Examine each stage of the product life cycle. Which stage do you think is most important? Which stage has the highest risk? Which stage seems to hold the greatest profit potential? Which stage would seem to need the greatest amount of ''hands-on'' management?

 

There are 4 stages in a Product Life Cycle, namely: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline.

Let me give you a short description about each cycle, in the Introduction phase this is where the product is released to the market. Second, the Growth phase is where consumers have already knew about your existence and the number of buyers are increasing. Third, Maturity phase is where the sales of the product tends to slow or even stop and lastly the Decline phase is where the product have already significantly drop in the market.

Among the four phases of the product cycle, what is considered to be the most important is the INTRODUCTION PHASE.

As I have previously mentioned that this is the phase wherein you are going to introduce your product to the target market, it is where the marketing and promotions are at high. The business often invest so much in order to attract their potential customers. The reason why this is considered as the important phase, because this is where you have to pour out all the efforts because you are offering a new product in the market. It is where you have to ensure that you have been able to catch the attention of the right audience for the products that you are going to offer. People would have high expectations with the product that you are releasing, therefore it is just fitting that you exceed their expectations and that is through pouring much efforts.

Just like when you are presenting in front of many, you have to ensure that during the introduction part of your speech you have already been able to catch the attention of your audience because that is the important step before continuing on to the next, same is through with products you have to ensure that during the introduction phase all the strategies are put in place, because once during the introduction phase you will flop, then the rest will follow all throughout the cycle. Meaning the release of your new product in the market has the greater chances of not becoming successful because it is in the introduction stage that you ensure that you have been able to attract the right audience.

Among the four, the stage that imposes high risk is the MATURITY STAGE.

All of the stages imposes risk, however this is the stage wherein it has higher risk compared to the two. In Maturity stage, the sales of the product tends so slow down or worse stop, this is already a sign that there is a large saturated market. And this is a risk for the business, because it is clearly evident that they would be incurring losses already once they continue offering the product and not revising the strategies. However sometimes, revision of strategies won't work most especially when the reason why the product has reached in this stage is because they already found a substitute product from what you are offering. Since the business is already at risk during this stage, the prices of the products tend to be more competitive. The market becomes highly saturated, therefore the product becomes less successful. Therefore the business would either innovate or increase their market share by offering or developing another new product to meet the demands of their customers in the end of the spectrum. The risk of losing sales, although not permanently depending upon the course of action the marketers would do, is there. This stage is pretty much inevitable, therefore businesses have to ensure that they are prepared for what might happen because no matter how good they we're during the introduction and growth phase, there would really come a time wherein the product will mature in the market and customers are unpredictable, hence the reason why we would always follow their demands to keep in track in the competition.

The stage wherein it holds the greatest profit potential is the GROWTH STAGE

In the growth stage, consumers are already purchasing the product, continuously buying it from time to time, more so they have been able to influence other people to patronize your products. Meaning the sales of the business is already increasing, therefore More customers is equivalent to earning greater profits. This is so because the product that you have launched in the market is already drawing attention to your target audience, not just that but also those customers who we're beyond your expectation.

As the products continue to grow, the market itself expands, which is another factor of contributing greater profit for the business. As the market expands, competition becomes for heating and sometimes the prices often drives down to make sure such products are still in track for the competition, however despite such the sales are still increasing in volume hence generation revenue.

The stage that needs a "hands-on" by the management is during the DECLINE STAGE.

During this stage, the sales of the product significantly drop and the behavior of your consumers have already changes since there have been a lesser demand for the product. Therefore the business has the tendency of losing it's market share. Although this is inevitable, however management has to ensure that during this stage they are hands on, that they don't just leave their products declining. They have to ensure that despite the decline of a certain product, they have something new to offer for their customers so that the cycle would continue, the generation of revenue will continue. Despite the fact of incurring loses, when the business is prepared for the happening of such, they would be able to bounce back easily from what they have lost. It is important the management of the business has really prepared even during the planning process. Once they just leave the product behind and just see it declining, then the possibility of their business to be down is there, so therefore management should be hand's on during this stage to avoid as well losing their business, remember that you cannot do something when your product reached this stage because it is part of the cycle, but you can do something for the business to pursue despite the decline of such product and that is through being hands on.