customers’ needs: management was placing too much attention on the
technicalities of flying airplanes and not enough on the quality of the cus
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tomers’ experiences.
Carlzon said, “We used to think our biggest assets were aircraft, overhaul
stations, and technical resources. But we have only one real asset, and that
is a satisfied customer prepared to come back to SAS and pay for our costs
once more. That’s why assets in our balance sheet should show the number
of satisfied customers who flew SAS during the year and not the number of
airplanes that are not worth one single cent as long as there is no second-
hand market in the world for used aircraft and nobody wants to pay for a
flight in those airplanes” [8].
His philosophy has not lost its validity and has survived other short-lived
management theories. In the high-tech sector, companies such as Cisco,
Dell, DoCoMo, Microsoft, or Nokia have been giving customers the atten
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tion they deserve for a long time. These companies have built their own suc
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cess on this state-of-mind marketing.
1.2 What is a high-tech product?
The term “high technology” is a catchall category that includes any product
manufactured with some type of an advanced technology, from razor blades
or athletic shoes, to sports cars, to long-range missiles. Furthermore, high
technology can also apply to many categories of services (see the box: “The
Irresistible Rise of High-Tech Services”).
The literature on this subject contributes to the continuation of certain
confusion, because it rarely gives a clear definition for high-tech products.
In any case, technology is not the only characteristic and discriminating
feature of these products. When asked about the main characteristics of
high-tech products, marketing managers are mostly concerned with some
distinctive characteristics that pertain specifically to high-tech products (see
Figure 1.3, which is based on interviews that I conducted). The three main
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