Marketing Myopia
Marketing Myopia
What is Marketing Myopia?
Marketing Myopia is the short-sighted approach of management of focusing on a particular product and not identifying the correct industry the organization is in. (Levitt, 1975) In essence it implies that organizations should not define their business based on their products and should attempt to identify the business based on customer centric evidence. Organizations need to focus on customer wants and use customer centric evidence forming strategic decisions.
Key Points
In his article Theodore Levitt points out to several key points that lead to short-sightedness within organizations. * Narrow definition of business * Product orientation rather than customer orientation * Complacency & indispensability * Companies went along with their convictions without customer centric evidence. * Step child treatment for marketing. * Many of the development came outside the industry * R&D by solely engineers
These points are illustrated using the following examples.
The Case of Sony Walkman
Walkman introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. They were the undisputed leader in portable music but were complacent with their so called superior product. With the introduction of MP3 technology Sony failed to understand the need of the customer and allowed Apple, an outsider (then a seller of Personal Computers) to take the market by storm with the introduction of their iPod. (Mendes, 2010)
Sony failed to understand the business they were in. The industry they were in was “Entertainment Industry” but in reality it was focusing on the “Portable Music Industry” where customers wanted more and more entertainment such as videos to be portable.
The Case of Kodak
Kodak focused a lot on Mass production of their films. With the digitalization of the Camera, they started losing ground in the business
What is Marketing Myopia?
Marketing Myopia is the short-sighted approach of management of focusing on a particular product and not identifying the correct industry the organization is in. (Levitt, 1975) In essence it implies that organizations should not define their business based on their products and should attempt to identify the business based on customer centric evidence. Organizations need to focus on customer wants and use customer centric evidence forming strategic decisions.
Key Points
In his article Theodore Levitt points out to several key points that lead to short-sightedness within organizations. * Narrow definition of business * Product orientation rather than customer orientation * Complacency & indispensability * Companies went along with their convictions without customer centric evidence. * Step child treatment for marketing. * Many of the development came outside the industry * R&D by solely engineers
These points are illustrated using the following examples.
The Case of Sony Walkman
Walkman introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. They were the undisputed leader in portable music but were complacent with their so called superior product. With the introduction of MP3 technology Sony failed to understand the need of the customer and allowed Apple, an outsider (then a seller of Personal Computers) to take the market by storm with the introduction of their iPod. (Mendes, 2010)
Sony failed to understand the business they were in. The industry they were in was “Entertainment Industry” but in reality it was focusing on the “Portable Music Industry” where customers wanted more and more entertainment such as videos to be portable.
The Case of Kodak
Kodak focused a lot on Mass production of their films. With the digitalization of the Camera, they started losing ground in the business