Marketing Strategies by Theodore Levitt

Group No.5 :

Rajdeep LahaAnay HalderSabyasachi BhattacharyaBipul Purkait

Faculty : DR. Abhijeet Biswas

Theodore Levitt (1925-2006)•Born in Vollmerz, GERMANY in 1925•Came to the U.S in 1940 & settled in

Dayton, Ohio•Started a newspaper with Erma

Bombeck in elementary school•Received his masters in economics from

Ohio State in 1951•Taught at Harvard from 1959-1990•Wrote Marketing Myopia in 1960, most

reprints of any Harvard Business Review article, 900,000

Levitt cont.• Wrote 25 articles for the Harvard Business

Review• Authored 8 books on Marketing• 1983 wrote “Globalization of Markets” – coined

the word globalization• In 1985 became the editor of the Harvard

Business Review, expanded it’s readership beyond an academic journal into a mass market management magazine

• Won many awards• “What business are you really in?” – Marketing

Myopia• Approach was not to get approval in research,

but to have “important people in important companies” (his phrase) to take his ideas and go with them

Some philosophies by LEVITT

•Theodore Levitt exhorted executives to put their customers at the center of all they do–and to put marketing at the center of strategy.

•Levitt wove a powerful argument that companies should stop defining themselves by what they produced and instead reorient themselves toward customer needs and satisfaction.

What is Marketing Myopia

•Shortsightedness--not inherited. It can be prevented.

•Short sighted and inward looking approach to marketing that focuses on the needs of the firm instead of defining the firm and its products in terms of the customers' needs and wants.

AVOIDING MARKETING MYOPIA• Customer Orientation Focus on customer rather than on

product.

• Focus on Marketing

• Looking for future opportunities.

• Retention of existing customers.

Henry FordBrilliant Marketer Senseless Marketer

• Created a product customer’s needed

• Created a product customer’s could afford

• Created production system to fit market needs

• Refused to make cars in any other color but black

AFTER THE SALE IS OVER•To ensure customer satisfaction.

•To maintain the degree of customer relationship.

•Selling by itself is not enough.

Marketing Success Through

Differentiation -Of Anything•Concept Of Product

•Augmented , Potential, Generic Product

•Customer’s Behaviour

•Role Of Management

Production Line Approach To Service

•Service Sector

•Relationship between Product and Service

•Citi Bank and IBM

•Field VS Factory

The Globalisation of Markets•Powered by technology advancements.

•Understanding the global market.

•Global Standardization. •Mass Customization.

•High Quality product at Low prices.

LEVITT on Globalisation

“A powerful force drives the world toward a converging commonality, and that force is technology.”

“ Everywhere everything gets more and more like everything else as the world’s preference structure is relentlessly homogenised.”

“People everywhere want goods of the best quality and reliability at the lowest price.”

Creativity is NOT enough

• CREATIVITY V/S INNOVATION

• CREATIVE = ABSTRACT

• INNOVATIVE= CONCRETE

•Ideation is generation of ideas.

•Innovation is idea implementation.

Dynamics of Creativity & Innovation• Ideas are not enough

• Taking responsibilities

• Chronic complainers

• Doors are closed for innovation

• Making ideas useful

• Deciding factors

• From creativity to innovation

Conclusion

•“Organizations must learn to think of itself not as producing goods or services but as buying customers, as doing the things that will make people want to do business with them.”

• “There is no such thing as a growth industry, what we have is growth opportunities.”

Theodore Levitt