Local business owners learn about ‘Blue Ocean Shift’ at workshop

| Danial Norjidi |

THE Local Business Development (LBD) Workshop was held yesterday carrying the theme ‘Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing, Toward Creating’.

The workshop at the Radisson Hotel was led by Blue Ocean expert and the CEO of UCSI Blue Ocean Strategy Consulting, Malaysia, Raj Kumar and saw the participation of 30 Brunei business owners, managers and corporate executives.

The LBD Workshop or ‘One-Day Blue Ocean Shift Masterclass’ was held with the aim to help local businesses instil confidence in their teams and seize new growth by breaking out of competition in the pursuit of new markets.

A business is said to be in a ‘Blue Ocean’ when it thrives with uncontested market demand for its products and services in a market space where competition is essentially non-existent or of no consequence.

“‘Blue Oceans’ denote the wider and deeper potential of a market untainted by competition. In ‘Blue Oceans’, there is abundant opportunity for rapid and profitable growth, as demand is created rather than fought over. Competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be defined,” according to a press release.

Blue Ocean expert and the CEO of UCSI Blue Ocean Strategy Consulting, Malaysia Raj Kumar during the workshop

The workshop under way yesterday. – PHOTOS: DANIAL NORJIDI

It was shared that the cornerstone of Blue Ocean strategy is ‘value innovation’, the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost. The aim is not to compete, but to create value for buyers, the company, and its employees, while reducing or eliminating ‘pain points’ – features that are inessential to the current or future market.

Meanwhile, in a traditional ‘Red Ocean’, businesses operate under intense competition. To sustain themselves, businesses focus on building advantages over competitors, usually by assessing what they do and striving to do better.

“In a ‘Red Ocean’, capturing a share of the market is seen as a zero-sum game in which one company’s gain is achieved at another company’s loss. As new players emerge, the market gets overcrowded, profits start to decline, and growth opportunities diminish. Consequently, businesses could come under threat,” stated the press release.

After introducing to participants the concepts of ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ and ‘Blue Ocean Shift’, the workshop focussed on helping participants to understand where they are now, imagine where they could be as well as find how to get there and make their move, through the use of various tools and frameworks.

Speaking in an interview with the Bulletin, Raj Kumar explained that the whole idea of the programme was to let the participants “learn, experience and apply”.

“So they’re going to learn about the concept of Blue Ocean Shift, how to break away from competition, and how to create their own market space, how to create demand, how to do it without raising your costs, and increasing value.”

He shared that the session focussed on applying tools and frameworks, allowing participants to learn as well as apply them to a test case.

“Hopefully, they will leave with a good sense of applying the techniques and the tools.

“I hope that they can go back with a sense of being more comfortable with the application of the tools, having a shift in the mindset that ‘Blue Oceans’ can be created and are being created as we speak, and also that they would have a sense of appreciation that systematic methodology is needed, not just a random brainstorming session. So a nice systematic way of creating ‘Blue Oceans’ is the way to go forward,” he added.

The LBD Workshop was held as part of a two-day LBD Programme that also included the LBD Forum, which took place on Wednesday. The LBD Programme 2018 was organised by Asia Inc Forum in partnership with Baiduri Bank as major partner, and Borneo Bulletin as print and digital media partner.

Source: https://borneobulletin.com.bn/local-business-owners-learn-about-blue-ocean-shift-at-workshop/