Blue

For readers who are not familiar with modern business theory, maybe I should spare a moment and explain.

The whole discussion began in 1980, when Michael Porter published his masterpiece Competitive Strategy (which is still regularly used as the textbook for many MBA courses). One major theme of this book was, in the long run, successful businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage are either low-cost providers or niche-players.

Although the idea helped explaining many of our daily observations (for example, Park-n-Shop versus CitySuper), it might be slightly oversimplified and received much criticism. A number of experts pointed out that successful competition could come from exploring new market. (Remember my friend asking me to think outside the box when considering grant applications ?)

The whole theory was elegantly summarized by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in Blue Ocean Strategy. In short, it states that a large company should promote creating new market space, or Blue Ocean, rather than competing in an existing industry (the so-called Red Ocean).

PS. I bought and read Competitive Strategy some twelve years ago, shortly after I returned Hong Kong from my overseas training, without knowing that it was an MBA textbook - another rare occasion when I picked a superb book in a field unknown to me.