Categories: Andrew Simon, Blue Ocean, Education, business growth strategies, Higher Education, business model innovation
In a recent Atlantic magazine, Bryan Caplan, author of The Case Against Education, writes a very caustic, albeit truthful analysis of the current state of higher education in the U.S.
In this particular article among many he has written, The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone, there is a litany of reasons why our approach to educating our population for society, for jobs, for productive lives, is flawed, failing and fallen.
Categories: Blue Ocean, business growth strategies, business model innovation, Blue Ocean Strategy Expert
What types of innovations open new markets successfully—and help you grow your business by adding innovative value, not just incremental improvements? And a related question: are you just thinking business innovation or doing it?
Blue Ocean Strategy focuses on unlocking new markets, described as "blue oceans," rather than competing in existing markets, or "red oceans." By creating a blue ocean of new customers, businesses don't compete for a small, highly competitive pool of existing customers.
At SAMC, far too many of our clients are working with the same customers in the same way they have always done...until something happens and those customers float away.
As we work with our Blue Ocean Strategy clients, we repeatedly see some great "aha moments" when they realize that amazing opportunities are often all around them. All they need to do is recognize them. This typically begins when clients go exploring with us to "see, feel and think" in new ways—and it is that "seeing" part that is so important.
I'd like to share two stories here, each of which are available in more detail in my award-winning book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights."
Categories: Blue Ocean, Corporate Anthropology, business growth strategies
At Simon Associates Management Consultants, we have led over 300 workshops and dozens of client engagements to help companies “see, feel and think” with fresh eyes—so they can step out of their current mindset and see new opportunities.
Recently, we presented the workshop “Who will be your customer in 3 years? Maybe they are all around you?” to a group of mid-market CEOs who are members of a Vistage International group led by Ozzie Gontag. A terrific, inspiring coach (and marathon runner), Ozzie reminded me and his members that growing a business means engaging in a daily battle between leading and lagging indicators.
As Ozzie said in his opening remarks, "Every day you have to challenge your assumptions about what makes your business successful today and what will make it sustainable into the future. These are two different questions."
How true! Unfortunately, CEOs of growing companies all too often focus on the past and the present and forget about the future. As Blue Ocean Strategists, our job in these workshops is to open up people's minds to see what is often right in front of them. When they finally "see" the possibilities, it's fantastic, as I describe in my recent Huffington Post article.
Categories: Blue Ocean, Andrea Simon, Emerging Trends, Change Management, Igniting Change
In a recent post, I was sharing with you some thoughts about Nintendo's Blue Ocean Strategy of targeting girls, which opened up a huge untapped market of nonusers for that company. Similarly, Disney created its new MagicBand wristbands in hopes of growing their base of frequent users and attracting nonusers by making it easier to enjoy its theme parks.
Categories: Blue Ocean, Andrea Simon, Change Management
As Blue Ocean Strategists, we are always working with our clients to find their Blue Ocean Strategies and then help them implement them. We also love reading blogs on what other BOS strategists are finding. Here are some of the most shared blog posts of 2015 for you to browse (along with a couple of ours). Enjoy the reading!
Ask yourself as you are reading these: Is it time to find my Blue Ocean Strategy?
Here are 10 of our favorite BOS blogs from 2015. Share some of yours with us and we will pass them along. Just send them in the comments form below.
Categories: Innovation Games, Andrew Simon, Blue Ocean, Entrepreneurs, Andrea Simon, Business Anthropology, Igniting Change, Press Releases, Inbound Marketing
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. - Sept. 28, 2015 - PRLog -- Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC), a privately-owned business consulting company based in Yorktown Heights, NY, has recently launched a new division focusing on inbound marketing, an incredibly powerful tool for business growth. This new division brings to SAMC’s clients highly trained strategists and marketing experts, as well as Inbound Marketing Certified bloggers, all of whom have embraced the new world of inbound marketing as the way to capture demand and help buyers find the solutions they want and need.
Categories: Blue Ocean, Andrea Simon, Change Management, Igniting Change
Those of us familiar with Blue Ocean Strategy® often hypothesize about how large, successful companies could be even larger and more successful if they leveraged their resources to create new blue oceans. What heights might they reach if they went after nonusers with value-innovation instead of focusing on their current users with incremental innovations and value creation? Certainly, there's nothing wrong with incremental solutions. But what if..., we like to ask. Here I'd like to share some of our thought wanderings that bubbled up during recent conversations with Blue Ocean colleagues.
Categories: Blue Ocean, Andrea Simon, Change Management, Igniting Change
In a recent post, I was sharing with you some thoughts about Nintendo's Blue Ocean Strategy of targeting girls, which opened up a huge untapped market of nonusers for that company. Similarly, Disney created its new MagicBand wristbands in hopes of growing their base of frequent users and attracting nonusers by making it easier to enjoy its theme parks.
Categories: Blue Ocean, Andrea Simon, Emerging Trends, Change Management
Businesspeople tend to believe that innovation requires expensive technological development. Sometimes releasing a technology masterpiece works — Google comes to mind — but oftentimes the focus on technology, rather than consumer need, leads to an expensive flop, like the Segway.
Categories: Blue Ocean, Andrea Simon, Change Management, Higher Education
As we see more and more businesses using Blue Ocean Strategies to adapt to changing times, some innovators and trailblazers in education are "seeing the light" as well. All-too-often, educators are slow to adopt new ideas from business and apply them to academia but here is one story we especially would like to share with you.
This short article examines the many ways Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) can be used to create a better educational system. The process sounds very much like how BOS is used every day in the business world because not surprisingly, people in practically any industry ask similar questions:
