The silver market phenomenon

26 oct 2008--Springer book discusses business challenges and opportunities in times of demographic change
The current shift in demographics – aging and shrinking populations – in many countries around the world presents a major challenge to companies as well as societies. Although this sensitive issue has recently started to draw the attention of scholars, business leaders and politicians, research on the implications of the demographic change on businesses is still in its infancy. One particular result of the demographic shift is the emergence and constant growth of the "silver market" – the market seg-ment more or less broadly defined as the people aged 50 or 55 and older. However, the reactions of countries and industries to this market segment are very different – from still neglecting to proactively developing solutions and offering products for it.
In their book The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities in an Era of Demographic Change, the editors Florian Kohlbacher and Cornelius Herstatt offer a thorough and up-to-date analy-sis of the challenges and opportunities in advancing technology, product development, marketing and innovation for elder consumers and employees. Using the Japanese lead market as well as other se-lected countries as role models, experts and researchers point out different answers and reactions to the attractive and promising, but - regarding to product and service offerings - still underdeveloped "silver market". Various illustrations and graphic charts highlight the discussed requirements and needs in the business sector caused by the demographic shift in societies all over the world.
The Silver Market Phenomenon is written for professionals who have an interest in business oppor-tunities in the "silver market" as well as scientists in the field of management science and sociology. But it is also addressing the broad public by making sense of the silver market phenomenon and en-couraging both an active and creative debate and real action in coping with the challenges and op-portunities of the demographic change.
Florian Kohlbacher is a research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, Japan. He teaches business and management classes at several universities in Tokyo. His research in-terests include knowledge management, product development and innovation management and cross-cultural management. Cornelius Herstatt is Managing Director and full professor of the Institute of Technology and Innovation Management (TIM) at the Hamburg University of Technology in Germany. He teaches classes in product planning as well as management and leadership.
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Florian Kohlbacher, Cornelius Herstatt (Eds.): The Silver Market Phenomenon Business Opportunities in an Era of Demographic Change