Product Life Cycle
1. Introduction
It has been well established that Product Life Cycle (PLC) concept has a significant impact upon business strategy and corporate performance. Since the term was first used by Levitt (1965 ) in an Harvard Business Review article “Exploit the Product Life Cycle” the concept has been widely accepted and applied by marketing practitioners all over the world.
The product life cycle concept is one of the most quoted and most frequently taught elements of marketing theory. According to Mercer (1993: 269) the influence of the product life cycle can be seen in other theories, from new product development, positioning & differentiation and portfolio analysis.
Since its adoption by marketing, the product life cycle (PLC) has achieved universal acceptance because of its appeal and wide application.
According to Weber (1976: 12) the product life cycle concept provides an intuitively appealing and readily understandable framework of analysis for considering future growth opportunities and pitfalls. As time passes sales increase slowly at first (introduction phase), then more quickly (growth phase), then once again more slowly (maturity and saturation phases), and finally decrease (decline phase). This assignment discusses the importance of repositioning and differentiating for an organization’s products or services using the concept of Product Life Cycle (PLC). It also critically analyses the actual practice an organization undertakes to repositioning or differentiating it products. Based on the critical analysis a set of recommendations are provided for the selected organization to improve its overall positioning & differentiating efforts during the various stages of PLC.
Within this context, the organization that is selected is Bahrain International Retail Development Centre (BIRD) which is one of the leading corporate training providers in Bahrain.
2. Discussion
2.1 Description of the selected organization- BIRD
Bahrain
It has been well established that Product Life Cycle (PLC) concept has a significant impact upon business strategy and corporate performance. Since the term was first used by Levitt (1965 ) in an Harvard Business Review article “Exploit the Product Life Cycle” the concept has been widely accepted and applied by marketing practitioners all over the world.
The product life cycle concept is one of the most quoted and most frequently taught elements of marketing theory. According to Mercer (1993: 269) the influence of the product life cycle can be seen in other theories, from new product development, positioning & differentiation and portfolio analysis.
Since its adoption by marketing, the product life cycle (PLC) has achieved universal acceptance because of its appeal and wide application.
According to Weber (1976: 12) the product life cycle concept provides an intuitively appealing and readily understandable framework of analysis for considering future growth opportunities and pitfalls. As time passes sales increase slowly at first (introduction phase), then more quickly (growth phase), then once again more slowly (maturity and saturation phases), and finally decrease (decline phase). This assignment discusses the importance of repositioning and differentiating for an organization’s products or services using the concept of Product Life Cycle (PLC). It also critically analyses the actual practice an organization undertakes to repositioning or differentiating it products. Based on the critical analysis a set of recommendations are provided for the selected organization to improve its overall positioning & differentiating efforts during the various stages of PLC.
Within this context, the organization that is selected is Bahrain International Retail Development Centre (BIRD) which is one of the leading corporate training providers in Bahrain.
2. Discussion
2.1 Description of the selected organization- BIRD
Bahrain
References: • Levitt, T. (1965) Exploit the Product life cycle: Harvard Business Review: Vol.43: Nov- Dec:pp 81 -94 • Kotler, P., (1998), Marketing Management - analysis planning implementation and control, (9th ed.), Prentice Hall, Australia • Kotler, P. & Keller, K .L. (2006) Marketing Management: 12th eds:Pearson Education Limited: Upper Saddle river: New Jersey • Business 2000 case study: Extending the product life cycle through repositioning (http://www.business2000.ie/cases/cases_9th/case7.htm) • Weber, J.A. (1976) Planning Corporate Growth with inverted product lifecycle: Long range planning: Oct: 12 -29 • Mercer, D. (1993) A Two decade test of Product life cycle theory: British Journal of Management: Vol4: Issue 4: Dec: 269 – 274 • Swan, J. E. & David, R.R. (1982) Fitting Marketing Strategy into varying product life cycles: Business Horizons: 72 – 76 • Gerald, J. Tellis & Crawford, C. M. (1981) An evolutionary approach to Product growth theory: Journal of Marketing: Fall: 125 - 134