Creating Blue Oceans

The Perfect Calm Series: Paul Polak, Global Poverty Fighter

One of the most exciting spheres of application for Blue Ocean Strategy is the realm of Social Capitalism. This explosive market space is at the intersection of successful business and lasting social impact. Traditionally these two spheres were considered separate, but the two can be pursued simultaneously via Blue Ocean Strategy. Periodically, we feature stories which illustrate stimulating ventures, ideas and concepts targeting this very market space.

This week, we select the story:  Paul Polak, Global Poverty Fighter.

Do you know of other companies, organizations or business visionaries sailing along the intersection of good business and social good? Share your ideas with the Creating Blue Oceans Community.

[Image via pandaguin .]

Global Crisis — The Comic Angle: Airline Industry

No matter where one turns these days, it seems nearly impossible to escape the news of the latest company or industry to unravel — or of the next bailout request.  So to challenge the status quo of doom and gloom, and to inject a layer of much needed levity, we are starting a new series of satirical articles that look at different industries in crisis.  Our first such article looked at the newspaper industry, while our current article, entitled ‘American Airlines Now Charging Fees To Non-Passengers,’ pokes a little fun at the commercial airline’s troubles. 

From The Onion:

FORT WORTH, TX—Cash-strapped American Airlines announced a new series of fees this week that will apply to all customers not currently flying, scheduled to fly, or even thinking about flying aboard the commercial carrier.
Enlarge Image American Airlines Stub

American Airlines has promised never to raise its fees for not printing a boarding pass.

The fees, the latest introduced by American Airlines in a continuing effort to combat its financial woes, will take effect on Monday. According to company officials, these charges will include a $25 tax on citizens traveling with any other airline, as well as a mandatory $30 surcharge for passengers who decide to just stay home for the holidays instead.

"Tough times unfortunately mean tough measures," American Airlines president Gerard Arpey said. "It's never an easy decision to ask our loyal customers, as well as thousands of people chosen at random out of a telephone book, to pay a little extra, but that's just the reality of today's economic climate. We hope all Americans will understand this when receiving one of our new bills in the mail."

Join in the humor.  When you see a satyrical article related to the Global crisis, share it with us for possible inclusion on CreatingBlueOceans.com .   Get in touch via the ‘email me’ link above, left.

[Image via The Onion.]

Blue Ocean Football: Taking the game by storm

Given our previously published articles on Mike Leach, Blue Ocean coach of the Texas Tech football team, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to share with our readers a recent interview with him on 60 Minutes.   As head coach for the Red Raiders, Leach makes up for a lack of money and talent by creating an offense that's changing the way college football is played.  What are some of the ways his approach exemplifies Blue Ocean Strategy? 

In a move right out of our defying conventional wisdom playbook, Leach does not recruit top talent, rather he recruits an average group of players and coaches them to victory using untraditional techniques. Even his team’s kicker was discovered not via standard recruiting channels, but through an open competition held among spectators at a home game. 

On offense, Leach's team uses a strategy previously unprecedented in college football:  It has a relentless emphasis on passing rather than running the ball.  The result is phenomenal.  It confuses and tires out much bigger and stronger defenses unaccustomed to such an unconventional approach. 

Furthermore, in the spirit of a value innovator, Leach’s team provides end customers (fans and spectators) with exceptional enrichment, by taking traditional football to a whole new level of up-tempo, high-scoring events, which are much more entertaining to watch.  All the while working with only the fraction of the budget of his much more established and renowned rivals.

See the full 60 Minutes interview with Texas Tech’s blue ocean Coach Mike Leach by clicking on the image above.

[Video via CBS. ]

Banking on Blue Ocean

We recently received an article on Swift Financial, contributed by a regular reader of CreatingBlueOceans.com, which, is “making buck by making banking easy.” Originally appearing in the November edition of Entrepreneur, the article describes how Ed Harycki, co-founder of Swift Financial, is creating his own Blue Ocean marketspace in the banking sector. 

Not only is the bank an entirely ‘online’ bank, but it allows customers to deposit checks electronically.  By eliminating the need for retail banking outlets (‘eliminate’ is the first action in the Blue Ocean Strategy four actions framework), as well as creating a new way for customers to deposit their checks seamlessly and effortlessly online (‘create’ is the fourth action in the Blue Ocean Strategy four actions framework), Harycki is changing the relationship between small businesses and banks.  And as Harycki continues to simplify banking, his Blue Ocean marketspace continues to expand. 

From Entrepreneur:

Launched in 2007, the online bank helps business owners improve cash flow with simple loan applications, free checking, next-day check clearing and the convenience of never having to drive to a branch to make a deposit.  “Small-business owners spend over two weeks a year going back and forth to the bank just to hand [over] a check,” says CEO Harycki, 47, who founded Swift with Andrew McCarthy, 34. “You could spend that time at the beach; why would you ever want to spend it driving to a bank?”  As gas prices spike, this problem resonates even more with entrepreneurs, he adds. 

The solution—and the key to Swift’s success—is what’s called remote deposit.  Swift mails a small check scanner to all account holders.  With this free scanner, and a desktop PC, business owners can make deposits at any time of the day without ever leaving the office.

View the full article from the November issue of Entrepreneur magazine here .

[Image via Online Banking is the Future Blog.]

HCL acquires AXON, widens Blue Ocean

Today we bring our readers an update on HCL Technologies Limited, a forerunner in India’s technology sector, and its Blue Ocean Strategy.  HCL has created its Blue Ocean through the combination of collaborative outsourcing (client companies can pick and chose which part of their IT infrastructure operations to outsource) and remote management. 

Aimed at expanding its Blue Ocean marketspace, most recently HCL announced the USD 640m acquisition of the UK-based SAP consulting  company, AXON Group plc —  the largest ever acquisition in the tech sector by an Indian Company.

As reported by MarketWatch:

Blue Ocean thinking to create uncontested market spaces is an underpinning of the HCL Transformation story. The merger of Axon and the HCL SAP practice presents a great opportunity to bring new capabilities to the market with a truly global delivery model providing the full lifecycle suite of services, which fits into HCL's Blue Ocean strategy perfectly. HCL has a long history of experience in ensuring smooth integration and preserving the unique identity and character of the companies we acquire. We welcome AXON employees into the HCL family in the form of HCL AXON," said Vineet Nayar, CEO and member of the board, HCL Technologies.

[Image via tleaff .]

Nintendo Wii — an endless blue ocean or what?

Here at CreatingBlueOceans.com we have followed closely the story of Nintendo and the Blue Ocean marketspace it has created with its mold-breaking Wii console.  In fact, it has been so successful that the Nintendo Wii was predicted during the recent holiday season to dominate the gaming console arena for an unprecedented third year in a row.   And, on top of that, Nintendo’s mold-breaking product, the Wii, is poised to become the most successful entertainment product of all time.  

Perhaps most impressively, Nintendo continues to create new blue oceans around the Wii.  We have previously reported on the WiiFit and WiiWare introductions.  Now, through a partnership with ad agency Dentsu, Inc., Nintendo will be able to distribute HD content via its Wii gaming consoles.  If they get the content right — by differentiating it from anything else readily available on the net or TV —  then Nintendo can create a whole new market of viewers, and, thus, a whole entire new revenue stream.  Additionally, as is the case with the 1st generation Wii console, there is the potential to reach non-customers (non-gamers) — in this case those who aren't interested in the console for playing games — but would buy the Wii console for the purpose of viewing cool content. 

From Reuters:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Game maker Nintendo Co Ltd will team up with ad agency Dentsu Inc to launch a video distribution service on the Wii console, in a move to establish a new revenue stream, the Nikkei business daily said.

The two firms plan to offer cartoons and other entertainment programmes created for the new service to differentiate it from other online content delivery operations, which often offer existing programmes, the Nikkei said on Thursday.

Nintendo and Dentsu will start the new service early next year in Japan, followed by overseas launches later in the year, the paper said.

The Wii, which features a motion-sensing controller that looks like a TV remote, has been far outselling Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 and Sony Corp's PlayStation 3.

Related articles from CreatingBlueOceans.com:

Nintendo’s Blue Ocean unaffected by global crisis

Nintendo’s Blue Ocean pay day — defying the global crisis

Nintendo plays with Blue Ocean Strategy and wins

Nintendo’s Blue Ocean washes over Sony

[Image via Joachim S. Müller .]