adminShelter Chieza Change Management
I am one of those that are looking for solutions and survival tactics in this period. Keeping a business afloat is a challenge and we all must put our heads together.
The level of competition has reached chocker blocker levels, you can either hang on or crumble down to extinction.
We all seem to competing for the handful of profitable customers that need our products. Just been wondering then — as opposed to competing within the confines of the existing industry or trying to steal customers from rivals, is there a possibility of venturing into an uncontested market space, using the basis of what I already have experience in the industry that I am in? Even us in Interior designing have run out of space to express our creativity.
My understanding of a blue ocean, is that demand is created rather than fought over. In blue oceans, there is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid.
The current state of affairs is explained by the phenomenon of red oceans where in all the industries already existing companies compete by grabbing for a greater share of limited demand.
The ultimate deal is that the market space is over crowded, and we are ultimately experiencing a profits and growth decline. The products on the market have now become commodities.
The deal here is to launch a completely new industry. You have an option though to create from within a red ocean where a company expands the boundaries of an existing industry.
Blue Ocean Strategy was developed by W Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. They observed that companies tend to engage in head-to-head competition in search of sustained profitable growth.
But you see, we now have overcrowded industries which have produced bloody red ocean of rivals fighting, skimming and kicking over a shrinking profit pool.
The reference is that if you want a sustainable business model, you must create blue oceans of untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.
Thus strategy is the type that believes in understanding how to convert non-customers into customers.
Its the strategy that depict that if you are developing a new range of footwear, don’t target Nike or Adidas customers, convert and convince the customer that doesn’t believe in wearing snickers!
The Blue ocean strategy does produce blue ocean leadership too. The leaders must also be equipped with leadership strength that must assist organisation in tapping unrealised talent and energy.
We then start appreciating that the security guard we have at the gate has relevant qualifications for a driver. This change should however be low cost. Blue Ocean Leaders must have two important qualities to motivate people and obtain their hidden talent and energy to achieve Blue Ocean goals. They must be able to make decisions quickly and correctly. Delegation must also be done.
Which makes me wonder how terrorist organisations such as ISIS, Al Qaeda , Al Shabbab achieve the high level of engagement they have with their followers yet our managers that have been trained by reputable institutions fail to engage their co-workers.
The process of creating blue ocean leaders start with a critical look at what actions absorb leaders’ time at each level, more like a leadership reality check. The senior manager in essence must spend more time charting the company’s future rather than focusing on day-to-day operations.
Middle management must be less controlling and nervous of acting alone. The front-line managers must be given more time serving customers and not pleasing the bosses.
In a blue ocean environment, every leader has a customer. In this, all leaders are empowered no matter what level of management they fall.
That’s why the hiring and firing of managers must be very thorough. If there is evidence of lack of leadership, first of all have a reflection of where leadership is falling short, do not discuss the person.
The question most people would ask is how sustainable the strategy is. Its virtually impossible to repeat this strategy once competition catches up. The protagonists of the strategy believe that creating blue oceans in the lifespan of a company is not a once off process. It must be a dynamic process because of competition that businesses face on a day to day basis. This strategy, however, has a couple of barriers to imitation because it steps up from the unique operations of the products or service.
If you would imitate a certain company, you would need to make major adjustments internally to suit the imitation. Blue oceans require a lot of risk taking, creativity, imagination and innovation. Creating new markets is never easy and may not be as systematic but the theory of blue oceans attempts to create patterns that can be replicated by organisations that feel that going after competition is not good enough.
Till next week, Happy Blue Oceaning!
Shelter Chieza is a Management Consultant. She holds over a decade of Management Experience .She can be contacted at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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