The biggest failure of management

"The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. that grew. The railroads are in the trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes and even telephones), but because it was NOT filled by the railroads themselves. 

They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the RAILROAD BUSINESS rather than in the TRANSPORTATION BUSINESS. 

The reason why they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were RAILROAD oriented instead of TRANSPORTATION oriented. They were PRODUCT oriented instead of CUSTOMER oriented."

Marketing Myopia by Theodore Levitt