Strategy has something to do with numbers, but it’s a mistake to think that it’s only numbers”. The professor at the prestigious INSEAD, W. Chan Kim, co-author along with Renée Mauborgne of one of the biggest best-sellers in business of recent times, “Blue Ocean Strategy”, knows what Strategy is, and he also knows what Marketing is, because he believes that one is closely related to the other.

In order to create their internationally famous theory of the “blue oceans”, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne analyzed the Strategies of close to 150 successful companies, in more than 30 different sectors, over the course of more than a century in history. They did not focus on modern times because they didn’t want to be conditioned by the short-term, knowing that a good Strategy is that which reveals itself to be successful over time.

During his recent visit to Madrid, where he displayed his theories at an exclusive workshop by Daemon Quest, I had the opportunity to talk at length with Professor W. Chan Kim and learn firsthand “what strategy is not”. In the professor’s opinion, too many companies make the mistake of confusing Strategy with planning or financial budgeting. Their only guides are budget objectives regarding income and spending, which each division and business unit pursues eagerly, lest they be punished at the end of the quarter.

The responsibility for this frequent mistake falls in the hands of management leadership, who have not carried out the correct task of defining the company’s vision and mission, and are pressured by economic results, “short-term-ism”, and financial markets. It’s a vicious circle. The less a company knows where it’s aiming for, the more miscalculations it makes in its daily management–because it does not know its real positioning objectives-, the fewer results it obtains, and the more pressure is added to achieve them.

Strategy is the weapon that can break this circle. The first thing a company must do is to have an accurate, complete, and objective image of itself and its environment. Who is it, what value does it offer, what is it pursuing, where does it want to be, what is the market like, what are its competitors like, what is it doing that it shouldn’t be doing, what is it not doing that it should be doing… these are some of the questions that all strategists must ask themselves and respond to calmly and, if possible, with the participation of representatives from all of the company’s points of interest, in order to avoid biased visions of itself.

Growing is always possible. Creating “blue oceans” and maintaining them is always possible. This is W. Chan Kim’s theory. However, meeting this complex challenge requires a clear, defined, thought-out Strategy that is applied by each member of the company. That’s where the Marketing game comes in. Many companies, after launching a successful product or service, have failed to maintain their “blue ocean” due to a lack of Strategic Marketing. Entering a new market is not as difficult as maintaining it and taking the utmost advantage of it. “When a blue ocean is conquered, we must saturate it with our brand name, and rely on strategic Marketing and Branding”, assures the INSEAD professor.

I couldn’t agree more. The brand name, positioning, selective customer acquisition, loyalization and retention… these factors are absolutely vital not only in the creation of new markets, but also in maintaining them, in the leadership over time of those “blue oceans” discovered alone. The great and historic creators of new markets know it well: there is no Strategy without Marketing, nor is there Marketing without Strategy.