HBR BOOK REVIEW
Marketing Myopia, by Theodore Levitt, September – October 1975. 14 pages.
Reviewed by Gourab Dasgupta.

Theodore Levitt observed that almost all major industries were once a growth industry but after a substantial spurt of growth, the growth rate goes on a decline or becomes almost stagnant. For example, Railroads declined because they “were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented.” They declined not because of cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones, but because of their own myopia.
There are no such bad ideas for a growing industry that growth is assured by an expanding and more affluent population and that there is no competitive substitute for the industry’s major product or that too much faith in mass production and in the advantages of rapidly declining unit costs as output rises or even preoccupation with a product that lends itself to carefully controlled scientific experimentation, improvement, and manufacturing cost reduction. Levitt argued that many companies incorrectly take a shortsighted approach to marketing, viewing it as merely a tool for selling products. Instead, he argued that companies should look at marketing from the consumer's point of view and the vision of most organizations is too constricted by a narrow understanding of what business they are in. An industry is a customer-satisfying process, not a goods-producing process. Businesses will do better in the end if they concentrate on meeting customers’ needs rather than on selling products.

Rethinking Marketing, by Roland T. Rust, Christine Moorman, Gaurav Bhalla, January – February 2010. 9 pages. Reviewed by Gourab Dasgupta.

Contrary to the age old view of marketing Dr. Roland Rust suggests in his new outlook, companies should be more customer-cultivating. He describes how marketing