...The speed of change in the digital economy • Marketing Myopia Page 1 of 2 The speed of change in the digital economy • Archive • RSS Marketing Myopia Many companies define themselves almost completely through the product or services they offer. This is a common approach that can seriously narrow the focus. Extensive attention on products rather than customers’ needs, create a “marketing myopia” resulting in business nearsightedness or shortsightedness. The most important question is therefore, “What business are we really in?” from the perspective of what customer want. What do people really want when they acquire a product or a service? This question directly impacts the strategy and the value proposition definition Companies need to understand the difference between a product and a commodity: • A product is what customer feels about your business • A commodity is anything for which there is a demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market Kodak is a great example in which marketing myopia was present. The digital camera was invented at Kodak in 1975. But instead of marketing the new technology, the company kept it under wraps for fear of hurting its lucrative film business. And when Kodak decided to get in the game it was too late. Kodak had the myopic view that the company was in the film business rather than the story telling business. But customers aren’t buying cameras and film as much as they are buying a record of their memories...
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...Critique on Marketing Myopia | Submitted by: Husnain Moazzam | Submitted by: Sir Hassan | Critique on Marketing Myopia Theodore Levitt was a lecturer in Business Administration at the Harvard Business School; now, he is a full-fledged professor. The Harvard Business Review has sold more than half a million reprints of this article and each reprint has no doubt been copied several times over. There will be few marketing students who have not read this article which is about how an organization can guarantee its sustained growth a big question? To quote from the summing up of this article, Marketing Myopia answered that question mark in a new demanding way by urging organizations to define their business broadly to take privilege of development opportunities. Using the example of the railroads, Levitt showed how they declined as technology highly developed since they define themselves too narrowly. To continue growing, companies must ascertain and act on their customers' needs and desires, and not bank on the presumptive longevity of their products. Even more dramatic is the first paragraph of this seminal article which reads: “Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others which are thought of as seasoned growth industries have actually stopped growing. In every case the reason for growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the...
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...the past, which still affects the market share and the outlook of the company. We think that it was a big mistake to underestimate the importance of entering the online DVD retail market as soon as possible. This decision was a perfect example of marketing myopia because it wasn’t very customer orientated. They had seen themselves in the video retailing business but they are in the entertainment business and they under-emphasized customer needs and wants. And if you look at the stock quotation of Blockbuster Inc. you can see that there is a peak in 2002 (fifth consecutive year of same-store sales growth; IPO of Netflix) and after that the share price decreases significantly until today. Failures in the management stopped their growth and that‘s why Blockbuster Inc. is a perfect example for marketing myopia. If you look at Netflix the situation is completely different. Their management didn’t make the same mistakes. They are very customer oriented and they changed their marketing strategy to satisfy customer needs and facilitate the access to a huge personalized movie library even if the customer isn’t very familiar with the Internet or the “online world”. Just looking at the marketing strategy (customer oriented; no marketing myopia) you must come to the conclusion: Buy! But before buying a share you also have to look at the financial ratios. The ratios of Netflix in 2006 were pretty good and because of that we think that it would be a good decision to buy the shares of Netflix...
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...The following assignment will critically appraise what is meant by a Marketing Orientation and whether this is a successful model in todays’ marketing industry. Marketing is the actions undertaken by a business to sell products or provide services to consumers. Marketing encompasses every way in which consumers perceive business and includes all methods used to generate sales. As suggested by Peter Vessenes (2003:30), ‘’Cash may be king, but marketing is everything’’. Marketing can be defined in many ways however one of the most predominant definitions used today is: ‘’ Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others’’ ( Kotler et al.,1999; Addock et al 2001) Marketing is in summary, all the activities used in negotiating the passing of goods and services between the producers and consumers. The concept of marketing has evolved over time. Businesses orientate their marketing strategies around different components. Whilst in today’s business world the marketing orientation is most the most favourable method of marketing this has not always been the case and is still not the only orientation used. Generally speaking the marketing orientation is viewed as having evolved from three prior developmental orientations therefore it is worth considering each type of orientation which has been prominent previously. To begin there was the Production orientation...
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...Chapter 1 Marketing: Creating and Capturing Customer Value 1) All of the following are accurate descriptions of modern marketing, EXCEPT which one? A) Marketing is the creation of value for customers. B) Marketing is managing profitable customer relationships. C) Selling and advertising are synonymous with marketing. D) Marketing involves satisfying customers' needs. E) Marketing is used by for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Answer: C 2) According to the opening scenario, the Mannai Automotive marketing team is MOST concerned about which of the following? A) maintaining its brand share B) proactively following up prospects C) advertising their product's benefits D) comparing the effectiveness of their product to other brands E) incorporating consumer-generated marketing in the marketing mix Answer: B 3) ________ is defined as a social and managerial process by which individuals and organizations obtain what they need and want through value creation and exchange. A) Selling B) Advertising C) Bartering D) Marketing E) Negotiating Answer: D 4) Which steps of the five-step marketing process are about understanding customers, creating customer value, and building strong customer relationships? A) the first two only B) the first three only C) the first four only D) the last three only E) the last four only Answer: C 5) According to the simple five-step model of the marketing process, a company needs to ________ before designing...
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...Lancaster11@stjohns.edu | USA | USA | 4 | Fabiana Florenço Gil | fabianaffgil@gmail.com | Brazil | Brazil | 5 | Nurfatin Binti Walid | nurfatin_walid@yahoo.com | Malaysia | Malaysia | The Mobius Social Learning Platform (Mobius SLIP) Professor Djamel Eddine Laouisset Faculty of Business 2014-2015 Contents Abstract: 2 Background 3 Products/Services 3 Economic Environmental Factors 4 Geography and Demographics 5 Cultural Environment Factors 6 Political and legal Environment 6 INDIA 7 LATIN AMERICA 8 ENTRY MODE AND STAFFING 9 PRODUCT AND PRICING 13 DISTRIBUTION AND PROMOTION 13 Works Cited 15 Abstract: Mobius SLIP is a web-based tool that allows student s to submit writing samples and receive anonymous critiques from other students in the class. In short, students submit an essay, and the Mobius SLIP system randomly assigns each student to an anonymous peer group. Students then rank the quality of each submission and provide actionable feedback. Students also rank the quality of the feedback for each assignment. Mobius SLIP produces performance analytics and recommends a grade based on these rankings, and instructors provide feedback (if desired). This session will demonstrate the system and present evidence of learning from three business classes. The Mobius Social Learning Platform (Mobius SLIP), is a Learning Management System (LMS) released in June of 2012 under Complex Task Assessment Solutions and Information Technology (CTASIT) LLC,...
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...Standardized and Localized Strategies and the Role of Culture in Marketing and Consumption Delroy A. Jefferson This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for International Marketing Doctorate of Business Administration SMC University Dr. Babu P. George July 26, 2014 Abstract The paper seeks to examine the arguments surrounding the issue of standardization versus localization as it highlights specific advantages and disadvantages of both as obtained from a review of the prevailing literature. It links cultural patterns with consumerism and seeks to outline an effective approach to market research for entry into international markets. There are strong arguments for implementing standardization and localization but the literature seems to suggest that either strategy in its purest form represent polar extremes and most strategies consists of some elements of both whereby a middle ground is found. Appropriately designed market research unearth local appeals and cultural patterns which play a crucial role in informing the international marketer of the best suited marketing strategy. Keywords Multinational Corporation, Global Corporation, Standardization, Localization, Cultural pattern Introduction For several years there has been an interesting ongoing debate on the subject of what is the most suitable marketing strategy to be implemented; that of standardization across national markets as opposed to a strategy which espouses an adaptation...
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...frequently Phone/Voice Mail: 250-852-7675 Last Updated: November30, 2015 Calendar Description Building on ACCT 3250: Intermediate Management Accounting, students explore the integrative and interdisciplinary role of management accounting and its contribution to the strategic management process and the provision of quantitative and non-quantitative information for planning, control, and decision making. Topics include management control systems; results controls, action, personnel and cultural controls; control system tightness; control system cost; designing and evaluating management control systems; financial responsibility centers including transfer pricing; planning, and budgeting; incentive systems; financial performance measures; the myopia problem; uncontrollable factors; corporate governance; and ethical issues. | Educational Objectives/Outcomes Upon completing this course, students will be able to: 1. Locate the role of Management Control Systems (MCS) in both strategy and operations. 2. Describe results control and its applications. 3. Distinguish indirect controls from the direct controls based on action and personnel/culture. 4. Determine whether an entity or an area is better suited to tight or loose controls, and the types of action and/or personnel/cultural controls that ensure the desired level of tightness. 5. Design and evaluate management controls in terms of methods applied and tightness, and the...
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...BUSINESS STRATEGIES Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company's top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes.[1] Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics.[2] Strategic management is not static in nature; the models often include a feedback loop to monitor execution and inform the next round of planning.[3][4][5] Harvard Professor Michael Porter identifies three principles underlying strategy: creating a "unique and valuable [market] position", making trade-offs by choosing "what not to do", and creating "fit" by aligning company activities with one another to support the chosen strategy.[6] Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as "a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully."[7] Corporate strategy involves answering a key question from a portfolio perspective: "What business should we be in?" Business strategy involves answering the...
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...TE AM FL Y Praise for Marketing Insights from A to Z “The bagwan of Marketing strikes again. Leave it to Phil Kotler to revisit all of our blocking and tackling at just the right time . . . and as all great marketers know: ‘timing is everything.’” —Watts Wacker Founder and CEO, FirstMatter Author, The Deviant Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets “Wide-ranging, readable, pithy, and right on target, these insights not only are a great refresher for marketing managers but should be required reading for all nonmarketing executives.” —Christopher Lovelock Adjunct Professor, Yale School of Management Author, Services Marketing “Kotler tackles the formidable challenge of explaining the entire world of marketing in a single book, and, remarkably, pulls it off. This book is a chance for you to rummage through the marketing toolbox, with Kotler looking over your shoulder telling you how to use each tool. Useful for both pros and those just starting out.” —Sam Hill Author, Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes “This storehouse of marketing wisdom is an effective antidote for those who have lost sight of the basics, and a valuable road map for those seeking a marketing mind-set.” —George Day Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor of Marketing, Wharton School of Business “Here is anything and everything you need to know about where marketing stands today and where it’s going tomorrow. You can plunge into this tour de force at any point from A to Z and always come up with remarkable insights and...
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...Rights, Responsibilities and Regulation of International Business Sol Picciotto* This essay discusses the paradox of the emergence of corporate codes of conduct in the 1990s, following pressures from consumer and labor activism, in a period of more general liberalization of international investment leading to deregulation. It suggests that the advantages of flexibility and adaptability to specific circumstances offered by such codes are counterbalanced by their self-selected content and inadequate enforcement. Rejecting the assumption that there is a sharp distinction between voluntary standards and binding law, the essay analyzes various ways of grounding codes in legal obligations. It proposes that a safer and more dependable environment for international investment could be provided by a framework agreement, which would link binding standards for corporate social responsibility in key areas, such as combating bribery and cooperation in tax enforcement, with traditional investor rights based on investor protection and liberalization rules. I. Introduction Over the past decade, there has been an intriguing dual movement in the development of the forms of regulation of business in the global economy. Since the 1980s the dominant trend has been liberalization, i.e., the relaxation or removal of national controls on international capital movements. It seemed to many that business firms and investors were close to attaining the goal of a world market...
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...SPOTLIGHT ON HBR AT 90 Spotlight About the Spotlight Artist Each month we illustrate our Spotlight package with a series of works from an accomplished artist. We hope that the lively and cerebral creations of these photographers, painters, and installation artists will infuse our pages with additional energy and intelligence to amplify what are often complex and abstract concepts. This month we showcase the “rayographs” of Man Ray, the modernist giant. Born in Philadelphia, Ray moved to Paris in 1921, where he experimented with painting, filmmaking, sculpture, and, of course, photography. He created his rayographs by placing objects directly onto photosensitive material and exposing them to light. View more of the artist’s work at manraytrust.com. ARTWORK Man Ray, Rayography “Champs délicieux” n°08, 1922, rayograph hbr.org Walter Kiechel III is a former editorial director of Harvard Business Publishing, a former managing editor of Fortune, and the author of The Lords of Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010). The Management Century by Walter Kiechel III November 2012 Harvard Business Review 63 Spotlight on HBR AT 90 If you want to pinpoint a place and time that the first glints of the Management Century appeared on the horizon, you could do worse than Chicago, May 1886. There, to the recently formed American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Henry R. Towne, a cofounder of the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company...
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...Philip H. Jos College of Charleston Mark E. Tompkins University of South Carolina Keeping It Public: Defending Public Service Values in a Customer Service Age New Ideas for Improving Public Administration Notwithstanding the persistence and proliferation of to the breaking point with a RAND Corporation calls to serve “customers,” these relationships incorporate study that exhorted the military to engage in “customdistinctively public priorities and performance er-informed decision-making” and to work on instillexpectations—priorities and expectations often shaped ing “customer satisfaction” in Afghanistan (Helmus, by a desire to reduce customer vulnerabilities and Paul, and Glenn 2007). prevent seller strategies that are deemed unacceptable. The authors examine these distinctively public The persistence of the customer metaphor in the relationships—between professionals and clients, face of substantial criticism suggests that a far more guardians and wards, facilitators fundamental reassessment of and citizens, and regulators the relationship between public The persistence of the customer administrators and those they and subjects. By acknowledging serve is required. Our examinathat public administration metaphor in the face of tion finds that the vulnerabilioften involves relationships with substantial criticism suggests multiple constituencies and that ties of those treated as “customthat a far more fundamental opportunities to serve them are ers,” and the problems raised...
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...Employment News 31 May - 6 June 2014 www.employmentnews.gov.in 21 UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION EXAMINATION NOTICE NO. 09/2014-CSP (LAST DATE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS : 30/06/2014) DATE :31.05.2014 CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION, 2014 (Commission’s website-http://upsc.gov.in) F. No. 1/5/2013-E.I(B) : Preliminary Examination of the Civil Services Examination for recruitment to the Services and Posts mentioned below will be held by the Union Public Service Commission on 24th Aug., 2014 in accordance with the Rules published by the Department of Personnel & Training in the Gazette of India Extraordinary dated 31st May, 2014. (i) Indian Administrative Service. (ii) Indian Foreign Service. (iii) Indian Police Service. (iv) Indian P & T Accounts & Finance Service, Group ‘A’. (v) Indian Audit and Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (vi) Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise), Group ‘A’. (vii) Indian Defence Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (viii) Indian Revenue Service (I.T.), Group ‘A’. (ix) Indian Ordnance Factories Service, Group ‘A’ (Assistant Works Manager, Administration). (x) Indian Postal Service, Group ‘A’. (xi) Indian Civil Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (xii) Indian Railway Traffic Service, Group ‘A’. (xiii) Indian Railway Accounts Service, Group 'A'. (xiv) Indian Railway Personnel Service, Group ‘A’. (xv) Post of Assistant Security Commissioner in Railway Protection Force, Group ‘A’ (xvi) Indian Defence Estates Service, Group...
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...Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 127–168 www.elsevier.com/locate/aos Management control systems design within its organizational context: findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future Robert H. Chenhall Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia Abstract Contingency-based research has a long tradition in the study of management control systems (MCS). Researchers have attempted to explain the effectiveness of MCS by examining designs that best suit the nature of the environment, technology, size, structure, strategy and national culture. In recent years, contingency-based research has maintained its popularity with studies including these variables but redefining them in contemporary terms. This paper provides a critical review of findings from contingency-based studies over the past 20 years, deriving a series of propositions relating MCS to organizational context. The paper examines issues related to the purpose of MCS, the elements of MCS, the meaning and measurement of contextual variables, and issues concerning theory development. A final section considers the possibility that contingency-based ideas could encompass insights from a variety of theories to help understand MCS within its organizational context. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The three purposes of this paper are to provide a review of empirical, contingency-based research as it has developed...
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