present anything that hadn’t been done before: in fact, the research used to support this framework spanned over one hundred years. What made this approach different is that it turned the way we think of competition on its head – and never looked back. The book was called Blue Ocean Strategy.

The authors of the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne are professors of strategy and management at INSEAD and co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontainebleau, France. Kim and Mauborgne received the Nobels Colloquia Prize for Leadership on Business and Economic Thinking in 2008 and are the winners of the Eldridge Haynes Prize, for the best original paper in the field of international business. They have also been awarded the prestigious position of Ranking #5 in the Top 50 Thinkers in the world. www.thinkers50.com