Competing in existing markets is growing less profitable. To succeed in the long term, companies must find ways to create new markets.

stop focusing on premium versus low-cost strategies.

understand that market creation is not synonymous with either technological innovation or creative destruction.

worry less about segmentation and more about what different segments have in common.

focus on attracting new customers, not pleasing current customers.

This article describes how to break free of these red ocean traps. Though these models may work perfectly well in mature markets, they undermine executives’ attempts to discover uncontested new spaces with ample potential (blue oceans) and keep companies firmly anchored in existing spaces where competition is bloody (red oceans). They have seen that the trouble lies in managers’ mental models-ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world works. The authors of the best-selling Blue Ocean Strategy have spent over a decade exploring that question.

Despite much investment and commitment, most firms struggle to do this. As established markets become less profitable, companies increasingly need to find ways to create and capture new markets.

For ios download Blue Ocean Strategy