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.
Having thoroughly gone through the stages and considering the stiff competition and need to stay relevant. The Development stage seems to be the most important. This is where the vision and strategy of the product is decided which sets the stage on what happens in the other stages. A poorly (does not solve problem intended for the customer) structured/crafted product will be useless hence other stages may not be reached. Given each stage require different strategy to be successful, I think a product properly tailored to the customer’s needs will shorten the Introduction Stage, impact the growth stage positively, and together with other strategies elongate the maturity stage thereby delaying decline.
Odinfe David Chika
Cohort4
Team7
Using the Product Lifecycle to Manage Product Strategy
This is particularly true of the Maturity phase. This is the most important one to extend from a financial point of view because this is the period when the product is at its most profitable.
As all aspect of a products life cycle is important to ensure having a good sales. But the development stage is very crucial because without a proper research and development of a product the consumer’s won’t have a good user experience even after the product been properly introduced.
I think all stages of the product life cycle are important as one can’t be without the other.
But to answer your question, looking at it critically, the development stage is most important as that’s the first thing you need to get right on order to have a successful product. So coming up with a product (solution) that meet users’ needs and business goals and objectives is crucial if you want to have a viable product.
On April 23 1985, Coca cola announced a new formula for it’s popular beverage, referred to as be come due to its shares
continue decrease over last 15years. So the company decided to launch a new recipe in hopes of reinvigorating product interest. 79days after its launch, new Coke’s full product life cycle was complete. The product didn’t experience much growth because its introduction to the market was met with heavy protest. And in less than three months coca cola announced it would revert its product back to the original.
I would say the most important phase Is the development phase because that is when you get the the idea of the product you are designing, who your audience are going to be how you want your product to solve certain issues and so much more.
It is crystal clear that we intend to solve what we see as consumers problem. So, when coming up with a product, the core stage is the development stage.
Reasons
1. Because this stage prepare and explains what needs to be done in other stages.
2. Because strategic and analysis plans base on facts and not believe, contradictory comments from consumers and other facts are condiments that make up this stage.
3. As a product manager, this stage (Development stage) is the stage where all the consumers expectations are met. Other stages only need follow up because there are blueprint on how it will be done.
I would say all stages are very important, as one cannot exist without the other, the effort you put into the first stage would determine the outcome of the next stage, in thesame vein the overall performance of all the stages will determine success of a product.
However, it is crucial to keep the product in the growth stage.
For me the most important stage of production is the development stage.
I would say the introduction stage is the most important stage in the product life cycle. When a product does not meet the needs of the consumer it’s definitely won’t pass the introduction stage before it fades off the market.
I recall doing marketing for a particular sanitary pad which was new at the time, one thing I noticed was that the life cycle of the product was short because consumers complained that the sanitary pad didn’t retain/absorb blood like existing sanitary pads in the market
Development stage is the most critical one. Research and development has to be firm to give us fully fledged product idea that will meet customer need