Marketing Myopia Nowadays
Essay
Marketing myopia is a short sighted and inward looking approach that focuses on the needs of the firm instead of defining the firm and its products in terms of the customers’ needs and wants. Such self-centered firms fail to see and adjust to the rapid changes in their markets and, despite their previous eminence, go bankrupt and disappear. This concept was discussed in an article (titled “Marketing Myopia”, in July – August 1960 issue of Harvard Business Review) by Harvard Business School professor of marketing, Theodore c. Levitt (1925-), who suggests that firms get trapped in this blind because they forget to ask the vital question, “What business are we in?”
Nowadays there are many cases showing us that the impossibility of not continuing industry growth is not as a result of market saturation but as a failure of management. Such businesses are in danger because they are unable to correctly define their purposes. The cure that could help them is leading customer-oriented management.
For example in electronics the period for which a device can become out-of -date is comparatively short one. The development of new technologies and implementation of innovations in PC’s, MP 3 players, mobile phones etc. will continue with quick pace. For this reason companies in this industrial sector pay great attention to research and development of their products. So if a company in this sector of industry wants to be profitable in future it should develop its production towards the demand of the market and competitors’ trends. If they are not ready to be creative and innovative, they pretty soon will be in trouble. But there is danger for companies which concentrate strongly on research and development activities with an aim to lower costs by mass production. They forget to invest in marketing because declining unit cost becomes an end in itself. Thus such companies view themselves as...