Theodore Levitt on the value of customer engagement
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Loading ...While perusing through the hundreds of feeds in my feed reader, I came across this post from Mike Hirshland of Polaris Ventures and author of the blog VC Mike.
In it he references the following quote from the book Marketing Myopia, initially authored in 1960 by one of the great marketing minds Theodore Levitt.
“The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented.â€
I initially read this book when I was fresh out of college in an entry engineering role at P&G trying to make a switch into Brand Management. I have continued to reference it throughout my career; I remember this specific quote vividly.
It’s a compelling reminder from way back in 1960 that being customer-focused rather than product-focused is the right way to go. Companies cannot go wrong in getting ever closer to its customers and engaging them on multiple levels. The value of doing so is always there, and new tools, enabling technologies, and evolving business processes make the ability to continuously improve in getting closer to customers a reality.
– brian
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