International Ocean

In this perennial best seller, embraced by organizations and industries worldwide, globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne challenge everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success. Recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written, Blue Ocean Strategy, now updated with fresh content from the authors, argues that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool.

On the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed 20th century, but in the 21st century, that focus will fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries known as “Monsoon Asia”—which include India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania—best-selling author Robert D. Kaplan explains how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power.

For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for supremacy. But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent serving as the primary modes of commercial transit.

The way Inspector Hanzō Shimura had it figured, it was just another case. Sure, it was sick, twisted, but those were human traits he’d grown accustomed to. A hardened veteran of two wars, there was little left on Earth that could faze a man like him. But what didn’t sit well with him was that this case’s blood-trail led him home. All the way to Nagasaki, where he’d lost his wife and daughter to the atom bomb, nine years before.

When newly divorced Sage arrives in Bali, his only plan is to drink on the beach until his money runs out and then return home to start over. So he's caught by surprise when he falls in love with the country and its people, particularly the attractive and considerate Ratri. Soon Sage can no longer see himself living anywhere else, even as his funds dwindle and his visa's expiration date nears. Increasingly desperate to stay with Ratri, Sage finds himself being recruited by a drug-smuggling ring - in a country where drug trafficking is punishable by death.

Competitors have always existed in business, but what if it were possible to render your competition irrelevant? This is the critical question posed in W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's book Blue Ocean Strategy. According to Kim and Mauborgne, the path to success of any company does not lie in taking on potential competitors but in the creation of "blue oceans" in uncontested market space. The authors offer analytical frameworks and tools to help businesses identify and capitalize on these new opportunities.