Can Every Company Find Its Blue Ocean? (Part 2)

What companies are in Blue Ocean, really? It once said that our country’s very own budget airline AirAsia is in Blue Ocean. It was first to introduce the terminology “Now Everyone Can Fly”. We were all very excited when AirAsia offered affordable air tickets to regional countries. Business were brisk, and thousands of holiday deprived folks (like myself) made bookings 12 months ahead just to get FREE flight tickets (not including fuel surcharge, baggage fee, airport taxes and other fine line charges which can be very substantial!).

Now, every country tries to jump on the bandwagon of ‘budget airlines’. We have Tiger Airways from Singapore, JetStar from Australia, Cebu Pacific in Philippines and Lion Air from Indonesia. Even Malaysian Airlines (not really belonging to the budget airlines category) is offering cheap seats to compete with AirAsia! Now, the thing is, everyone’s swimming into the Blue Ocean, making it not so blue anymore…….

Once a company is successful in its Blue Ocean, others tend to follow. When the Blue Ocean becomes a competitive arena, it loses its edge and become Red Ocean. Sometimes, the Blue Ocean Strategy is not sustainable unless the company is constantly creating a new ocean to swim.