A Blue Ocean Strategy is all about creating a strategy within a company that makes the company unique to the market in which it operates. The rationale of the strategy is for companies to seek business creativity and new marketing strategies, and move away from relying on price competition for success.

 

Companies should hence try to differentiate its offerings to specific market wants, and try to become the sole provider of differentiated products or services.

 

Therefore, companies must seek new markets and new ways of marketing their products or services, and focus its attention to a limited scope - or niche - of the market. By doing this, competition will potentially decrease, and the company might move from a bloody ocean filled with competitors cannibalizing each other, into a blue and friendlier ocean with less competition.

 

This strategy can be compared to Michael E. Porter's five forces framework, with which companies may analyze the profitability of different markets, and analyze the forces for competition within different markets. Therefore, this theory might be used in conjunction with the five forces framework, and might help companies analyze their competitive environments, and lead the way for higher market shares, less competition and greater profits.

 

Examples of companies' practicing strategies that can be compared with a Blue Ocean Strategy could e.g. be Apple and The Body Shop, Ferrari etc.