National Health Products or National Health Services?

By David Pencheon- Director of the Sustainable Development Unit of the NHS, Zoe Le Grand- Senior Sustainability Advisor at Forum for the Future and Gemma Adams- Principal Sustainability Advisor at Forum for the Future In 1960, Theodore Levitt argued, that for a company to stay in business, it needs to know what business it is really in. He used the example of the railroads in the USA, which at that time were in decline. He argued that the reason for the decline was not because people no longer needed transport, but because other modes of transport such as the car, had risen. His point was that if you want to stay in business, you need to focus on customer needs not on your assumption of the products needed to meet those needs. Railroads in the USA went out of business because they thought they were in the business of running railroads. If they understood they were in business of meeting people needs to move and communicate, things might have been different. read more