Strategic Analysis: Summary And Analysis Of The Blue Ocean Strategy

Overall in the past few years Apple has become more and more successful through preparing for the growth of E-Business for today’s society. The company has taken in and analysed competitors behaviour in order to remain market leaders and stay at the forefront of high end products such as IPhone and there IMacs range. Apple have tried to create a unique feel for their products when compared with Microsoft they have been trying to play catch up with Apple in all the same categories they both operate in. Apple use very different marketing techniques compared to Microsoft which has made Apple the number one brand in the world.

It is quite obvious from the case that Apple is facing many obstacles. It has way more competitors today than it had two or three decades back. Part of it has to with the highly globalized environment that companies are operating in these days. Another major obstacle is the technological environment which is rapidly changing compared to the one that Apple experienced when it first emerged on the global scene. But the most important of it all seems to be a mental thing. It appears that Apple, over a period of time, developed a rigid mental model that related success of Apple with sheer innovation. This same mental model has lead to demise of many companies in the past, Xerox Corporation being the prime example of that.

One key element of Apple’s strategy in computers, personal media players, tablet computers, and smart phones is product innovation, diversification and development. Over the years Apple has been very successful in integrating software and hardware in new developing products. Despite the struggling economy in recent years, Apple has been able to grow their market share and stay ahead of the game.

Could an investor beat the stock market and generate a superior return with companies that have formulated and implemented a blue ocean strategy? Why or why not? Elaborate through at

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Apple has prospered internally and it is necessary to consider both strengths and weaknesses. Apple has lots of strengths, the major of them being it’s impressive brand reputation, Apple managed to position the brand as “premium products” for “elite” people. Customers are loyal and tend to stay in Apple’s ecosystem. Apple’s self-reinforcing ecosystem, it has a diverse ecosystem which integrates various hardware and software products into one large interactive space. Status of top innovator, Apple is perceived as the leading innovator and its products are highly anticipated. Apple’s very strong financial performance, high profit margins and very high liquidity. It’s network of retail stores, high-quality customer service helps to create advanced user experience. A powerful marketing strategy, Apple’s team masterly uses various marketing techniques to create a hype for their products and to strengthen the brand.

The kind of competition market described previously is an example of a Red Ocean Strategy. The market is oversaturated with companies

Blue Ocean Education, LLC is an educational service company located in Pleasanton, CA. Our company provides foreign students (mainly from China) with accommodations information and school service assistance. Our company anticipates in August this year, over 400 foreign students will use our service to help assist them in the U.S. If you are reading this try to remember when you step into a foreign place, and everything was unfamiliar. Did you have difficulty adapting to the new environment? Now that you stayed here in the U.S and have gained the experience, do you want to help new foreign students getting started? Blue Ocean is looking for highly motivated individuals to serve as a professional assistant to newly foreign students.

Even though Apple has encountered many setbacks, it continues to bring new and improve products to the market. Apple’s competitive strategy has been innovation. They have made an extraordinary effort developing, implementing, and executing its very unique strategy through innovation which has resulted in new product, and the enrichment of the existing ones. More specifically, Apple attempts to meet and supply the needs of a global market, by offering eager and enthusiastic consumers with innovated and high-quality products and services. Apple has employed a differentiation strategy linked to innovation with its three core products (computers, personal media player, mobile phones, tablets and other accessories). A key piece of their strategy involves meeting the needs of the converging digital electronics and computer markets. Apple has elected to implement its strategy by designing and developing proprietary operating systems and software technologies, thus allowing for strict protection of its intellectual rights.

A red ocean represents the known market space which includes all industries in existence today. The rules of business here are well defined and companies within the red ocean play within accepted industry boundaries. The key to performing well in red oceans is to outperform the competition and gain greater share in the market space. The red ocean gets overfilled with competitors and products start to become commodities. This commoditization means that customers will become extremely price sensitive

The book, which called Blue Ocean Strategy, published in 2005 and written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. After reading this book, the author wants to tell us that companies can succeed through creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market place. They don’t want to battle all the competitors. They maintain these strategic moves in order to create a saltation in value for this company. In addition, all of their buyers and employees by unlocking new demand, it finally makes the competition irrelevant. In order to foster an organization 's ability, it also shows the analytical frameworks and tools to create and capture blue oceans by reading this book.

This strategy seem challenging since this strategy focus on capture new market and new demand, which it’s required extra efforts in term of innovation of products and promotion in order to make customers realize about their product. Even there are some discussions about the blue ocean strategies; however, based on my review on customers comment said that the practical guidance on how to create them is limited. Therefore, without usual analytic framework which can be used as guidelines to create blue oceans as well as effective principles to manage risk, creating blue oceans viewed as too risky for managers to pursue as strategy for their company.

I have done research on Mr Price clothing stores as a division and I will use the Blue Ocean strategy namely, a swot analysis, porter five force model, integration of sales and other costs, the attached newspaper article as well as a quantitative risk assessment. It is through these factors in which I will assess their already existing strategic plan and to think creatively to draft a viable strategic plan for the company’s future and to also give recommendations on how to improve.

Give one example of a company pursuing blue ocean strategy and one example of a

There are some tool produce to help implement blue ocean strategy. The Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create (ERRC) Grid is the matrix that help execute blue ocean strategy with the four action framework: eliminating, reducing, aising and creating. ERRC Grid help company to remain on their competitive factors. Eliminating and reduce the factor that the transitional industry take it for granted can help the new strategy to remain unique from the transitional market. Nevertheless, raising and creating some unique competitive factor the transitional market never or seldom offered that is above the industry standard. With all these “Four Actions Framework” the company can escape the transitional red ocean market by activate a new blue ocean market and create a new value curve. (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005)