Product life cycle management

Product life cycle management (or PLCM) is the succession of strategies used by business management as a product goes through its life cycle. The conditions in which a product is sold (advertising, saturation) changes over time and must be managed as it moves through its succession of stages.
Product life cycle (PLC) Like human beings, products also have a life-cycle. From birth to death, human beings pass through various stages e.g. birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. A similar life-cycle is seen in the case of products. The product life cycle goes through multiple phases, involves many professional disciplines, and requires many skills, tools and processes. Product life cycle (PLC) has to do with the life of a product in the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures. To say that a product has a life cycle is to assert three things:
Products have a limited life,
Product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller,
Products require different marketing, financing, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each life cycle stage.
The four main stages of a product's life cycle and the accompanying characteristics are:
Stage Characteristics
1. Market introduction stage
costs are very high
slow sales volumes to start
little or no competition
demand has to be created
customers have to be prompted to try the product
makes no money at this stage
2. Growth stage
costs reduced due to economies of scale
sales volume increases significantly
profitability begins to rise
public awareness increases
competition begins to increase with a few new players in establishing market
increased competition leads to price decreases
3. Maturity stage
costs are lowered as a result of production volumes increasing and experience curve effects
sales volume peaks and market saturation is reached
increase in competitors entering the market
prices tend to drop due to the proliferation of competing products
brand differentiation and feature diversification is emphasized to maintain or increase market share
Industrial profits go down
4. Saturation and decline stage
costs become counter-optimal
sales volume decline or stabilize
prices, profitability diminish
profit becomes more a challenge of production/distribution efficiency than increased sales