March 10: Summary on Marketing Myopia by Levitt
I could finally get a hold of the marketing myopia article sitting in India, without access to my text, as one does not need text book to access internet :(. Blame it on my vacation mode for being slow to understand this ....
Theodore Levitt, in 1960 understood and highlighted a key aspect that still many companies and executives fail to understand or rather accept. Releasing products that satisfy sellers' needs and only to a certain extent maybe consumers needs, may be a good business preposition in the short run, but is not sustainable and cannot be profitable in the long run.
Hailing from India where majority population travels through rail transport, I always wondered why are railroads not a prime mode of transport in the US. I was never convinced that capital intensive nature of the rail industry and several other avenues (air, road) were the reason for the relatively stagnant rail industry. I enjoyed reading Levitt's views on the reasons behind the slow growth in the rail industry in US. Quoting Levitt, ' The rail industry is failing because those behind it assumed they were in the railroad business rather than the transportation business. The history of every dead and dying 'growth' industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay.'
Marketing myopia is an apt term, as it does a good job in highlighting the flaw of focussing on products rather than customers. I always get reminded of what Steve Jobs (late Apple executive) was famously known to say, ' You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new'. You need to innovate and give a product to the customer what they may want in future, and thats how you can separate yourself from rest of your competition and stay sustainable.
I could finally get a hold of the marketing myopia article sitting in India, without access to my text, as one does not need text book to access internet :(. Blame it on my vacation mode for being slow to understand this ....
Theodore Levitt, in 1960 understood and highlighted a key aspect that still many companies and executives fail to understand or rather accept. Releasing products that satisfy sellers' needs and only to a certain extent maybe consumers needs, may be a good business preposition in the short run, but is not sustainable and cannot be profitable in the long run.
Hailing from India where majority population travels through rail transport, I always wondered why are railroads not a prime mode of transport in the US. I was never convinced that capital intensive nature of the rail industry and several other avenues (air, road) were the reason for the relatively stagnant rail industry. I enjoyed reading Levitt's views on the reasons behind the slow growth in the rail industry in US. Quoting Levitt, ' The rail industry is failing because those behind it assumed they were in the railroad business rather than the transportation business. The history of every dead and dying 'growth' industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay.'
Marketing myopia is an apt term, as it does a good job in highlighting the flaw of focussing on products rather than customers. I always get reminded of what Steve Jobs (late Apple executive) was famously known to say, ' You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new'. You need to innovate and give a product to the customer what they may want in future, and thats how you can separate yourself from rest of your competition and stay sustainable.
No comments:
Post a Comment