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Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 03/30/2012 01:19 PM
Article 6
Marketing myopia
(With Retrospective Commentary)
Shortsighted managements often fail to recognize that in fact
there is no such thing as a growth industry
Theodore Levitt
How can a company ensure its continued growth? In 1960 “Marketing Myopia”
answered that question in a new and challenging way by urging organizations to define their industries broadly to take
advantage of growth opportunities. Using
the archetype of the railroads, Mr. Levitt
showed how they declined inevitably as
technology advanced because they defined
themselves too narrowly. To continue
growing, companies must ascertain and
act on their customers’ needs and desires,
not bank on the presumptive longevity of
their products. The success of the article
testifies to the validity of its message. It has
been widely quoted and anthologized, and
HBR has sold more than 265,000 reprints
of it. The author of 14 subsequent articles
in HBR, Mr. Levitt is one of the magazine’s
most prolific contributors. In a retrospective commentary, he considers the use and
misuse that have been made of “Marketing
Myopia,” describing its many interpretations and hypothesizing about its success.
Every major industry was once a
growth industry. But some that are now
riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are
very much in the shadow of decline. Others which are thought of as seasoned
growth industries have actually stopped
growing. In every case the reason growth
is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not be-
cause the market is saturated. It is because
there has been a failure of management.
Fateful purposes: The failure is at the
top. The executives responsible for it, in
the last analysis, are those who deal with
broad aims and policies. Thus:
• The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight
transportation declined. That grew. The
railroads are in trouble today not because
the need was filled by others (cars, trucks,
airplanes, even...