Paying attention to your business’s immediate competitors is obvious and pressing. It is if your entire focus is on what you consider ‘competition’ in the first place. Understand a category disruptor or a business preemptively reinventing the category.
If you fail in this, it can vehemently affect your market share and overall profitability. The most straightforward example would be sites like Amazon and Flipkart. They are disrupting the retail domain. However, nobody viewed them as threatening brick-and-mortar businesses in their nascent stages.
Thus, it is best for history not to repeat itself, and in such a context, the Blue Ocean Strategy comes in handy. Coined by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborge in their magnum opus of the same name – Blue Ocean Strategy. The term redefines a category by simultaneously pursuing differentiation and low cost.
It is to open up new market spaces and produce novel demands. The Blue Ocean Plan involves building and capturing uncontested markets. It is by viewing the ‘market’ as a boundless and transient phenomenon. Their structures and borders can be reconstructed. It is based on the actions and beliefs of industry players.
The relevance of the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ for your business is to attend to the challenge. It is by regularly looking at the industry trends. It is from a broader vantage point and beyond the niche you cater to. Start by talking to consumers you have left your category.
It is a simple way to understand if the domain is losing ground. This is about what ‘categories’ beside your own might be your competition.