Seeing the Market One Customer at a Time

Recognizing the emerging competitive advantage represented by breakthroughs in information technology, information retrieval, and service delivery, Richard Winger and David Edelman publish a Perspective titled "Segment-of-One Marketing." It describes the potential impact of these emerging technologies on a company's ability to customize goods and employ segmentation strategies targeted directly to the individual consumer.

 

BCG Insights & Highlights

  • In a Perspective titled "Network Organization," Todd Hixon, the founder of BCG's technology practice, introduces a form of "hyperarchical" organization. This type of organization is best suited to industries based on product innovation, creativity, and services. BCG is such an organization
  • Bruce Henderson's "The Origin of Strategy" is published in the Harvard Business Review
  • BCG partner Gary Reiner, who will later become GE's chief information officer, writes "It Takes Planning To Put Plans Into Action," published in the New York Times
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World News

  • Emperor Hirohito of Japan dies. Crown Prince Akhito becomes the new emperor
  • The last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan
  • The Berlin Wall falls
  • P.W. Botha quits as South Africa's president
  • An uprising in Romania overthrows the communist regime. The former president and his wife are executed
  • After massive nonviolent demonstrations, the Czechoslovakian government falls and former dissident playwright Vaclav Havel becomes the country's new president
  • After weeks of massive prodemocracy demonstrations in Peking's Tienanmen Square, Chinese authorities use tanks to disperse the students. Thousands are believed to have died
  • Solidarity gains an overwhelming majority in Poland's parliament
  • The NIKKEI average hits a historical high of 38,916 yen
  • Junk bond dealer Michael Milken is indicted
  • After massive protests in the German Democratic Republic, the frontiers are opened
  • The Exxon Valdez causes the world's largest oil spill when it runs aground off Alaska
  • Meteorologists announce that 1989 is the warmest year on record
  • Eighty nations sign an agreement to stop producing chlorofluorocarbons by the year 2000. The chemicals are suspected of causing massive damage to the earth's fragile upper atmosphere