The best way to manage a company is to be competitive. The competition is growing due to the globalization, which has caused the arrival of so many new emerging markets such as China.
This is why companies are looking for an efficient management for both staff and marketing mix in order to be successful. It also involves that marketing managers need to understand how markets develop over time according to social and political changes as well as technological trends in order better to plan and to manage products, their lifecycles and their marketing strategies.
Three components are involved in market evolution: The way in which customers adopt new products, the evolution and acceptance of technology and, finally, the impact of competition. Consequently, it appears very useful to explain what I mean by the word "strategic" even if everyone can give his own definition.
In my opinion, strategy is a plan of action which is made in order to achieve a specific goal in the long term without to forget to take in consideration the environment of the company and to know exactly what are the resources that you have at your disposal.
Despite markets keep evaluating, senior executives still make use of different famous pattern which are very important for their decision-making and to drive a company with success.
[...] The Product Life Cycle, which is one of the most famous model and one of the most used by companies, appears to be unavoidable for the launch of a new product. However, this model has been strongly criticized and it appears that it is too general and consequently it is not applicable to the whole part of business companies. Indeed, it is sometimes inappropriate to certain market or to certain product as well as companies. We can add that the pattern is not adapted to the current situation which is characterized by the globalization. [...]
[...] We can consequently predict that in the next few years the Product Life cycle will be strongly affected because of the globalization and, therefore, the functioning of change will change. On the other hand, consumer's behavior has also changed. In the past consumers were used to buy a special brand or product but they are currently changing their way of consumption. Buying is more impulsive and, above all they are not faithful at all. The attractiveness of the product manages their behavior and they are not looking at the brand. [...]
[...] It means that thanks to this pattern, managers are looking for a constant evolution which follows the life cycle of the product in order to generate long term profits instead of higher short term profits. If managers want to make money too quickly, they will stop following the Product Life Cycle model and so, they will be exposed to different risks such as a lack of advertising which can prompt a loss of market share and consequently a loss of profit. [...]
[...] The last stage of the product life cycle is the decline. Indeed, consumer's behavior has changed and they are looking for other product or, similar product is imported but they are cheaper. There is new technological innovation and new products enter on the market. Sales volume decline or stabilize. Profit becomes more a challenge of production or distribution efficiency than increased sales. Almost all companies use this pattern in order to anticipate the future and to keep being competitive. According to F.Brassington and S.Pettitt, “Products, like people live a life. [...]
[...] Those factors are valid before the launch of the product but senior executives have also to be very reactive. It can happen that there is an important change on the market after the introduction of the product. Indeed, the manager has to find an issue to resolve the problem and can have the possibility to adopt a most appropriate strategy. For example, even if the market has been analyzed before, a competitor can launch a similar product at the same time. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
