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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with
Product_lifecycle_management and Product_management to
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This article is about the commercial term to describe the life of a product in the market.
For the engineering term, see Product lifecycle management.
Product life cycle management (or PLCM) is the succession of strategies used by
business management as a product goes through its life cycle. The conditions in which a
product is sold (advertising, saturation) changes over time and must be managed as it
moves through its succession of stages.
Product life cycle (PLC) Like human beings, products also have a life-cycle. From birth
to death, human beings pass through various stages e.g. birth, growth, maturity, decline
and death. A similar life-cycle is seen in the case of products. The product life cycle goes
through multiple phases, involves many professional disciplines, and requires many
skills, tools and processes. Product life cycle (PLC) has to do with the life of a product in
the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures. To say that a
product has a life cycle is to assert three things:
The four main stages of a product's life cycle and the accompanying characteristics are:
Stage Characteristics
1. costs are very high
2. slow sales volumes to start
3. little or no competition
1. Market
4. demand has to be created
introduction stage
5. customers have to be prompted to try the product
• 7 External links
In the process of building a product following defined procedure, an RFD is a request for
authorization, granted prior to the manufacture of an item, to depart from a particular
performance
Market identification
Termination is not always 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.products need to
be recognised in the market based upon the characterstics it has.
Limitations
The PLC model offers some degree of usefulness to marketing managers, in that it is
based on factual assumptions. Nevertheless, it is difficult for marketing management to
gauge accurately where a product is on its PLC graph. A rise in sales per se is not
necessarily evidence of growth. A fall in sales per se does not typify decline.
Furthermore, some products do not (or to date, at the least, have not) experienced a
decline. Coca Cola and Pepsi are examples of two products that have existed for many
decades, but are still popular products all over the world. Both modes of cola have been
in maturity for some years.
Another factor is that differing products would possess different PLC "shapes". A fad
product would hold a steep sloped growth stage, a short maturity stage, and a steep
sloped decline stage. A product such as Coca Cola and Pepsi would experience growth,
but also a constant level of sales over a number of decades. It can probably be said that a
given product (or products collectively within an industry) may hold a unique PLC shape,
and the typical PLC model can only be used as a rough guide for marketing management.
This is why its called the product life cycle. The duration of PLC stages is unpredictable.
It is not possible to predict when maturity or decline will begin. Strict adherence to PLC
can lead a company to misleading objectives and strategy prescriptions.
See also
• Product management
• New product development
• Software product management
• Technology lifecycle
• Product lifecycle management
• Extending product life cycles
• Material selection
• Toolkits for user innovation
• Application lifecycle management
• Obsolescence
• Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS)
• Planned obsolescence
• Product teardown
References
• Box, J. (1983) Extending product lifetime: Prospects and opportunities, European
Journal of Marketing, vol 17, 1983, pp 34–49.
• Day, G. (1981) The product life cycle: Analysis and applications issues, Journal
of Marketing, vol 45, Autumn 1981, pp 60–67.
• Levitt, T. (1965) Exploit the product life cycle, Harvard Business Review, vol 43,
November-December 1965, pp 81–94.
• Dhalla, N.K., Yuspeh, S. (1976) Forget the product life cycle concept, 'Harvard
Business Review', Jan-Feb 1976
• Rey F.J., Martín-Gil J., Velasco E. et al.(2004) Life Cycle Assessment and
external environmental cost analysis of heat pumps, Environmental Engineering
Science, vol 21, September 2004, pp 591–605
• Westkämper, E. (2000) Live Cycle Management and Assessment. Approaches
and Visions Towards Sustainable Manufacturing, Annals of the CIRP, Vol.
49/2/2000, p. 501-522
External links
• Public Works and Government Services Canada
• PLCM with FACTON
Retrieved from
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle_management_(marketing)"
Categories: Business terms | Product management | Management
Hidden categories: Articles to be merged from May 2011 | All articles to be merged
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