Strategy, Competition and Performance in Different Phases of Product Life Cycle

Question 3 Briefly discuss the strategy, competition and performance in different phases of Product Life Cycle. Illustrate PART 1: PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MODEL DESCRIPTION The product’s life cycle - period usually consists of five major steps or phases:Product development, Product introduction, Product growth, Product maturity andfinally Product decline. These phases exist and are applicable to all products or services from a certain make of automobile to a multimillion-dollar lithography tool to a one-cent capacitor. These phases can be split up into smaller ones depending on the product and must be considered when a new product is to be introduced into a market since they dictate the product’s sales performance. Product Life Cycle Graph ( Reference : William D. & McCarthy J. E. Product Life Cycle: “Essentials of Marketing”, Richard D Irwin Company, 1997.)

1. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PHASE Product development phase begins when a company finds and develops a new produc tidea. This involves translating various pieces of information and incorporating them into a new product. A product is usually undergoing several changes involving a lot of money and time during development, before it is exposed to target customers via test markets. Those products that survive the test market are then introduced into a real marketplace and the introduction phase of the product begins. During the product development phase, sales are zero and revenues are negative. It is the time of spending with absolute no return. For example: - Research and development for New medicines and alternative medicines for Hypertension and Diabetes ( New Drug molecule development) 2. INTRODUCTION PHASE The introduction phase of a product includes the product launch with its requirements to getting it launch in such a way so that it will have maximum impact at the moment of sale. A good example of such a launch is the launch of “Windows XP” by Microsoft Corporation.