Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy is a marketing theory from a book published in 2005 which was written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, professors at INSEAD and co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, Kim & Mauborgne argue that companies can succeed by creating "blue oceans" of uncontested market space, as opposed to "red oceans" where competitors fight for dominance, the analogy being that an ocean full of vicious competition turns red with blood.

They assert that these strategic moves create a leap in value for the company, its buyers, and its employees while unlocking new demand and making the competition irrelevant. The book presents analytical frameworks and tools to foster an organization's ability to systematically create and capture blue oceans. The expanded edition of Blue Ocean Strategy was published in February, 2015.

The expanded edition updates all strategic moves in the book, bringing their stories up to the present, and adds new chapters on achieving strategic alignment and avoiding red ocean traps as well as expanding the discussion on sustainability and renewal.