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Report is about DISCUSSION: MARKETING MYOPIA- Broadly speaking all the elements of Levitt argument are alive and true

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DISCUSSION: MARKETING MYOPIA

Though the article is written several years back (exactly it is written in 1960 by Theodore Levitt), the actual coverage of the content and the applicability of the content to the contemporary marketing scenario is very much relevant.  Levitt’s main focus of the article is the short sightedness (Myopia) of even the big businesses.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE: Levitt article summarizes   that short sightedness of even the big businesses is responsible for the miserable failure in diverse sectors. The underlying neglected attribute is the need for consideration to the external factors in the corporate strategies, the negligence towards the needs and wants of the customers is stated to be very serious blunder (Smith et al.,2010). His main arguments are that the following beliefs will lead to the failure of the business,

?         Reliance on only the expanding and affluent consumer groups

?         Believing that the competitive substitute to the product is not possible

?         Mass production and economies of scale are the only solutions

?         Preoccupation of the product that lends itself to carefully controlled scientific

 

DISCUSSION OF THE CRITIQUE:

?         Levitt informed in the article that if the firm possess the belief that the growth is assured only by an expanding and more affluent population, is true even today and it is a valid conceptualization. Since the marketing need to consider all consumer groups and the profitability works out only when there is product differentiation and all cross sections of the customer segmentations are met. Hence it is true that Levitt rightly said that focus on one consumer group is of no use.

 

?         Competition is inevitable. Levitt predicted 60 years back itself that the competitive substitutes do exist for any type of industry products. This is only a matter of time and hence organizations need to be focus on competitive strategies and need to be prepared to face the competition. Hence even this statement is true for Levitt.

 

?         Mass production and rapidly declining unit costs are valid even today; However Levitt may be meaning that there is need to consider other aspects apart from economies of scale like customer interests, values and biases. Only when comprehensive consideration is made to all these factors, it would be possible for the organization to get the profit from the business.

 

?         Preoccupation of the product that lends itself to carefully controlled scientific(Activities) emphasizes the fact the product development is an ongoing process and there is need to consider continuous technological developments and to upgrade the product to enable betterment of the product as per changing customer needs and environment to let the product survive and business sustain.

 

CONCLUSION AND FINAL POSITION:

Broadly speaking all the elements of Levitt argument are alive and true even today. However the concern, is that the profile of marketing has increased a lot and there came consideration to myriad of factors which are actually contributing to the marketing success of the product.  The length and breadth of coverage is satisfactory as per those time, however several other factors are making significant impact in these lines like consideration to the all stakeholders interest, technology at the helm of marketing, Environmental responsibility, corporate social responsibility etc. Though Levitt identified what should not be done, he has not exhaustively included what need to be done. This can be understood by limitations of that time. However his ideology and applicability of the concepts is commendable. It is indeed a valuable resource for marketing considerations.

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