What do you think is the most important stage in a product’s life cycle?
The product life cycle (2021)
Now that you have covered the basics of the product life cycle, complete the following exercise.
Instructions: Determining the most important stage in the cycle
- Reflect on what you think is the most important stage in this cycle.
- Write your answer in the discussion below, and explain why you think your chosen PLC stage is the most important.
- Try to find a real-world example that you can use in answering this. It might be an example from your professional experience or one you’ve found elsewhere.
- Reflect on at least one of comments from random learners below. Do you agree with their response? How do their experiences differ from yours?
Molly Campbell
What comes to mind as the most important stage for me is the decline stage. With the ever changing tech landscape, I feel that apps/websites etc have such a difficult task of staying relevant. Social media apps are what I thought of in this situation. Apps/sites such as Facebook or Instagram are now competing with SnapChat and TikTok, so both have updated their functions to include more video and filters, etc to be relevant in that market. They are trying extremely hard to prevent their decline and become obsolete. I do agree with others that development is very important as well, and the example I gave may have to go back to the development stage in a sense to redesign and update things to meet consumer demands.
Christina Bek Larsen
As it is a cycle, I find it very difficult to point to one stage as the most important one. One stage doesn’t exist without the previous one, I suppose. I think each stage requires something specific from the PM. With competition and evolving needs in mind, I am thinking about the growth stage as being a tricky stage. To keep relevant and ensure your rpoduct is growing seems like a challenge.
Ibukun Oni
I think the “Development stage” is the most important phase because if the right product is not developed to meet the needs of customers, then efforts during the other stages become futile.
I recall developing a digital product, the first assignment of the project team was to ensure that the product met the needs of our customers.
Chibuzo Anazodo
I think the Development stage is the most important because that is where you figure out what fits your consumers needs as well as trends in your industry to adapt or avoid to build a product that will thrive through all stages and still remain relevant after Maturity.
Peter Scheinsohn
I would say introduction, is most important step in the product life cycle. Even, if product was properly developed, but not good enough introduced and advertised or not clear enough introduced for which group it is, it will significantly influence its further growth. However, i also agree that proper development stage and growth stage are also very important, but good start (“introduction”) is vital in my humble opinion.
What a lesson!!
Thank you for this beautiful aspect of products, product management and it’s proactiveness through its life cycle – from the developmental stage to the decline.
For me, all stages are important as one cannot do without the other. I have reasons why I chose this answer and I will
analyze my response using two or three stages of a product’s life cycle.
One, developing a product should not be centered around making gain and profit. The reason for the emergence of the product should be to meet the needs of the world and solve societal problems. This stage is very important and should not be neglected. Once this is sorted, we can begin to hold dearly to the financial gain that comes with it’s emergence. Of course, the figures are worked on from the start, but, it should not get us carried away and have our attention shifted from the very important aspect – which is client satisfaction and image building.
Two, the introduction stage is that part where you have to get it right as it determines how high the product will fly or how far the product will go. Strategy is important, risk taking is essential and proactiveness is expedient as lacking any of these will bring about the failure of the product before it even begins. Whatever is done here will determine what happens at the growth stage.
Three, let’s talk about this stage before I give my conclusion. The Maturity stage. This stage for me is the self awareness stage and it requires your dedication and attentiveness. This is the stage where you do not get carried away with the profits made, the popularity of the product and it’s high demand. You do not need to wait for a product to fail before you carry out your research, check the market for upcoming products or competitions, do a self or product examination to see where things were done wrongly, collect data, get clients or customer feedback and to see how these mistakes can be converted to styles or designs rather than have it escalate to the point of failure. This stage is the stage where you get to leverage your popularity and maybe introduce if not new products but a continuous or better improved part of the product to keep your customers or clients satisfied and glued to you and your offerings.
For me, no stage is more important, all stages are important depending on how you view them and understand the roles they play to bring about success.
Thank you.
Well to me I think the most important stage is the Maturity stage because that’s where more work is expected to be put in because of the competition
We can use social media for an example
These days people use tik tok and instagram more and rarely use facebook so the team has to improve the quality and update it to the standard of the other apps so it can still remain at the level it was.
I think the growth stage is the most important because it is at that point the product manager will know if the product solved any problems efficiently and also creates room for improvement and iteration to prolong it before the maturity stage. I think this is why Apple brings out new product frequently so they can still maintain their Growth phase
The Growth phase; it is a very pivotal phase as there room for a lot of feedback, and the team has room to actively make improvements on the products and services to fit into the exact customer needs.
I think the development stage is the most important stage of a product life cycle. This is the foundation of the product for if everything goes well in the development stage, their is an increase chance the product will succeed and stand a test of time in the market. This stage births all other stage as its outcome highly influence highly influences every other stages outcomes.
I think the decline stage is the most important stage for me.
To me, I feel this is how and when you come to realization of how important your product is in the market well it’s doing in the market. In this stage, it’s an either you regret or you appreciate ever taking the step of building that product in the first place.
How you manage to keep your product in the market is very important.
Take X formerly known as Twitter for example, they try very hard to introduce new features and keep activities going on the app. Look at how making money on X as a user came in all of a sudden, no user would have thought of that from the beginning.
So I’ll say how well you keep your product relevant in the market and never let it fall is what’s important to me.
In order to succeed in one stage of life circle, all the five stages of life circle must be put into consideration.
I will say that the most important life circle, is the development stage.
Products must be developed to meet the needs of the customer. A product is said to be useful to the consumer, when it meets the needs and purpose of it’s manufacturing.
I think all the stages are important, because they all depend on each other somewhat. But one stage stands out for me and that is the development stage- I think it is paramount, because if this stage is properly managed well the product has a better chance of surviving through the other stages. When you understand you market, your consumer needs and the problem the product is looking to solve it becomes easier to always go back to the drawing board if there becomes a brick-wall, getting the development stage right also makes it easy and leaves the product open for innovations and expansions.
All stages are important, but the most paramount of them all is the development stage. Let’s take a good look at Tesla owned by Elon musk. Without proper exploration and innovation of electric cars to solve a given problem which is petroleum based car, His company will not grow, nor mature in the market space.
In my opinion, I feel the “growth” stage in a product lifecycle holds paramount importance as it signifies widespread market acceptance, revenue acceleration, and the establishment of a robust customer base. While each stage contributes to overall success, the growth phase not only validates a product’s viability but also propels it towards sustainable profitability, making it a pivotal driver of long-term success.