Harvard Business Review

Finito di leggere 16 luglio 2009

Marketing myopia

di Theodore Levitt

pagg.95

Edito da Harvard Business Review – I classici

In allegato con Il Sole-24 Ore

pag. 19

….. Un mercato in espansione sottrae il produttore all'obbligo di riflettere approfonditamente o creativamente. Se il pensiero è la risposta intellettuale a un problema, l'assenza di un problema conduce all'assenza di pensiero. Se il vostro prodotto ha un mercato che si espande automaticamente, non dovrete preoccuparvi troppo di come farlo crescere. …..

pag. 28

….. La differenza tra marketing e vendita è tutt'altro che semantica. La vendita si concentra sui bisogni del venditore, il marketing si concentra sui bisogni dell'acquirente. La vendita mette al centro il bisogno del venditore di convertire il prodotto in denaro liquido, il marketing mette al centro la soddisfazione dei bisogni del cliente per mezzo del prodotto e dell'intera catena di attività che si associano alla sua creazione, alla sua fornitura e infine al suo consumo. …..

pag. 32

….. Ford lo ripeteva in continuazione, ma una nazione di manager orientati alla produzione si rifiuta di ascoltare la grande lezione che ci ha insegnato. Ecco come sintetizzava la sua filosofia operativa.

"La nostra politica è ridurre il prezzo, estendere le operation e migliorare il prodotto. Noterete che la riduzione del prezzo viene per prima. Non abbiamo mai considerato fisso nessun costo. Perciò ridurremo anzitutto il prezzo al livello in cui siamo convinti di poter avere maggiori vendite. Poi andremo avanti e cercheremo di abbassare ulteriormente i prezzi. Non ci preoccupiamo dei costi. Il nuovo prezzo fa scendere i costi. Il processo tradizionale è prendere i costi e determinare il prezzo; e, pur essendo scientifico in senso stretto, quel metodo non lo è in senso lato, perchè a che cosa mai serve conoscere il costo se ti dice che non puoi produrre al prezzo a cui si può vendere l'articolo? Ma conta di più il fatto che, pur potendo calcolare esattamente un costo, e naturalmente tutti i nostri costi vengono calcolati esattamente, nessuno sa quale dovrebbe essere un costo. Uno dei modi per scoprirlo … è fissare un prezzo così basso da obbligare tutti i soggetti coinvolti ad adottare il massimo livello di efficienza. Il prezzo basso spinge tutti a cercare dei profitti. Facciamo più scoperte in tema di produzione e di vendita con questo metodo che con qualunque altro metodo di investigazione teorica."

…..

pag.64

….. If thinking is an intellectual response to a problem, then the absence of a problem leads to the absence of thinking. If your product has an automatically expanding market, then you will not give much thougth to how to expand it. …..

pag. 71

….. The best way for a firm to be lucky is to make its own luck. That requires knowing what makes a business successful. One of the greatest enemies of this knowledge is mass production. …..

pag. 72

….. The difference between marketing and selling is more than semantic. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller's need to convert the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering, and, finally, consuming it. …..

pag. 75

….. Ford emphasized this point repeatedly, but a nation of production-oriented business managers refuses to hear the great lesson he taught. Here is his operating philosophy as he expressed it succintly:

"Our policy is to reduce the price, extend the operations, and improve the article. You will notice that the reduction of price comes first. We have never considered any costs as fixed. Therefore we first reduce the price to the point where we believe more sales will result. Then we go ahead and try to make the prices. We do not bother about the costs. The new price forces the costs down. The more usual way is to take the costs and then determine the price; and although that method may be scientific in the narrow sense, it is not scientific in the broad sense, because what earthly use is it to know the cost if it tells you that you cannot manufacture at a price at which the article can be sold? But more to the point is the fact that, although one may calculate what a cost is, and of course all of our costs are carefully calculated, no one knows what a cost ought to be. One of the way of discovering … is to name a price so low as to force everybody in the place to the highest point of efficiecy. The low price makes everybody dig for profits. We make more discoveries concerning manufacturing and selling under this forced method than by any method of leisurely investigation.

…..

pag. 91

….. No organization can achieve greatness without a vigorous leader who is driven onward by a pulsating will to succeed. A leader has to have a vision of grandeur, a vision that can produce eager followers in vast numbers. In business, the followers are the customers.  …..

pag. 92

….. The chief executive must set the company's style, its direction, and its goals. This means knowing precisely where he or she wants to go and making sure the whole organization is enthusiastically aware of where that is. This is a first requisite of leadership, for unless a leader knows where he is going, any road will take him there.

If any road is okay, the chief executive might as well pack his attachè case and go fishing. If an organization does not know or care where it is going, it does not need to advertise that fact with a ceremonial figurehead. Everybody will notice it soon enough. …..

pag. 94

….. The idea in practice

We put our business at risk of obsolescence when we accept any of the following myths:

Myth 1: An ever-expanding and more affluent population will ensure our growth. When markets are expanding, we often assume we don't have to think imaginatively about our businesses. Instead, we seek to outdo rivals simply by improving on what we're already doing. The consequence: we increase the efficiency of making our products, rather than boosting the value those products deliver to customer.

Myth 2: There is no competitive substitute for our industry's major product. Believing that our products have no rivals makes our companies vulnerable to dramatic innovations from outside our industries – often by smaller, newer companies that are focusing on customer needs rather than the products themselves.

Myth 3: We can protect ourselves through mass production. Few of us resist the prospect of the increased profits that come with steeply declining unit costs. But focusing on mass production emphasizes our company's needs – when we should be emphasizing our customers'.

Myth 4: Technical research and development will ensure our growth. When R&D produces breakthrough, we may be tempted to organize our companies around the technology rather than the consumer. Instead, we should remain focused on satisfying customer needs.