Paul Lydio Anthony S.

Ariola Economic History

12-1262
Policy Formulation and implementation for the Reduction of Poverty:

Marketing Myopia and Contextual Intelligence

Poverty occurs when groups of people living in a particular area are in a state of being
poor. These are groups of people who lack the capacity to support themselves such as attaining
their basic needs which is a required amount of supplies to live. This has always been an issue
that has never been easy to solve to a certain extent that several support groups, non-
governmental institutions, intergovernmental institutions, or the local governments per se have
attempted to solve. Poverty occurs from different causes. Be it from those people who were born
poor maybe because their family did not have enough funds to support their own. Another would
be those people were not given proper education so their skills are but limited only to a specific
job who gives only a small amount of income. Or obviously some people are too lazy to work.
The most popular cause would be how our government solves this dilemma. Basically, the
government hire technocrats, the experts of a particular field or sector, to study the problem in a
particular field and define the most pressing problems. Through this, they will be able to study
the most appropriate solution to this defined problem. The government, together with the
technocrats, would then formulate a particular policy to solve these problems. However,
formulating such takes time since it needs to go through a long process (more specifically in the
decision making process) to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the policy in solving the
problem. Moreover, the problem does not lie in the policy formulating process but in the policy
implementation process.

In the case of the Philippines, we have government officials who formulate the best
policies that will solve pressing issues of their citizens. However, they are having difficulties in
terms of how they will implement policies. Will it be in a top-down approach wherein the central
government will be the ones to implement to different sectors or will it be in a bottom-up
approach wherein local government units will be the ones to implement their policies in their
own sector? Moreover, is the policy really going to solve the problem in the long run or short
run? Will the policy or the program be a citizen-oriented program or profit-oriented? If
government officials focus more on earning profit and solving issues in the short run only, then
solving the problem of poverty would not be achieved.
Paul Lydio Anthony S. Ariola Economic History
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In line with this, the lessons from Marketing myopia by Theodore Levitt and the use of
Contextual Intelligence would be sufficing in terms of formulating and implementing policies or
programs to solve poverty. According to Levitt, the reason why growth is threatened, slowed, or
stopped is not because the market is saturated but because of government failure. It is given that
there will be times that there will be market failures due to unequal distribution of public goods,
negative externalities, natural monopolies due to lack of competitiveness in the market, and
information asymmetry – false advertising or false information dissemination (Weimer &
Vining, 1989). The main problem of these are the implementers of the policies created for a
particular economic and social issue. Levitt’s example of this situation would be the unfinished
railroads was because of the incapacity of the government to fund and supply railroads. The role
of the government must provide basic goods and services to ensure the welfare of the people,
impose taxes on certain goods as a form of profit to increase government spending, give
subsidies to firms and sectors that are in financial trouble as a form of assistance, and to
implement rules and regulations on the market and civil society. With this, they are to achieve
certain goals namely stability, equity, and control. However, with government failures, achieving
this end is far from inevitable.

One government failure would be implementation problems. Adoption of policies gain

force through implementation in which efforts are made to execute the means. However, these
means may not always achieve the established goals. The greater the potential for either persons
or organizations to withhold necessary contributions, the greater is the possibility of failure. In
addition, it is also problematic for the central government to have local governments implement
their policy due to difficulty in monitoring, the inability to coerce, and the personal interests of
the local governments (Weimer & Vining, 1989).

Another dilemma would be if the policy or the program is more profit-oriented than citizen-
oriented. In terms of the transportation business, Levitt stated that their services should be more
customer-oriented than product-oriented. In this way, they should focus on how they will be able
to satisfy their customers first rather than focusing on gaining profit from the product per se.
“Customer oriented management can keep a growth industry growing” (Levitt, 1975). This
lesson can be applied in the policy formulation and implementation problem to a certain extent
that their policy should focus on the satisfaction of their citizens in terms of solving the pressing
Paul Lydio Anthony S. Ariola Economic History
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issues of the society to end any forms of suffering. Another lesson that can be applied here would
be the application of the contextual intelligence by Khanna. Contextual Intelligence is an
application of information and skills situations in the real world. Khann mentioned that it is an
interactive process that involves adapting to an environment to accomplish an individual’s
anticipated goal (Khann, 2014). “To produce these customers for them to earn more profit, the
entire corporation must be viewed as a customer-creating and customer-satisfying” (Khanna,
2014). As stated the former, industries should be more customer creating and customer-
satisfying. But this is not only beneficial for industries but also for policy makers and
implementers. In a way, their policies (or rather how they implement their policies) should be a
citizen-creating and citizen-satisfying. This means that it will gain the support of the citizens
whenever a particular policy that is implemented correctly has solved the issue. This framework
will help policy makers in terms of enhancing their skills in ensuring that formulated policies
will be adapted by local government units.
In conclusion, application of the concepts in marketing myopia and the strategy called
contextual intelligence will best influence the ability of the policy makers or the law makers to
formulate the best policies and implement these policies correctly without the possibility of
another implementation failure. This would resolve the problems in both market and government
failures. Marketing myopia is a great tactic to policy makers wherein it gives advices industries
or companies on how to make their work more productive – a company that is more customer-
oriented than product-oriented. This is not only beneficial for industries but also for policy
makers and policy implementers. Formulated and implemented policies should be more citizen-
oriented than profit-oriented. Moreover, with the help of contextual intelligence, they will be
able to gain citizen-creating and citizen-satisfying citizens in which they will be able to gain full
support whenever their policies are implemented correctly and adapted by the locals. These
strategies will be able to create a more productive state.
Paul Lydio Anthony S. Ariola Economic History
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References

Brown, C. (n.d.). Contextual Intelligence: The Key to Successful Consulting. Retrieved from
http://headinthegame.net/resources/library/contextual-intelligence-ci-the-key-to-successful-
consulting/

Khanna, T. (2014). Contextual Intelligence. Harvard Business Review.

Levitt, T. (1975). Marketing Myopia. Harvard Business Review. Harvard College. United
Kingdom.

Weimer, D. L., & Vining, A. R. (1989). Rationales for Public Policy: Market Failures. In Policy
Analysis: Concepts and Practice. (pp. 29 – 93). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Weimer, D. L., & Vining, A. R. (1989). Limits to Public Intervention: Government Failures. In
Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. (pp. 94 – 123). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.