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.
In my own opinion,all the stages are important but the “most” important stage is the development stage,this is because it is at this stage that you make market research,carry out surveys,identify the problems you are trying to solve and come up with a solution for it which is the product you’d design,at this point,you look out for a whole lot of things,you develop sustainability plan for the product in the market space,if the processes in the stage are not effectively followed and carried out, definitely the product will have a problem in other stages and this would really affect the success of such product.
In my perspective, I would say no single stage is the “most important”, but the DEVELOPMENT STAGE might have the strongest claim for being foundational bcause if the product’s vision, target market, and value proposition are not defined during development, there would be a weak foundation and it leads to failure in later stages.
I remember when google glasses was launched in 2014 but pulled from the market in 2015. relaunched in 2019 and it was removed from the market that same year in 2019. Despite the innovative concept, the development stage failed to address key concerns like privacy, practicality and pricing, which hindered its later success.
I would say the Maturity stage is the most important of a product life cycle. With what I have learned so far I believe if a product can survive the maturity stage, then that product will last a lifetime in the market space. A good example is the Hawanians(not sure of the spelling).
They knew the flip flop slippers was already showing signs of being matured and demands may start declining soon if a new development is not added to it. They acted swiftly and till today they remain relevant in the market space.
All phase are important, The growth phase is critical for establishing a strong market presence during revenue growth and setting the stage for long term success
The development stage is what I think will be the most important, because it precedes other stages and all stages depends on the research and analytics put in the development process
While all stages of a PLC are important, I believe the growth stage is most crucial for a product manager. This is the stage where a product gains popularity and stats to make money. During the growth stage, a creative product manager needs to come up with new ideas to keep the product exciting and relevant could include adding new features, improving existing ones, or even finding new ways to market the product. people get bored easily when there’s nothing new or important to keep them engaged. By constantly innovating and adapting to changing trends, a product manager can ensure that their product stays ahead of the competition and continues to grow.
The development stage of a product life cycle is the most important stage. The reason is that before developing a product, the organization should think about the problem the product will solve for consumers.
For example, paracetamol never goes out of the market. Almost every household has paracetamol in their homes. It grows from the development stage to the maturity stage, still solving people’s problems. A product should have long-term problem-solving capabilities. A product only declines when there are no future problems to solve. Continuous problem-solving is what keeps a product in the market and makes consumers loyal customers.
In product life cycle, the most important stage of the cycle is the introduction. Why I think it is the introduction is because during the introduction of any product, either you get more deals for or against the product. People tend to come to be stakeholders or shareholders during that phase. If there were any technical aspects that were not really handled during the development stage, they use the feedback mechanism to correct and then send it out for final consumption which later improvements will rely on.
When it comes to product cycle I won’t point out the most important stage because each stage is important in one way or the other. Each stage derives it’s own satisfaction to the customer so in my own opinion all the stages are significant
I will say the introduction stage seem to be the most tricky. Having spend so much in terms of resources,mental stress etc. Only to find the product being rejected by the consumer due to their personal reasons or biases could be so frustrating.
I could remember my experience as an enterprise resource planner in a biscuit company.We had some of our cookies introduced to the market that failed woefully despite the investments put into it