Marketing Myopia Summary
MARKETING MYOPIA: Theodore Levit
The first thing that Theodore Levit does in his article “marketing myopia” is denying the title of forever growth industry to any industry that ever existed and claimed to be so. He believes every industry has been a growth industry at some point of time, but they could not carry the tag along because of several reasons; and none of the reasons being saturation in market.
Industries failed to continue their growth because of lack of proper management. They did not realize the need of expanding into sectors adjacent to which they are already working. E.g. – railways limited themselves to rail transports and did not cover the other modes of transportation. There are many other such examples listed by Levit in his article.
The major mistake of these industries was being product oriented, where they should have been customer oriented. To keep the growth wagon rolling, they were required to modify their services in accordance with the market needs.
Levit was able to put the reasons of stagnation of ‘growth industry’ in a cycle, which he termed as self deceiving cycle:-
1. Population Myth: rise in population does not necessarily mean rise in the demand of what a particular industry is offering. Sometimes some other product may take over in demand because of unknown reasons. e.g. – petroleum industry made a wise decision by not sticking to the petrol products. They rather expanded to complete crude oil products to save themselves from the descent.
2. Idea of indispensability: the belief that there is no competitive substitute to the industry’s major product would be a huge mistake by the management. Here too, Levit carries forward the example of petroleum industry. The industry had to shift focus several times because of inventions that did not even come from the same industry. Kerosene in lamps was left behind with the invention of electric bulbs, heating system was snatched away by the coal industry and the
The first thing that Theodore Levit does in his article “marketing myopia” is denying the title of forever growth industry to any industry that ever existed and claimed to be so. He believes every industry has been a growth industry at some point of time, but they could not carry the tag along because of several reasons; and none of the reasons being saturation in market.
Industries failed to continue their growth because of lack of proper management. They did not realize the need of expanding into sectors adjacent to which they are already working. E.g. – railways limited themselves to rail transports and did not cover the other modes of transportation. There are many other such examples listed by Levit in his article.
The major mistake of these industries was being product oriented, where they should have been customer oriented. To keep the growth wagon rolling, they were required to modify their services in accordance with the market needs.
Levit was able to put the reasons of stagnation of ‘growth industry’ in a cycle, which he termed as self deceiving cycle:-
1. Population Myth: rise in population does not necessarily mean rise in the demand of what a particular industry is offering. Sometimes some other product may take over in demand because of unknown reasons. e.g. – petroleum industry made a wise decision by not sticking to the petrol products. They rather expanded to complete crude oil products to save themselves from the descent.
2. Idea of indispensability: the belief that there is no competitive substitute to the industry’s major product would be a huge mistake by the management. Here too, Levit carries forward the example of petroleum industry. The industry had to shift focus several times because of inventions that did not even come from the same industry. Kerosene in lamps was left behind with the invention of electric bulbs, heating system was snatched away by the coal industry and the