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.

The case describes a series of blue ocean strategic moves made by Salesforce.com in the CRM application market. In particular, the case addresses the concern of business executives over the applicability of blue ocean strategy in the B2B area. B2B managers often find that they are locked into providing products of certain types and specifications to their immediate customers.

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.

This is the first of a two-case series. The first Case (A) discusses the evolution of the circus industry up until the emergence of Cirque du Soleil. This case provides a detailed discussion on the structure of the circus industry to make possible a rich analysis of how its industry attractiveness has changed over time and the challenges the industry now confronts.

This case is excellent for teaching both MBAs and executives how to create a blue ocean strategy that is hard to imitate and sustainable. It focuses on Wikipedia versus Britannica.com in the online encyclopedia industry.

One observes that despite the continued application of superior personal strategies and leadership throughout Napoleon's lifetime, success eluded him in the end. A pattern is observed of meteoritic rise in the early stages (victories in the battle of Lodi, Marengo, Austerlitz) and a downfall later (Russian invasion, Waterloo). What is behind this rise and fall?

The case entitled ‘Crafting Winning Strategies in a Mature Market: The US Wine Industry in 2001’ examines the competitive environment of the US wine industry in 2001, prior to [yellow tail]’s launch. The case demonstrates how the industry was overcrowded, highly competitive, and increasingly squeezed at the distribution and retail stages of the supply chain.

The case entitled, ‘Lessons from Breakthrough Strategic Moves Over the Last Century’ illustrates how businesses over the last 100 years of business history have periodically broken away from the competition to create and capture new market space – often giving rise to entirely new industries.

The case entitled ‘How a US Consumer Products Company Unlocked the Three Tiers of Noncustomers’ illustrates how new demand is created by looking to noncustomers instead of just competing for a share of the existing customers of an industry.

The Blue Ocean Strategy Implementation Scenario Case offers a set of interactive group scenarios which are designed to deepen the participants' understanding of blue ocean strategy implementation principles. Using the four scenarios participants work in teams as they learn to apply key concepts of tipping point leadership and fair process.