Today we review the book Overfished Ocean Strategy: Powering Up Innovation for a Resource Deprived World by Nadya Zhexembayeva 

This is a book that puts the spotlight straight on resource scarcity because demand is high and supply is low. Scholar and Entrepreneur Nadya teaches how to discover resource conserving  efficiencies up and down the value chain and rapidly try and define these new business models. 

The extraction of resources, its transformation and creation of products is getting slower because resources are drying. How do we innovate in a resource deprived world ?  This book describes the five principles that define the Overfished Ocean strategy. 

She actually begins with the dwindling fisheries in the ocean. A research study cited in the book shows that this amounts to nearly fifty billion in economic losses – enough to make a case that this is indeed a grave situation.  Earlier we used to grow the population, increase the consumption and keep cutting prices all at the same time.Now the commodity prices have increased by 147percent, three billion more middle-class consumers are expected to be in the global economy, all putting new pressures on  resource demand. 

Our throwaway economy assumed production is easy. But environmentalists have proven that “waste equals food”. Mining, growing or raising something has been our only options for raw materials. The other end of this rainbow of businesses is the ones consuming waste which by itself is a lucrative business. In other words we have the entire global economy as one giant supply chain. The author argues that this is linear, throwaway, and collapsing. 

Therefore the five new rules of the trade begin with just that: 

1. From line to circle:  Waste of one process becomes food for another. This is the “Cradle to Cradle” approach. 

2. From vertical to horizontal:  Mainstream strategic thought invites us to pay attention to the whole of five forces in the business ( competitors, consumers, suppliers, new entrants, and substitutes) but in reality most dig into the competition. It’s the potential from the untapped forces that we could add to our repertoire 

3. From growth to growth:  Most managers will vouch that growth comes from selling more. That is now possible with creating more with less and therefore it’s a question of what we want to grow. 

4. From four plan to model: Plans become obsolete in no time. The only way to make the new reality work is to constantly adapt your business to the new reality. Hence the advocation for modeling 

5. From department to mindset: Generally department heads can become scapegoats. Instead the new market reality demands a new mindset, a  new way for the entire company to look at values where previously none were available. 

   
   

   With the above principles, we find the overfished ocean strategy to find value cycles.