article thumbnail

What Is the Business of Health Care?

Harvard Business Review

In 1960, the editor of the Harvard Business Review, Theodore Levitt, wrote that the failure of railroads could be explained in part by the myopic view that they were in the railroad business and not the transportation business, which left them vulnerable to competition from cars, trucks, and planes.

article thumbnail

5 Questions That Will Help You Stay Ahead of Your Disruptors

Harvard Business Review

Grove’s 1980 question remains as ruthlessly relevant to C-suites as Ted Levitt’s 1960 classic, “What business are you in?” They see disrupted incumbents from retail, finance, health care, transportation, professional services, and manufacturing requiring radical restructuring of assets, productivity , and innovation.

Levitt 8
article thumbnail

More Universities Need to Teach Sales

Harvard Business Review

Compared to professions like engineering or business disciplines like Finance or Operations, the concept of a dedicated salesperson is relatively recent. Now, however, students’ college and pre-MBA experience is more likely to be in a finance area or perhaps in coding.