The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is a strategic marketing concept pioneered by Dean (1950); it was employed by marketing executives to maximise the successful implementation and profitability of new products.
The concept is a useful tool that divides a product’s life cycle into four central categories: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline.
Levitt (1965) identified four further categories to extend the product life during the Maturity phase:
• Frequent usage
• Varied usage
• New users
• New usage
Buzzell (1966) believed PLC to be a “generalised model of the sale trend for a product…and of related changes in competitive behaviour”. He failed to recognise the scope and variables that could be incorporated in the PLC tool to control the demarcation cycle of products for budgetary and environmental planning.
CESIM doesn’t have the sophistication to encompass the level of product management the PLC tool can provide. We can emulate aspects of product development but not copyright protection of products USP (unique selling point). Copyright forces competing companies, who enter the growth phase of the PLC, to innovate their competing product as they seek to expand the market.
The failure to include consumables, such as contracts, in CESIM also severely reduces our options to expand the shelf life of products in the maturity phase of the PLC.
PLC as an analytical tool allowed us to View our product with: – Wider perspective: Forward thinking: A proactive, not reactive approach. As Kar (2011) commented “without effective product lifecycle management, success mapping and product phase-outs would be virtually impossible”.
A broad market perspective can identify a products place in its lifecycle and in this respect; the PLC concept is now in the maturity phase.