How did Taylor Swift elevate herself from a country music singer performing in a Nashville café to a billion-dollar force in the global entertainment industry? While talent, timing, tenacity, and luck have played a role, a closer look reveals that calculated and innovative blue ocean strategic moves have been pivotal to her meteoric rise.

Napoleon was a blue ocean strategist ahead of his time. With his innovative approach to military warfare, he reshaped conventional war strategies. But despite his outstanding and innovative war strategies, success eluded him in the end.

Nickel, a French fintech established in 2014, aimed to provide accessible banking services to underserved populations. Their innovative 'bank in a box' concept, requiring only an ID, a mobile phone, and €20, was distributed through local tobacco stores in France, which are an integral part of French daily life.

This highly engaging exercise is designed to give participants a keen understanding of Blue Ocean Leadership and how to achieve high impact at low cost while saving time as leaders.
Participants are introduced to a scenario-based exercise focusing on the fictional company Dunamis, an American video game company, and its recently appointed Director of Development, John Kedge.

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.

Retail had always fascinated Katrina Lake, the youngest woman CEO to ever lead a US initial public offering. But she couldn’t help noticing that the age-old industry never changed. Brick-and-mortar retailers still competed on variety and touch-and-feel, while online competitors sought to differentiate through low prices and fast shipping.

When Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day started in the UK, the charity industry was a deep red ocean. Competition was intense and growing, costs were up, and donations were down. Yet Red Nose Day rapidly achieved 96% national brand awareness. Fast forward 30+ years, Comic Relief has raised more than £1 billion, has become something of a British institution and has no credible imitators.