Ben Kritz recently wrote about how Philippine business is adrift on a “red ocean”, which is a metaphor for a situation wherein businesses are in the thick of battling it out for market share.
“We are facing ever-increasing competition, and we have to reduce our prices and increase our advertising just to keep up.”
The Philippine business environment is characterized by something which is playfully referred to as the “Shawarma Effect”: Back in the mid-1990’s, “shawarma” (the Filipino version bears only a passing resemblance to the Levantine original) became a popular snack and shawarma stalls sprouted like mushrooms all across the country.
The fad is repeated every few months or so when new ideas hit the marketplace and is not necessarily limited to the lower, consumer end of the business spectrum; while micro- and small-business entrepreneurs play “monkey see, monkey do” with neighborhood convenience stores or the latest food or style fads, big businesses do the same thing with real estate development, transportation, and media and telecommunications.
Red Ocean, actually, is a term often used in articles on Blue Ocean Strategy and the way out of it is, basically, for companies to make “competition irrelevant” through innovation.
While innovation has been seen as a random/experimental process where entrepreneurs and spin-offs are the primary drivers – as argued by Schumpeter and his followers – BOS offers systematic and reproducible methodologies and processes in pursuit of blue oceans by both new and existing firms
If you want to learn more about Blue Ocean Strategy, one company that can help is Impetus — a company known for its bold brand of management seminar workshops “Playful Intellection”.
Consultants are Impetus can be reached for free consultation through their web site here.
