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 humble opinion I believe it’s very normal to have a capital and enough liquid to start a business after meeting with great minds and experienced PM.However the start of a race doesn’t really determine its victory,a good champion wins the race by staying relevant and keeping its existence genuine ,BBM was a thing while growing up,whereby everyone individual has the app and also bough the mobile phone , that was a good introduction and development by creating big awareness in the market and winning consumers mind.
Unfortunately they couldn’t stay relevant and were outdated by being stagnant and zero growth, the world evolve and android took over by introducing whatsapp and imessage and other messaging apps with generality in functions ,WhatsApp could work on any phone and unlike BBM that couldn’t work on other phones aside BLACKBERRY.
Growth is the most crucial part and that’s relevant in any product lifetime .
All the stages of the life cycle is important but the Maturity stage for me is crucial in keeping the product relevant as it is the evaluation of mistakes from the development to growth stage and this helps in maintaining the product value and meeting the consumer’s need as well if solved efficiently.
In my opinion, the Growth Stage is the most important phase in the Product Life Cycle (PLC). During this stage, a product has already been introduced and tested in the market, but it is now beginning to gain traction. The reason this stage stands out is that it’s when a product moves from early adopters to a broader audience, which directly impacts the success of the product and brand.
At this point, customer feedback is essential, and businesses must optimize their marketing strategies, customer service, and distribution channels to expand market share. For instance, in my experience as a virtual assistant, I once helped a startup launch a new service. The initial product had good reviews, but once we hit the growth phase, we focused on fine-tuning the service, optimizing the website for ease of use, and amplifying our social media presence. This led to a significant uptick in inquiries and conversions, proving that the growth phase is key to establishing long-term success.
In a real-world example, companies like Apple rely heavily on the growth stage for their products to gain momentum. When the iPhone first launched, it was critical for Apple to position itself as the go-to brand, ensuring not just functionality but strong brand loyalty—leading to the iPhone’s dominance in the smartphone market today
I think the development stage is the most important stage in the product lifecycle as it serves as the backbone and foundation on which the other stages stand on.
It involves a lot of research, analysis, testing, failing, testing again, refining and the likes.
This is not to say that other stages are not as important, however a lot of work should be put into the development stage.
From my point of view, there a three most important stages a Product Manager must put into consideration in the life cycle of a product which are the Development stage, the Growth stage and the Decline stage.
The Product Manager has the responsibility of finding out why the product or service should come into existence, expected target audience, the quality of the product,the price of the commodity, the value of the product or services and customer preferences.
For a product not to decline, suffer loss or loose value in the market place, the Product Manager must from time to time monitor the level of growth of the business or product through quantitative survey, customer feedback and changes in customer behavior for the product to remain afloat and stay relevant in the market place. The Product Manager can also achieve this through innovation and creativity.
For Example; Always pad upon its introduction in the market was highly purchased and preferred by customers some years ago but now customers rarely go for Always anymore they now prefer Software, Virony pad to Always due to the difference in quality and value despite the cost of Software and Virony pad; these two are now highly preferred and purchased in the market.
I would say that the development stage is the most important, cause this is where renovation, re-invention takes place which ensures continual market relevance
All stages are crucial but as for me introduction stage requires more attention and a lot of effort because you’ll have to do research and understand every detail of the product and get to know your audience and how you expect it to perform.
For me, I think the introduction stage the most important, because, the rate at which a Product will be accepted when it is introduced will give the PM an insight of how important and useful the product would be. Therefore giving the PM a clear sight of how he should handle the growth and the decline stage to meet a prospective wider market or audience.
All stages are important in the product life cycle but I feel disposition at the decline stage is important to the product
How we manage the decline stage is very important and crucial to minimize any loss that might be envisaged.
Then at this stage some round table talk needs to be done to decide what to do with the product either to withdraw or discontinued, reposition or rebound
Looking into the mobile space,blackberry was way before most of our recent technologies but couldn’t keep up with the market and so instead of fizzing out of the market entirely, they ventured into something else.
When we envisage a loss or setback as a product manager we need to look out for way forward and how to regain the market my opinion though
I choose the development stage because I believe the foundation of everything matters. When trying to develop a product, you look at all the pros and cons and from that stage you can be able to determine, to an extent, the importance and elasticity of such product.