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Abstract
Marketing Myopia is the title of a seminal work of Theodore Levitt, first published in Harvard Business Review in I960. This seminal work argued about the short-sightedness of enterprises in not being customer-centric and being product-centric. This also argued about the need for enterprises to evolve into customer satisfaction enterprises and respond to changes in customer mindsets. This paper is an attempt to review his much acclaimed and reviewed work along with other literature on this theme over the years. Based on a summary of the literature and the key issues highlighted in them managerial implications in contemporary setting are derived. This paper attempts to track and analyze the development of thought on myopia and brings it to the contemporary scenario. An attempt has been made to identify the elements of myopia, the elements of customer centricity and the probable solution to this. This paper will be useful to students, academicians, and practitioners in running enterprises over the long term.
Keywords: Business Model, Competition, Customer Centricity, Enterprise Life Cycles, Market-Driven, Marketing, Myopia, Product Development, Visionary Leadership
Introduction
Theodore Levitt in his seminal work Marketing Myopia argued that companies which do not think broadly about their businesses will lose to competition. This broad thinking has to do with the definition of their business. A narrow definition in his view which has been accepted and lauded the world over leads to the demise of the organization as it does not adapt to the changing consumer needs and expectations, and various other changes in the market-place. Based on review of significant literature, this paper attempts to delineate some of these elements of myopia Elements of myopia are identified and conceptualized. An encapsulation of the mantras of success has been attempted. The paper concludes that this literature review based research on myopia explains that market drivenness in a societal and stakeholder perspective is the key to successful enterprises. As a final step, delineates empirical validations as directions in different settings of the mantra provided for overcoming myopia as directions for further research.
Objective
The purpose of this research paper is to review select significant literature on marketing myopia over time and to briefly understand myopic and nonmyopic behavior. Based on the key issues highlighted in the literature,...