Customer Reviews

Ted Levitt on Marketing

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Probably this is the last book Professor Levitt shares his groundbreaking and carefully crafted marketing insights with us before his recent death. (He died of a long illness on 28 Jun 2006. 28 Jun, coincidentally, is my date of birth)

Levitt was a Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Business School and the author of numerous seminal business articles on Marketing. This book is a reprint collection of his 12 award-winning articles published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) since 1960 including "Marketing Myopia"(1960), "Creativity is not Enough (1963)". "Why Business Always Loses"(1968), "Production-Line Approach to Service"(1972), "The Globalisation of Markets"(1983), and "Advertising the Poetry of Becoming (1993)".

As a gifted marketing scholar with legendary vision rooted in the real world, Professor Levitt guides managers how to define their industries and create and sustain competitive advantages in the cut-throat world of marketing. For example, His article "Marketing Myopia" explains the downfall of two photographic corporations (Eastman-Kodak and Polaroid) as a result of narrow definition of their industry. In his another classic HBR article "Production-Line Approach to Service", he asserts that managers can utilise manufacturing approaches to solve people-intensive service problems. Despite the fact that his ideas about market globalisation and product standardisation remain a fierce controversy in the academic world, his article "The Globalisation of Markets" is still useful for today's managers to understand the power of globalisation and managers can learn how to build different analytical lens to view global markets. In developing organisational growth, the article "Creativity is not Enough" concludes that creativity cannot work well without conformity and rigidity in implementation.

Managers in the business world should salute Professor Levitt for his insightful and practical ideas that have guided and stimulated them to think a myriad of marketing issues. This book is highly recommended to readers who are interested in learning more about marketing insights from this respected guru.

Ted Levitt on Marketing is an outstanding collection of work written by a man, who is often regarded as the father of modern marketing. This is a 'must-have' collection of twelve articles originally published in the Harvard Business Review and includes classics like "Marketing Myopia (1960)," "Marketing Success Through Differentiation - of Anything (1980)," and "The Globalization of Markets (1983)."

These articles are easy to read (and re-read) because of their brevity (about 17 pages on average), but they are thorough and thought provoking. Though some of the data provided for support may seem dated, the ideas and principles that Levitt provides are still relevant in today's markets.

Theodore Levitt's articles have become a staple for MBA students' required reading, but regardless of whether you are a student or a veteran marketer or manager, you will find a variety of practical advice supported by rigorous research and astute observation. Theodore Levitt provided some of the most original and timeless insights into the world of business, and if you have never read any of his work, this is a great place to start.

I highly recommend this book.