Every year, some 30,000 new consumer products are launched,
and 90% of them fail.
A key reason is what the late Harvard Business School
professor Theodore Levitt famously
termed marketing myopia--
a nearsighted focus on selling products and services
rather than seeing the big picture
of what consumers really want.
As he used to tell his students, people
don't want to buy a quarter inch drill.
They want to buy a quarter inch hole.
The railroad lines are a classic case study.
They fell into a steep decline because they
thought they were in the rail business,
rather than being providers of transportation.
Instead of branching out into cars, trucks, or airplanes,
they let other companies steal away their passenger
and freight traffic.
Or take oil and gas companies.
They belatedly started to think of themselves
as energy providers.
But they still devote most of their resources to petroleum.
If they fail to develop alternative fuels,
they risk becoming companies without an industry.
Many others have made, and continue to make,
the same mistake.
Organizations invest so much time, energy, and money
in what they currently do that they're blind to the future.
They get lulled into thinking they're in a growth industry,
rather than continuously capitalizing
on growth opportunities.
To avoid the same fate, leaders should ask themselves--
what business are we really in?
They need to understand that the goal isn't to sell things,
it's to satisfy customers, and accept the fact
that most existing products and services can and will
be replaced by competitive alternatives.
Then, they can identify new offerings
that meet consumers' needs sooner than any existing
or potential competitor.
That's the cure for marketing myopia.