Problem formulation. The European Commission considers that health care providers and potential payers may need further evidence of mobile health (mHealth) clinical and economic benefits and despite there are hundreds of mHealth initiatives, most of them did not move beyond the pilot phase.   Purpose. This thesis aims at analyzing how can mHealth companies contribute towards solving existing health care challenges while becoming successful businesses in such an immature market. The expected results are a set of empirical evidences for companies and investors interested in this relatively new industry for the development of successful businesses, products and services.   Literature. The authors have explored classic theories and models on market entry, business and strategy development in combination with recent studies on health care, Internet and mHealth economy and ecosystem.   Methods. A qualitative multiple case study has been conducted. An analytical framework with propositions derived from the literature analysis guide the empirical study of two organizations that have successfully developed mHealth solutions in two countries with different socio-economic situations: China and Spain. Organization A is a health care and lifestyle company from Beijing responsible for a successful app with 80 million users that has brought 45 million USD investment. Organization B is the first intrapreneurial public organization born within a hospital in Madrid and committed to make knowledge available to patients and health care professionals through ICT. After a set of interviews with executive representatives and project managers, a pattern-matching analysis has been used to extract inferences and to identify correlations and deviations from literature research.   Key findings. The main conclusion of this thesis work is that mHealth is clearly a profitable blue ocean industry nowadays with lots of business opportunities to explore, room for competition and complex challenges to solve. On one side, mHealth is presented as a disruptive industry expected to cause a big impact in health care by contributing to solve costs and quality problems although there is little evidence on such benefits. On the other side, privacy, security, regulations, governments’ decisions and reluctant health care professionals become the main barriers for adoption. The outlook for the future of mHealth proves that it will be fundamental to count with multidisciplinary teams of professionals, geographically distributed health centers and technological platforms with secure and standardized communications. All these will not be possible without a general mindset change from government, administrators, regulators and health care professionals to incentivize and foster new mobile health technologies treating them as an ally rather than a threat.

The strategic concept of "blue oceans" is currently undoubtedly one of the most interesting and most often talked strategic concepts. The thesis is therefore deals with the development of this strategic concept at the time and on the basis of previous papers of the authors in which were introduced tools and frameworks that later became part of the blue ocean strategy concept. The thesis also deals with other publications that the idea of the concept uses in own frames or in some way continues to build upon it. Further a description of the whole strategic concept is presented with each of analytical framework and tool with emphasis on additional context and findings of the section on the recent development of the concept. A key part of the thesis is the application of the concept to the three services - Knihovnička.cz Prezi and the Steam and evavulation of these tools with emphasis to the conclusions that have been made in the recent development of the strategic concept of "blue oceans" and its application.

Syfte: Med ”Blue Ocean Strategy” avses skapandet av nya marknader utan konkurrens. Denna studie vill belysa hur fem svenska storföretag aktivt arbetar med att skapa nya marknader, stå emot konkurrens på befintlig marknad och slutligen om miljöarbete ses som en konkurrensfördel, vilket leder till en stärkt marknadsposition.   Metod: Studien angriper undersökningsproblemet med att anta en induktiv ansats med kvalitativa intervjuer. Arbetet baseras på djupintervjuer med företagsledare från fem svenska storföretag; Alfa Laval, Assa Abloy, Inwido, Lindab och Tetra Pak. Vidare antar studien ett hermeneutiskt förhållningssätt där tolkningen blir central. Resultat och konklusion: Resultatet av studien visar att få företag verkar för att inta en ny oetablerad marknad, så kallad ”blå ocean”. Fokus hos företagen i studien ligger på att bibehålla samt vinna nya marknadsandelar på befintliga marknader samt utöka till fler geografiska områden. Studien visar hur företagen arbetar både med kostnadsöverlägsenhet samtidigt som de arbetar med differentiering av sina produkter där samtliga företag idag arbetar med innovationsarbete vilket skapar möjligheter för att särskilja produkter från konkurrenters utbud. Detta till trots är företagen inte ”stuck in the middle” enligt Porters (1980) teori, utan stöder tesen om en hybridstrategi som visar på god konkurrenskraft om företaget är innovativt. Utöver det belyser studien digitaliseringens intåg på marknaden där både marknadsföring och handel i allt större utsträckning sker digitalt. Företagen i studien visar också på betydelsen av lokal närvaro, inträde på rätt geografiska marknader och värdet av goda kundrelationer. Slutligen belyses nödvändigheten att vara ledande avseende miljöfrågor och hållbara produkter. / Purpose: The “Blue Ocean Strategy” refers to the creation of new markets identified by no competition. This study highlights how five big Swedish corporations actively work to create new markets, resist competition on the existent market and if environmental work is seen as a competitive advantage, and thereby create a strengthened market position. Method: The study uses an inductive approach with qualitative interviews. The work is based on thorough interviews with corporate leaders from five big Swedish corporations; Alfa Laval, Assa Abloy, Inwido, Lindab and Tetra Pak. The study takes a hermeneutic approach in which interpretation becomes central. Result and conclusion: The result of the study shows that only few corporations work to create a new market or “Blue Ocean”. The focus of the studied corporations is to maintain their current market shares and to win new market shares on already existing markets. Their focus is also to expand into more geographical areas. The study describes how the corporations work with both overall cost leadership and at the same time with differentiation of their products. All corporations work with innovation, which creates possibilities to distinguish their products from competitors. Despite this, corporations are not “stuck in the middle” in accordance with Porter’s (1980) theories; instead they support the modification of a hybrid strategy, which shows strong competitiveness if the corporation is innovative. Further the study has identified the entry of digitalisation in which both marketing and trade more frequent occur digitally. The study also identifies the importance of local presence, the right geographical market entry and the value of good customer relationships. Finally the study illustrates the necessity to be in a leading position regarding environmental and sustainable products.