In this lesson I will explain what Blue Ocean and Red Ocean strategies are and why they are important to NCAB.

The metaphor is, that an ocean becomes red when too many sharks fight over a prey, just like companies ‘bleed’ when they have to fight over customers by lowering margins. When suppliers’ offers are the same, customers will go for the lowest price. So, a Red Ocean Strategy is when you offer the same thing as your competitors: you get a shark fight.

But if one company breaks away and follows a different strategy, and customers like that offer, price becomes less important. If it’s something that competitors can’t do, the sharks will be left behind, at least for some time. A Blue Ocean Strategy.

There are two ways to find a Blue Ocean. One is to come up with a big idea – an invention (like the iPad) or a business idea (like TikTok) or mittens in five colors (do the course “Our USPs” on NCAB-Academy to understand that one, it’s a good course). The other way is to be a little bit different in many aspects (better factory management, customer relationships, support from techs … many good things). Even if none of the factors may be unique by itself, the combined effect can get us into a Blue Ocean. (This is called a combined USP.)

So, in a Red Ocean, all companies do the same thing (maybe they have a fixed mindset!) and then someone with a learning mindset breaks away to do something different in a Blue Ocean.

When a Blue Ocean strategy is successful, competitors will copy it sooner or later. It may take longer or shorter for them to catch up, but they will, so we have to be in constant movement to stay away from the sharks. We must paddle all the time.

You can paddle, wherever you are, by noticing large and small improvements. When you think of a way to solve a problem, or make a customer or supplier happy, or make something easier, you should level-up and explore it. Every time you explore and learn something from it, you keep NCAB moving forward.

For a competitor, the hardest thing to copy is culture. A level-up culture where people in all functions find improvements – that’s very hard to copy. This is why you are so important – you’re not just doing your job (which in itself is pretty good), you can also help NCAB paddle away from the sharks. Everyone can paddle.