AN ALTERNATIVE TO NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT—BUSINESS PRODUCTS FOR CONSUMER MARKETS

Theodore Levitt's classic article “Marketing Myopia” pointed up the potentially catastrophic results possible when companies and industries view their products too narrowly. This piece discusses an extension of that concept: companies making products for the industrial, business, and commercial market frequently obtain fewer benefits (revenue, profitability, market share) than they might because they have defined their customer too narrowly. In many cases, a company can profitably look beyond the relatively few business users of a product.