Distinctive features of OMNI focus of 'Blue Ocean' group
Monday, December 18, 2006 -- Craig Anderson
A small group of OMNI administrators and home office staff are examining the ways in which OMNI distinguishes itself as a provider, says Sarah Ferguson-McLaren, administrator at Forest Hill.

The “Blue Ocean” group is using concepts developed by authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in their book entitled “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.”

The “blue ocean” is the authors’ metaphor for the creation of new, uncontested market space. Companies or organizations that seek it attempt to distinguish themselves by avoiding traditional market share competition like niche marketing (the “red ocean”) and set themselves completely apart through their services and products.

The OMNI group, which includes administrators Karl Samuelson, Rick Gourlie, Sarah Ferguson-McLaren, Maureen Imamovic, home office staff Marie Murphy, Candace Chartier, and Shawn Riel, CEO Fraser Wilson, and OMNI news editor Peter Pula, is marked by its openness, says Ferguson-McLaren.

“It’s one of the most interesting things I’ve been involved in,” says Ferguson-McLaren, who was director of care at Forest Hill before being becoming administrator in November of 2005.

“We can voice our opinions and no one’s suggestion is shot down. It’s quite a privilege, really.”

The meetings, which are expected to run monthly in the coming year, will help fashion strategies that can be used to create the blue ocean.

Kim and Mauborgne contend that a good company, regardless of its particular industry or field, is defined by a willingness and ability to undertake innovative strategic thinking.

“Under blue ocean strategy, however, the strategic challenge looks very different. Recognizing that structure and market boundaries exist only in managers’ minds, practitioners who hold this view do not let existing market structures limit their thinking. To them, extra demand is out there, largely untapped. The crux of the problem is how to create it. This, in turn, requires a shift of attention from supply to demand, from a focus on competing to a focus on value innovation—that is, the creation of innovative value to unlock new demand,” says a Blue Ocean Strategy press release.

Ferguson-McLaren says that the group, with its diverse make-up, is already generating exciting ideas on ways the OMNI can maximize its potential as a provider.

“In looking at the organization over the last five years, we are at the best point we’ve been at.”