Mills Scofield
APRIL 15, 2012
His organization, The Business Innovation Factory (BIF), is a vehicle for sharing real life stories about business models that have transformed industries and lives. Saul quotes Theodore Levitt (Harvard Business School Professor), “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”
Harvard Business Review
JANUARY 13, 2014
In 1960, marketing legend Ted Levitt provided perhaps his seminal contribution to the Harvard Business Review : “ Marketing Myopia.” To avoid that, Levitt exhorted leaders to ask themselves the seemingly obvious question – “What business are you really in?”
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Harvard Business Review
SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
On January 19, 2012, after 131 years of operation, the Eastman Kodak Company filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Levitt argued that it's always better to define a business by what consumers want than by what a company can produce. What do we need to move from a product-oriented industry to a customer-oriented one?
Harvard Business Review
JUNE 14, 2017
Like any number of industries, healthcare is being transformed by the explosion of low-cost data. The bulk of HCIT investment supports startups that sell data — clinical or operational information that is otherwise difficult for clients to obtain or to organize. How the most innovative providers are creating value.
Harvard Business Review
MAY 5, 2016
Grove’s 1980 question remains as ruthlessly relevant to C-suites as Ted Levitt’s 1960 classic, “What business are you in?” Top managers in disrupted industries increasingly find this question less rhetorical than newly fundamental. ” or my “Who do you want your customers to become?”
Harvard Business Review
NOVEMBER 18, 2015
As Ted Levitt pointed out 55 years ago, companies develop significant myopia over time, only seeing things that are squarely in the mainstream of their market. In contrast, in many markets room-sharing-platform Airbnb has grown without significant response from hotel operators. But it has to fight fiercely for every inch.
Harvard Business Review
SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
In the words of Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt, “ People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. Every time a customer buys a product, they are trying to do a job that brings some value to them – and not necessarily what the product says on the label. They want a quarter-inch hole! ”.
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