Today, we will discuss about product life cycle(PLC), which plays a important role for any development team. Being a part of the product team in a startup means strategizing marketing, pricing and development of products or services while keeping the marketing requirements and trends in mind.
To sell a good product requires great marketing ideas and knowledge of the PLC. PLC is a prominent marketing model that is recognize and followed by a majority of startups and business owners.
This marketing model provides manufacturers with an understanding of how they can expect their products to perform throughout their lifetime.
What is Product Life Cycle?
PLC can be define as the progress and development of the product from when it is develop till the time it is discontinue. A simpler way of understanding it will be – the PLC is the illustration of a product’s lifespan.
It helps business owners to determine the development process, pricing, predict profitability, and compete with other businesses.
Product life cycle is majorly into four different stages:
Introduction: The introduction stage of the PLC is the phase where the product team introduces the product to the market.In this phase. The business owners focus on marketing efforts to raise awareness about the new product. Business owners need to adopt a pricing strategy as well, as developing a product requires an appropriate amount of budget.
Growth: The growth phase of the product life cycle is not only exciting for business owners but also equally challenging. It can also be consider as the crucial period for product growth, as new competitors emerge in the market.
This phase of the product life cycle requires high-level marketing that further helps in building the brand. Right marketing strategies acquired at the introduction or development phase of the product help increase the sale in the growth phase. The business owners generally focus on expanding their market share during this phase.
Maturity: This phase defines the saturation level of the product. After making it through the introduction and growth phase, products spend the maximum time of their lifespan in maturity phase. The sale of the product will slowly reach a particular number and eventually stabilize.
The development, production and marketing costs are at the lowest in this phase. Many businesses need to adopt different strategies to keep the product in the maturity stage such as :
Introducing new features to stay ahead of competitors and adopting new pricing strategies to attract new customers.
Decline: Nothing lasts forever. This quote has come true for many businesses or startups. Decline phase is the last stage of the product life cycle. It starts with decreasing demands and sales of the product and declining profits.
Many businesses struggle to stay in the market, but the competing items start gaining the upper hand whereas a few see this phase as a new opportunity for their product. Startups focus on rebranding the product for target audiences, offering products or services at discounted prices, or re-bundling the product with high-demand products or services.
Challenges and limitations in the PLC:
The product life cycle goes through many challenges and limitations such as lack of technical competency that helps you to convert your idea into a minimum viable product (MVP).
When it comes to the development and architecture of the product, the lack of knowledge can completely change the quality and operations of the product. Varying market conditions can also be consider as a major challenge in terms of marketing and promotion of the product.
Role of PLC services:
While the product life cycle is full of many ups and downs, the right marketing tools and product life cycle services can support a product at all stages.
Many digital platform helps enterprises connect to innovators and develop custom applications for the full life cycle of products. The product life cycle services are always based on advanced technology and tools that help business owners develop the product quickly.
So, in this blog we discussed about product life cycle. Hope you like it. For more technical blog – Technology Tags
