Dominate the competition
This piece was written and contributed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne – professors and authors of the 3.6 million copy international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy and the indispensable followup, Blue Ocean Shift – Beyond Competing: Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth (Hachette, September 2017).
Disrupt this, disrupt that. That’s the mantra of business today. And disruption is clearly one way to seize new growth. But, when you focus on disruption, you are effectively pitting yourself against existing players – many of whom have deeper pockets, wider market reach and will most likely come out slugging.
Dominate the competition
But is that the only way? And is that the wisest way? Our research suggests no. Disruption is only half the picture when it comes to how markets get created. The other more interesting half is what we call non-disruptive creation. Non-disruptive creation occurs when you create a new market where there once wasn’t any. As a result, it doesn’t heroically pit you against Goliath.
Consider Tony Robbins. Tony effectively created the life-coaching industry, which has blossomed into a $2 billion industry. Prior to Tony, coaching was the domain of sports and peak performance athletes. Tony created an entirely new opportunity for people by combining the concept of coaching from sports – personal guidance, motivation, and accountability – with personal development to unlock this new industry space. In so doing, Tony didn’t disrupt another industry. He created a completely new market and added real value to people’s lives that they couldn’t get anywhere else. And people have flocked to him ever since.
It’s as Tony has always said:
“If you do what everyone else does, and you do it better than everybody else, you get a tiny competitive advantage. But if you do something no one else is doing in your space and focus on offering overwhelming value, if you create a blue ocean, you get a gigantic advantage.”
