Question

Select a product you are familiar with and explain the stages of the product’s life cycle and different ways in which a company can extend its mature stage. As there are literally millions of products from which to choose, please NO duplications

I think that it is important to first understand what the product life cycle is, before we can consider how to improve it. The Product Life Cycle includes four major stages: Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and finally Decline. During the introduction stage the company is still organizing their ideas on the product and producing their model design or sample product. In the Growth stages, sales are booming and profits and increasing. Maturity stage offers the most struggle, and with proper strategy can be maintained. Then the product market becomes over saturated with competing products and the sales begin the declining stages.

Answer 1

Product cycle model:

• It was fully developed by Vernon in 1966.
• According to it, when a new product is introduced, it usually requires highly skilled labor to produce. As the product matures and acquires mass acceptance , it becomes standardized and therefore, comparative advantage shifts from the innovator to the imitator country.
• It also leads to intra-industry trade.
• Ways to extend the mature stage: It can be extended by creating a technological gap (Posner,1961) which means that by introducing some new innovation to the production process or the product itself. By this the maturity stage can be extended.

Note: Example of product here can be taken as smartphone. (perfect example)