ABSTRACT
The Harvard academic, Professor Richard Tedlow (1990), posits that the evolution of the marketing concept can be divided into three distinct phases. Phase I, or ‘fragmentation’, that exists because transportation and communications barriers cause markets to be constituted as local or regional entities. Phase II, or ‘unification’, is facilitated by the development of a national transportation and communications structure. Within the manufacturing sector this phase is accompanied by some companies constructing large factories to minimize production costs. At this juncture, some firms exploit improvements in transportation infrastructure by expanding their distribution base and thereby benefiting from the economies of scale of becoming a national business. To consolidate their market position and to achieve market leadership, these national firms use the profits generated from economies of scale within their operations to fund the selling of large volumes of a standard product at very competitive prices.
