MBAs Take Firm Hold of The Long Tail

Chris Anderson's The Long Tail has been soaring along on The New York Times Top Ten Business Book List for good reason. His revolutionary concepts of affixing niche selling to traditional markets are the topics of MBA degree programs across the nation.

by Gabby Hyman
gabby.hyman@MBA-business-schools.com
MBA-Business-Schools Book Reviewer

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson, hardcover; by Hyperion, 2006.

The digital age has brought with it earthshaking shifts in the way America does business. In Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, we’re introduced to the brave new commerce world where traditional boundaries of warehousing, distribution, and services are blown away by strokes on a keyboard. MBA students should take heed before entering an eCommerce marketplace they may have underestimated.

Anderson’s Secret for Sustained Success in the Business Book Market

No wonder The Long Tail has ridden a crest of sales on The New York Times Business Book Top Ten List this fall. Anderson provides solid examples of how digital selling has eliminated businesses’ traditional lumping of consumers into large, generalized audiences. Of course brick and mortar establishments must focus on best-selling items. They have limited floor space, narrow distribution lanes, and slender resources when it comes to carrying most anything a consumer might want.

If you’re pursuing an MBA degree, Anderson is must reading. Why should MBAs be limited in managing a sales organization that offers only popular, best sellers that are eclipsed in fashion almost as fast as they appear in the marketplace? The Long Tail suggests that MBAs should lead organizations mirroring the successful examples of Amazon, Netflix, or iTunes—companies that always offer a back inventory of niche items that please ALL consumers, not just ones seeking the glitzy item of the moment.

MBAs: Break Down the Walls of the Marketplace of the Future

Today’s marketplace is made up of “countless niches,” Anderson says. Consequently, it may behoove MBA leadership to consider three revolutionary practices:

1. Make everything available to all consumers. There is a buyer for everything you can stock and ship using virtual ordering and tracking.
2. Slice all your prices in half and then lower them further. The lower the price, the greater the total number of sales. Consider the iTunes 99-cent song.
3. Help people find what they want to buy. Profile your customers. Show them niche products to buy.

MBAs pay attention here: Anderson contends that not only will future marketers continue to shape buying trends, but the clever ones will create and serve a marketplace that has nothing to do with trends and top-selling brands.

About Chris Anderson

Anderson took over the popular digital sage publication Wired in 2001. He previously served The Economist as a business and technology editor for seven years. Before turning to business, Anderson studied physics at Los Alamos Laboratory and spent six years at the journals Nature and Science.

About the Author

Posted on November 10, 2006 at 1:28 PM

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