The pressure to keep on being successful is only increasing

The pressure to keep on being successful is only increasing. In 1993, for

example, the typical company in the high-tech top 100 (as measured by

market value) of the

Financial Times

stayed there for 7 years; by the end of

the decade, the average tenure had dropped to 3 years. A similar turnover in

market leadership continues today.

Successful high-technology companies do share some key factors of

success [5]. They tend to market two or three times as many new prod

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ucts as their competitors, and incorporate two to three times more techni

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cal innovations into each new product bringing actual value to their

customers. Also, they introduce their products to the market two times

faster than their competitors thanks to operational excellence [6], one of the

main weaknesses of so many dot-coms that underestimated the importance

of manufacturing and logistics. This helps them to adapt their business

model quickly whenever there is a significant change in the environment.

In addition, the geographical size of their markets is double that of their

competitors. They have also created and leveraged great brands, which are

reflected in everything the company does, especially those that impact the

consumer [7].

Overall, these companies make marketing their main objective. They

know their customers intimately and track their demand in real time. Their

main concern is the market and not the product; this is the key to their suc-

cess. All research and development activities, manufacturing, sales, and

after-sales services aim to satisfy customers better and faster. Their other

common characteristic is that they aim for profit. They invest wisely even

when they spend money on marketing-oriented programs. They do not

fund their customers in order to boost their sales, for instance, and always

make sure that any major marketing program will have a positive impact on

the bottom line. By keeping budgets tight and controlling cash, they never

face bankruptcy.

Marketing plays a fundamental role in this process. Actually, its goal is to

determine the needs of the market and to assure that the products manufac

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tured by the company correspond precisely to these needs with a competi

-

tive advantage and at a profit.

This is probably the ultimate key to success and resilience [8] as testified

by IBM, one of the oldest high-tech firms on the market. Pondering the abil

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ity of IBM to reinvent itself over and over again, its current CEO Samuel

Palmisano reflects that “we never defined ourselves as a clock and scale

company, or a mainframe company, or a typewriter maker, even when we

were the undisputed leader in those markets. We simply committed our

-

selves to being the leader in inventing state-of-the-art technology and help

-

ing customers apply it to solve their problems. When technology and the

nature of customer problems change, we do, too” [9].

Some claim that high-technology products are so specific that the classic

rules of marketing used for selling detergents or yogurt cannot be applied. In

reality, this argument is often used to justify the absence of actual strategies

oriented toward markets and customer needs. For certain companies