Marketing Myopia free essay sample

The term Myopia means short-sightedness in vision. Marketing glossary has borrowed this term to aptly describe the short-sightedness by a company. Thus marketing myopia means a short-sighted and inward looking approach to marketing that focuses on the needs of the company instead of defining the company and its products in terms of the customers needs and wants. It results in the failure to see and adjust to the rapid changes in their markets. The history of Indian Business has been exposed to many instances of marketing myopia , one of the biggest being Bajaj Auto. Bajaj Auto came into existence in 1945. It started off by selling imported Vespa scooters and three wheelers in india. In 1959, it obtained license to manufacture two three wheelers and went public in 1960. In 1960, it set up a shop to manufacture them in technical collaboration with Piaggio of Italy. By 1986, it managed to produce and sell 5 lac vehicles in a single financial year. We will write a custom essay sample on Marketing Myopia or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Under the regulated regime, foreign companies were not allowed to operate in India. The brand thrived under License Raj with virtually no competition. The brand had products like Chetak, launched in 1972 virtually owned the two wheeler segment. It was known for the reliability and sturdiness. It was during 1990-91 that the brand began the journey to the end. Bajaj Chetak had huge brand equity. The brand had the persona of a â€Å"work horse. With reasonable price and the low maintenance cost made this product a huge hit among the middle class Indians. It was a complete seller market with the waiting period for getting a scooter from Bajaj Auto being as high as 12 years. During this period, the demand for bajaj scooter was so high that it didn’t bother to much efforts into product improvement through RD. For 40 years Chetak had the same look, same quality and style. The company failed to understand the changing perception of the customers towards scooters. Rather than looking at the customers, the company focused on influencing Government to block the opening up of economy. This shows marketing Myopia existed in case of Bajaj Auto. It didn’t foresee the competition in the liberated market. The two-wheeler market was opened to foreign competition in the mid-80s. The company was caught unaware by the onslaught of the 100cc bikes of the four Indo-Japanese joint ventures. With the availability of fuel efficient low power bikes, demand swelled, resulting in Hero Honda then the only producer of four stroke bikes (100cc category), gaining a top slot. With the increase in demand in the bike segment and dropping sales of their existing as wellas new products â€Å"bajaj Classic† caused them to totally move away from scooter segment to bikes. Bajaj then had total restructuring of their business model viz, from seller to customer oriented. They improved their RD and launched new products ,like Pulsar (150 cc, 220cc), which helped them regain their market status as leader in two-wheelers.