The Product Life Cycle

The Product Life cycle

The conditions a product is sold under changes over time. The Product Life Cycle refers to the succession of stages a product goes through. The product lifecycle goes through many phases and involves many professional disciplines and requires many skills, tools and processes. Product life cycle (PLC) is to do with the life of a product in the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures;

The stages

A Typical Product Life Cycle

Products tend to go through four stages viz. introductory, growth, maturity, and decline.

Market Identification

It is claimed that every product has a life cycle. It is launched, it grows, at some point, may die. But the termination may not always indicate the end of the cycle; it can be the end of a micro-entrant within the grander scope of a macro-environment. The auto industry, fast-food industry, petro-chemical industry, are just a few that demonstrate a macro-environment that overall has not terminated even while micro-entrants over time have come and gone.

A fair comment is that - at least in the short term - not all products/services die. Jeans may die, but clothes probably won't. Even though its validity is questionable, it can offer a useful 'model' for marketers to keep at the back of their mind. Indeed, if their products are in the introductory or growth phases, or in that of decline, it perhaps should be at the front of their mind; for the predominant features of these phases may be those revolving around such life and death. Between these two extremes, it is salutary for them to have that vision of mortality in front of them. In most markets the majority of the major (dominant) brands have held their position for at least two decades. The dominant product life-cycle, that of the brand leaders which almost monopolize many markets, is therefore one of continuity.

Thus, the life cycle may be useful as a description, as well as a predictor; and usually should be firmly under the control of the marketer.

Hence for a marketer its important to identify which stage the product is in, and this is to be done by a thorough Market analysis and research and mapping the conclusions. It is also required thereafter to initiate right changes in the marketing mix to augment to growth of the product.

The following mentioned paragraphs are the analysis of indentifying the product stage;

Marketing research and analysis

In order to make fact-based decisions regarding marketing strategy and design effective, cost-efficient implementation programs, and firms must possess a detailed, objective understanding of their own business and the market in which they operate.

Marketers' analysis is structured into three areas: Customer analysis, Company analysis, and Competitor analysis and analysis of the industry in Context.

The focus of customer analysis is to develop a scheme for market segmentation, breaking down the market into various constituent groups of customers, which