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Evaluate the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Concept of the Product Lifecycle. Choose Some Case Studies Familiar to You. How Does the Theory of the Product Lifecycle Drive Marketing Strategy in These Cases?

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Title: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the concept of the product lifecycle. Choose some case studies familiar to you. How does the theory of the product lifecycle drive marketing strategy in these cases? With the development of technology and the evolution of society, the competition of market has become more and more intense. This phenomenon drives the new ideas of products to come up constantly and makes the time gap become extremely short between the launch and the decline of new products. At the same time, the rate of elimination of a new product is going to increase. In 1966, Prof. Raymond Vernon released the Product Lifecycle (PLC) theory in ‘International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle’. The …show more content…

Raymond Vernon (1966) maintains that the PCT is concerned with the life cycle of a typical “new product” and its impact on international trade. Vernon developed the theory in response to the failure of the United States. Vernon emphasizes manufactured goods, and the theory begins with the development of a new product in the United States. The new product will have two principal characteristics: (a) it will cater to high-income demands because the United States is a high-income country; and (b) it promises, in its production process, to be labor-saving and capital-using in nature (Raymond Vernon, 1966). It is true that Apple iPhone Company is able to control the growth and the weakness of iPhone in each generation. It releases the new product and the latest function at the most appropriate time with more diversified applications and operating systems. The global smart phone market would become more and more competitive so that the Apple iPhone Company is going to adjust each generation of iPhone’s product lifecycle in order to extend each stage of iPhone product lifecycle and maintain its market share and profitability. So far, however, there has been little discussion about the weakness of product lifecycle. Even using the product lifecycle theory, there is no way to predict the length of each stage.(Know this, 2004 & mind tools, 2009).

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