There are several driving forces behind the need for businesses to create blue oceans, including increasing price wars and shrinking profit margins. For major product and service categories, the accelerated pace of commoditization means that differentiating brands becomes harder in both economic upturns and downturns. And as brands become more similar, customers increasingly make their purchasing decision based on price — propagating a vicious, bloody tide of red oceans.
Echoing the need to differentiate and create blue oceans, here is an excerpt on the financial services industry from Financial Advisor Magazine:
Creating the value innovation for a financial practice and then creating a branding message that reflects this, used in a variety of media, especially a Web site, can have a transformative effect on the attractiveness of a firm to its prospects.
The reason to go to this extent is to combat the overwhelming degree of sameness that permeates the financial profession. Trying to present yourself as all things to all people generally forces you into the red ocean (red from all the blood of sharks biting each other). The only clear path to the blue ocean is through differentiating your firm from all the others.
[Image via bloggerbusinessplan.]
