Blue Ocean Strategy

<Something outside of our industry>
The 1st example written on the book called "Blue Ocean Strategy" is Cirque du Soleil.
Cirque du Soleil made a big success under the decling market, which was the circus industry.
They did not take the other companies' market share to make a big growth but attracted a new customer.
They do not use animals during their performace, which could cost a lot to maintain a good condition and whose usage is often critisized as an animal abuse.
Their customers pay more than they used to pay for the conventional circuses, because they change the concept of circus to have one whole artistic story during their performance. 
When I lived in Canada, I also went to see the Cirque du Soleil performances several times, even though I did not go to see the conventional circus show even once.

<Something inside our industry>
About 15 years ago, I was a marketing manager of home appliances at Panasonic Canada.
The microwave oven industry was also decling every year and the avearge selling price was decling every year.
However, when we introduced the stailess steel microwave oven with the stainless steel built-in trim kit for the wall mounting, we were able to increase the price more than double with a decent profitabilty at the Domain, the sales company & the dealers.
The reason behind is that if end users' purpose to buy a microwave oven is just for reheating their left-over foods, they are very sensitive about prices, but if their main purpose is to renovate their whole kitchen with all of other major appliances, they do not care about a sigle piece of microwave oven price so much.

<How to apply to our current situation>
Most of the Panasonic products we sell now are facing the same sitation. 
The unit price is declining every year, and the competition is getting tougher. 
If we look at our market just by comparing competitors' specs & lookig at the Gfk data, ideas which lead us from Red Ocen to Blue Ocean can not come up with.
In our industry, a bright idea often comes up when we visit at the stores, listen to what store owners are saying, and listen to what end users are talking about at the stores.  
The Domains' product planninng is most likely located in Japan, and therefore, it is crucial that each sales companies located in the market initiate an innovation in terms of product planning.

KITAZAWA (PPS), who is to create a blog for the 1st time