Shifting the focus from product to customer
Marketing myopia sets in when too much emphasis is placed on products
NEARLY 55 years ago, the Harvard Business Review published an article written by a then-young Harvard Business School lecturer named Theodore Levitt. The article, provocatively titled Marketing Myopia, warned of industry decline due to executives' own management failing. Mr Levitt said: "It is not surprising that, having created a successful company by making a superior product, management continues to be oriented towards the product rather than the people who consume it."
The myopia Mr Levitt referred to is the tendency of leaders and managers to see their companies as being in the business of making a particular product as opposed to serving a particular customer demand. For example, steelmakers see themselves as the steel industry, defined around the product, rather than the materials industry, defined around a need.
The result is that companies end up focusing much of their attention and efforts on improving the product based on a familiar technology, instead of innovating the technology base to keep up with changes in customer needs and preferences.
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