Marketing Myopia

PAPER

Marketing myopia

By John D

Marketing myopia is a term created by Theodore Lewitt, to describe a common managerial problem that many businesses have had in the past and now have in the present. It is a problem where the business fails to look into the future of their company and the industry they are in, and fail to plan ahead for it.

Therefore in myopia suffering businesses, business decisions are usually based on the current state of the market. This can usually be attributed to the company being complacent and having several beliefs or assumptions. These include the belief that growth is assured by an expanding and the increase of more affluent population; the belief that there is no competitive substitute for the industry's major product; and too much faith in mass production and in the advantage of rapidly declining cost as output rises.

So in turn, companies that suffer from myopia usually assume themselves to be riding on some kind of growth escalator, which will make and keep themselves as a successful company.

Another problem with myopia affected businesses is that they fail to define an organization's purpose in terms of its function from the consumers' point of view. What these companies usually do is define themselves through the products or services they offer. They are commodity orientated, where the focus of marketing is only on the products or services the company has to offer.

This approach, however reasonable it may seem, can narrow an organisation's focus and limit their ability to be competitive. Because it doesn't focus on what the company needs to survive, the consumer and satisfying consumer needs. These businesses usually do not look at the whole industry of the product and they usually neglect the fields of opportunities in their area of their industry.

Therefore the commodities of myopic affected companies usually are specific and limited in terms of variety and value. Another characteristic of these companies is that they often tend to come up with improved versions of the old products, and new upgrades for previous products in other words. These can sometimes turn out to be products that no one wants at prices that are unattractive. This is because myopic businesses define the needs of the consumer