How to implement blue ocean strategy? What are the organizational and management risks and how can a leader attenuate those risks to build execution into strategy successfully? The case "Blue Ocean Strategy Implementation: Real-life Learning and an Interactive Game" brings the implementation principles of blue ocean leadership to students, entrepreneurs, and executives alike in a comprehensive and effective way. First, it introduces two different real-life examples of successful and failed blue ocean strategy implementation. It sets the ground for learning key frameworks of blue ocean leadership for strategy execution: tipping point leadership and fair process. Aided by the accompanying lecture slides, the foundations of strategy implementation are taught in depth by addressing four types of organizational hurdles in strategy execution - cognitive, resource, motivational, and political - and how tipping point leadership allows organizations to overcome them fast and at low cost, while fair process builds trust, commitment, and voluntary cooperation deep in an organization. Finally, principles and concepts of tipping point leadership and fair process are applied through an interactive game, creating an engaging and lively classroom experience with deep learning. The interactive game is online, with professors receiving free access to it.
Webtoon Entertainment, a subsidiary of Korea's dominant search engine, Naver, with over 60% of the market share, is a prime example of how a company creates and captures new market opportunities in the era of digital transformation. With its humble beginning as a free service to increase user traffic to the portal site by providing digitized comics for web surfers, Webtoon Entertainment reinvented the comic book industry by changing the way comics are created, distributed, and consumed. Briefly, Webtoon Entertainment is a platform that connects creators and users of digital comic content in the form of a vertical layout that is optimized for PC and mobile browsing. The company now boasts 82 million monthly active users on its digital comic platform across the globe. The case explores the key milestones of Webtoon Entertainment to show how the company transformed the comic industry and became the largest storytelling platform in the world. More specifically, it describes how the company unlocked new creative talents and built an ecosystem for webtoon business based on a platform economy, monetized the once-free content into a billion-dollar business, and then rolled it out globally despite cultural and language barriers. Finally, the case describes the challenges ahead that Webtoon Entertainment faces in the lucrative yet competitive comics industry. Interestingly, the case has multimedia materials, including first-hand interviews and infographics, directly embedded between the written content. Students are able to access these materials via QR codes and are visually stimulated while elevating their comprehension of the case. This will be a whole new reading experience for students that immerses them in the evolution of Webtoon Entertainment at a different level, ensuring an active and rich class discussion. The case is suitable for teaching innovation, entrepreneurship, digital transformation, platform strategy, and globalization strategy.
In 2011 Katrina Lake launched a new type of online retailing, Stitch Fix, a personal styling service based on a mix of human creativity and artificial intelligence, and grew it into a $3.6B company. Like many other successful retail businesses, it rapidly caught Jeff Bezos's eye. And nothing good comes when Jeff Bezos notices you and decides to compete. After a first attempt to challenge Stitch Fix in June 2017 with Prime Wardrobe, Amazon unveiled Personal Shopper in 2019, a new service that worked similar to Stitch Fix. Will Bezos do to Lake's Stitch Fix what he did to Barnes & Noble with books? Or will Stitch Fix be able to fend off the retail giant Amazon?
This highly engaging strategy formulation exercise allows participant to unlock their creativity through the systematic five-step process of blue ocean shift. We reverse the learning process of case method by combining it with a group exercise. Participants will formulate their own market-creating strategy first by actively applying the concept, framework, and process of blue ocean shift to one of the most competitive industries - the travel industry. Then, they will be introduced to a real-life case that challenged the travel industry's long existing assumptions and successfully opened new market space. In analyzing the case, a three-part video series walks participants through the same blue ocean shift process applied in their group exercise, which will reinforce their learnings from the exercise and enhance the understanding of the case.This case is excellent for running a half-day or one-day workshop on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.The case comes with a teaching note, lecture slides, worksheets, a one-page summary and a three-part movie based on first-hand research and face-to-face interview with the CEO of a Korean company who created a blue ocean in the travel industry. The teaching material can be downloaded from https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/blue-ocean-shift-exercise/ The case is also available in Chinese and Korean.
On 30 May 2017, Amazon shares traded at a record high - above $1,000 - surpassing the share price of Google parent Alphabet. Started as an online bookstore 22 years earlier, Amazon has achieved uninterrupted growth by becoming the largest internet bookstore, the largest online marketplace, a media company, and the most successful IT service provider. Amazon recently expanded into the bricks-and-mortar retail business, launching Amazon Books across the US and beta-testing Amazon Go in Seattle. As of May 2017, Amazon was ranked the world's most innovative company and the fourth largest company by market capitalization. The case explores Amazon's path to growth and its successes and failures along the way. Successful strategic moves include Amazon Marketplace, Prime, Amazon Web Services, and Kindle. Failures included Auctions, A9 Search Engine, Endless, and the Fire Phone. Identifying commonalities and differences among them, the case shows the causes and consequences of Amazon's at-once stellar performance and severe setbacks. It applies Blue Ocean Strategy concepts to analyze its market-creating logic for future growth. The case comes with teaching note, a one-page summary and lectures slides. Teaching materials can be downloaded from https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/amazon/ The case is also available in Chinese and Korean.
Drybar was launched in 2010 with the tagline "No cuts. No color. Just Blowouts!" by hair stylist Alli Webb and her brother Michael Landau. Blow-drying had long been provided in most hair salons, but was considered an add-on or infrequent stand-alone service that did not incur a significant and consistent revenue stream. Alli recognized an untapped business opportunity in blowout services and turned it into a US$70 million business with 55 locations across the United States in just five years. The case looks at how Drybar changed the concept of professional blow-drying and made it compelling to women regardless of age or background. The case is presented in two parts. Part A describes the industry landscape of the American beauty salon industry in 2008, before Drybar entered the scene. It reviews the nature of the industry throughout history, and the structure and competitive forces that shaped conventional practices. Part B illustrates how Drybar was conceived with a different strategic approach and what made Drybar stand out from conventional hair salons while achieving lower costs. Part B is presented in an innovative cartoon storybook format to help enhance participants' understanding of Drybar's offering through an entertaining experience that is both informative and emotionally engaging. Supplementary Video and Lecture Slides can be obtained at https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/drybar/
Drybar (B) is presented in an innovative cartoon storybook format to help enhance participants' understanding of Drybar's offering through an entertaining experience that is both informative and emotionally engaging. Supplementary Video and Lecture Slides can be obtained at https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/drybar/
This is the first part of two-case series of Zappos's blue ocean strategic move as an innovative online shoe retailer. Part A focuses on how Zappos reconstructed the existing boundaries of the online footwear retail industry. It describes Zappos's distinctive value proposition that is neither an offline nor online shoe store in the conventional sense. The case also introduces how Zappos broke the value-cost trade-off of the conventional online shoe store. The case comes with a theory-based video case, which can be obtained from https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/zappos
The second part of Zappos case focuses on Zappos's people proposition, which led to high performance and raised barriers to imitation. It demonstrates the importance of Fair Process that builds deep trust and commitment in the company, making it difficult for competitors to imitate Zappos. Theory-based Movies and Lecture Slides can be obtained from https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/zappos
This case introduces the application of blue ocean strategy in the context of managing a business portfolio at the corporate level. Apple created future profits and growth not by exploiting existing demand, but by reconstructing industry boundaries to create new market space and unlock latent demand. As a result, the company's value grew exponentially as the total market value of a firm reflects not only today's performance but also its future profitability. The case examines a series of blue ocean strategic moves at Apple, Inc. that transformed the company from a computer manufacturer into a consumer electronics powerhouse.