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13 Apr

Posted by Scott Archer Comments off

Among the challenges that marketers face in real life experiences versus school theories is the application of what we learn in our professional life. Schools updating many times the books they use to reflect market development are limited. Even when a good deal of undertake to do it, they are not capable to gather sufficient examples to prepare you for real life experiences. By all means, they can not instruct you a life time experience in a 3 credits course.

When I studied Business, I focalized on selling courses. I liked the field but I never thought I will be journeying to so a heap of countries and exposed to dissimilar cultures. No university could have prepared me to such experience, yet I was taught the basics.

One of the conceptions I learned in marketing is the Product Life Cycle (PLC) and it is effects on the selling mix. PLC is a term used to define the respective stages that a product goes through. From it is conception to it is production, it is maturity to it is decline, the product goes through multiple phases and they are commonly referred to as: Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline. Although I find PLC to be a sales conception rather than marketing, the interrelation amongst sales and retail makes the involvement of the marketers necessary as they will have to adopt respective approaches when facing the dissimilar stages.

Most of the articles I read regarding the PLC assume that the product is new, the contest is low to none, and that clients need to be educated and prompted to act towards the product. How in regards to the not so new products? What if you are launching a competitory product in the market? Does your PLC follow your competitor’s product PLC? My answer is no.

I have worked in multiple types of markets varying from ones where my company had monopoly over mobile telecommunication to exceedingly competitory markets where we were the 4th operator to enter the market. I applied the PLC as a reference though I believe that the decline phase in mobile communication is not something that I will see in my lifetime consequently my preference in using the term Product Cycle versus Product Life Cycle. Surely, I watched the decline of a great deal of technologies used, only to be substituted by newer ones (AMPS versus GSM for example), I have also seen companies sold to more spectacular ones without affecting the presence of the product itself (mobile communication).

As I undertake to define the product cycle below, the reader ought to take into considerateness that my approach is based on a professional experience to introduce a long term product in a competitory market by linking it to the retail mix versus defining it is characteristics from a sales point of view.

1. Introduction:

Product: Voice telephony is already known to the public. The investment in educating the public regarding the product is slim to none. Branding is normally what I focus on in order for the public to distinguish my product and be competent to discern it from my competitors’,
Price: “Skim the cream” pricing was applicable when I worked for a company that monopolized the mobile telecommunication. The pricing policy to employ needs to be closely in line with my competitors, since it needs to attract clients without causing a price war amidst the operators (Fact: Companies need you as a client for your money)
Place: Distribution depends on the type of market. If you have sufficient flexibleness you may opt for direct sales thru your own shops, through already established distribution channels (when existent distributors are not bound by your competitors’ exclusivity contracts) or by using the franchising approach. Usually I am faced with budget limitation and I get started with using the existent distribution channels.
Promotion: Probably the most necessary development in this stage. You will need to position yourself by differentiating yourself from your competition. Your message will have to be clear; you are not just another mobile operator. You need to build public cognizance in regards to your product without forgetting to position yourself in this competitory market. Depending on your strategy, your message is targeting the standard public or the niche you are aiming for. Usually I begin by targeting the usual public since mobile telephony is used on a massive scale.

I ought to mention that commonly at this stage I am introducing the basic mobile services. Due to the huge investment made by the company it is not logical to invest in a multiple level of services accordingly increasing the expenditures. However the basic level of services will have to be capable to offer a sure level of flexibleness that warrants positioning as a competitor.

2. Growth:

It is commonly the stage where the company is building the branding differentiation. If your positioning message was well thought of at the introduction stage, then you already differentiated yourself from the competition. By now, if you have not achieved your target, you are probably working in a dissimilar company. You will have to learn from your mistake, altho schemes a very utile in retail tactics are as crucial in competitory markets.

Product: Enhance quality while focusing on your message to the target market. In the companies I worked for, heightening quality is ordinarily increasing coverage areas and upgrading congested sites. You may also want to introduce new services that help your product. I commonly have SMS based services launched at this stage.
Price: It will ordinarily depend on the competition. You do not want to be the original to begin a price war yet you will have to be ready for it in particular if your selling scheme reflected it is success into a declining market percentage for your competitors. If you had launched new services you may be capable to set your own pricing if your contenders do not have them. Beware of setting high prices for those services though, your contenders may be capable to launch them more immediate than you could expect.
Place: You have introduced your product; it’s time to exaggerate your distribution channels. Identify the weaknesses of the introductory stage and try to explore the possibilities. At this stage I am ordinarily adding a direct presence in the critical areas and adding incentives to give hope or courage to exclusivity.
Promotion: Due to the type of product I am dealing with this is where I target the niche segment, altho I keep the standard public message.

3. Maturity:

Your challengers are pushing hard, and so ought to you. When the original two stages are finish with great success you have already guaranteed a market part that you want to keep. Sometimes due to their high investment your contenders are the ones who have difficulties defending their market share (They matured earlier than you did). If that’s the case, you are still in the growth stage of your product. Reasons for your challenger maturity or a later decline may be an aging network which increments failure in calls and initially high operating expenditures such as over-employment (trust me it happens).

Product: Enhancing features and services (Value Added Services). Although voice is the product of choice in a lot of markets, the introduction and variation of SMS services may help in extending the duration of your product in the market.
Price: Usually lower than the stage before as your challenger matches with your VAS (Value added services)
Place: Distribution is fierce, you might have to increase the incentives offered to the distribution chain to keep your market share.
Promotion: Although you in general promoted your positioning and differentiated your product, you must focus on advancing the differentiation in the features among your product and your competitors’. (For example: Your rates per minute of usage are viewed as being higher but accepted because you are covering a wider area than your competitor. You differentiated yourself as being the operator covering all the country. If that was the case, possibly it’s time to focus that you are actually charging per second though you were announcing the minute price)

4. Decline:

Mobile communication became part of our life and I don’t see it fading any time soon. It is share of the communicating procedure that evolved. However, a lot of technologies used for communicating faded and were substituted by other types (Semaphore flag signaling, Morse code, Telex, etc…)

In mobile communication when we talk with regards to GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) we know it went from phase 1 to phase 2 and the 3G (Although in developing countries Phase 2.5 is still not applicable).

The syndication mix in this stage will depend on your company’s strategy. The cases I witnessed are as follows:

Maintaining the product by adding features such as the Ring Back Tone, MMS, and GPRS (General packet radio service, which is in brief the service that allows us to offer data)
Investing further by upgrading to a newer technology consequently re-launching the product. Although preserving (the point above) may be considered as laying out capital further, they are separated due to the high divergence in expenditure figures among the two.
Sustaining the product by supplying it to a niche of customers. When my company decisive to replace the old AMPS system with the new GSM we operated both networks together for a long period. The Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) was more dependable when it came to fax services and our business clients wanted to maintain this option. Another example happened in a dissimilar market where existent operators (and competitors) were not authorized to utilize for GSM license until our exclusivity term comes to an end with the government. By using a introductory generation cellular technology such as AMPS they had to choose what to do. Our contender held a minimal number of workers (6 persons in the whole company amidst which 2 were in the mercantile department) and offered his service to his loyal yet VIP customers.
Discontinue the product. When it was time to take a decision as the product entered it is decline stage, the majority share holders of my former company decisive to trade to a firm more than willing to proceed in this line of business. Another way is to plainly dismantle and disregard the old product. When the AMPS system (from the former point c.) became unsustainable, the main towers we used in the new GSM network while other technical instrumentation was sold.

In a competitory market you can not deal with your product as an exclusive case. There are a good deal of market variations that will affect your decision and performance. The product cycle even though theoretical, may aid you set your system and tactics to assure your success in your role as a marketer in your company.