Scientific-Atlanta applied its energy to opportunities in new fields with large growth potential and few barriers to entry. The company sought out products that were either low-cost and high volume or had a very high price tag. "You've either got to make 10,000 of something worth $100 to $200, or several of something worth $500,000 or $10 million," Topol told the "New York Times". The company planned to make the low-cost, high volume end of this equation profitable through aggressive research and development and a strong marketing effort. In its annual report, as reprinted in David C. Rickert's Harvard Business School case study of Scientific-Atlanta, the company stated: "Scientific-Atlanta operates under a disciplined business plan that concentrates on design, manufacture, and sale of standard technical products for the communications and instrumentation markets." More specifically, Topol recounted in Dun's Review, as restated by Rickert, "I asked what products we needed for growing markets, not what markets we should go after because we had a product."