HealthMedia, is another—a struggling company in 2006, with a mere US$6 million in sales—which, under Ted Dacko’s leadership, created the new market space of digital health coaching and in two short years was sold to Johnson & Johnson for US$185 million.

In 2008, with the launch of its first hotel in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, citizenM opened up a new value-cost frontier of affordable luxury for frequent travelers. Soon after, citizenM began opening hotels in major cities, like London, Paris, and New York. Consider these facts: Its hotels earn the highest guest rankings in the hospitality

CitizenM Hotels, the affordable luxury chain, is one of these. It is currently expanding globally from its home base in Amsterdam and enjoys among the highest guest satisfaction ratings in the field of hospitality while having the lowest costs.

People who not only can dream big but also are noted for their commitment to getting things done.

What we admired, what inspired us, were the organizations and individuals that went beyond competing to create new frontiers of opportunity, growth, and jobs, where success was not about dividing up an existing, often shrinking pie, but about creating a larger economic pie for all—what we refer to as blue oceans.

conditions. Without it, companies are stuck in the trap of competitive

And once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”3

But the key lesson to remember here is that to succeed in creating a new market, your focus must be on offering a quantum leap in value for buyers, not on technology innovation per se.13 Google Glass, Motorola’s Iridium, and Apple’s Newton

We made our choice of what verse we want to bring to the world. We firmly believe that we all are capable of creating new frontiers and verses of our own. As Nelson Mandela once noted, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” We hope that this book can help you make yours. PART ONE Blue Ocean Shift