Product Life Cycle Management Report

This report discusses the significance of product life cycle management in contemporary business marketing. It elaborates on the roles of marketing managers in forecasting demand for new products, differentiating between consumer and competitor markets, and outlines the marketing mix components such as pricing, advertising, and distribution strategies for various products. The report emphasizes the need for thorough market research and strategic planning to ensure successful product launches and sustainability in the market.

Running head: PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
For the contemporary business organizations, marketing holds an important aspect for
their operational activities. This is due to the reason that, it is important for the organizations to
effectively determine the requirement of the customers in order to offer the products accordingly.
Business organizations should also determine that if their product is based on consumer market
or competitor market. The following sections will discuss about these concepts more elaborately.

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Question 1:
A.
The marketing manager of the organization is responsible for the successful marketing of
any new products to ensure profit out of the same (Duties of a Marketing Manager, 2017).
However, the job of the marketing manager differs as per the categorization of the new products.
For the ‘really new’ products, the marketing manager has to do a thorough research on the
current market in order to understand the target market and the demand of the customers and
plan strategy accordingly. Again, for the new products in the existing new category the job of the
marketing manager is comparatively easy, as because he/she only has to introduce the new
products to the customers (Li et al., 2015). No new marketing strategy is required here as the
customers are already aware with the product category. For the line extension of the existing
products with new varieties is almost same as the previous one. Here also the marketing manager
does not have to plan new marketing strategies, the only thing he has to do is to make the people
know about the new variety of the existing products.
The forecasting of the product demand refers to the prediction of the probable future
demand of the new products based on the current trend and the potential events of the market as
well as the organization (Lee et al., 2014). For the really new products the marketing manager
must define the market which includes potential end users. The manager must consider the deep
research within the market to predict the demand of the really new product (Duties of a
Marketing Manager, 2017). Particularly, for this category of the new product, the demand
forecasting must be assessed before the manufacturing of the products, in order to understand the
exact and demand of the consumers in the market. For the second category, the manager must

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examine the demand of the existing category in the consumers, which will automatically forecast
the demand of the new product in the existing category. Again, for the last category the demand
of the existing product in the market determines the demand of the new verities in the same
product (Li et al., 2015). The marketing manager only has to find out the demand ratio of the
existing product in the customers.
Question 2:
A.
The markets of the business are of two types – consumer market and the competitor
markets. The competitors and the consumers are the two variables of the business market that
determines the profit and the sustainability of the organizations in the market through the sale of
their products and the service (Jensen, 2015). The consumer market is based on the demand of
the products in the consumers, whereas the competitor market is based on the demand of the
consumers of the brand or company as well as on the sustainability of the company in the
market. The consumers are the chief component for the companies as the consumers decide the
future sustainability of the companies in the market. In this way, the competitor market and the
consumer market can be observed as similar. However, the competitor market is based within the
industry where there are numerous competitors of a company (Bendle & Vandenbosch, 2014). In
other hand, the consumers market is wider and based on the different consumers and the demand
of the same. The competitor market is determined by the behavior of the competitor companies
and the consumer market is determined by the consumer behaviors.
B.
The pricing, advertisement and distribution are the three major components in the
marketing mix. For the soft drinks, the manager of the company plan pricing strategies according

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to the geographical segment as the company provides wide range of products (Hassan, Amos &
Abubakar, 2014). Whereas, the managers decide the pricing for the Smartphone app on the basis
of customer demand. For the advertising, the soft drinks company (Cola) only focuses on the
aspect of increasing demand, but the advertising of the Smartphone app must contain the feature
and basic information about the app as the Smartphone app is in the growing stage unlike cola.
Again, the distribution of the two completely different products is different from each. The soft
drinks is one of the popular and common product in the market, hence the managers do not have
to plan separate and new strategy for the distribution of the products (Jensen, 2015), whereas, the
distribution of the Smartphone app requires special and effective strategies to reach the product
to the customers.

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Reference:
Bendle, N., & Vandenbosch, M. (2014). Competitor orientation and the evolution of business
markets. Marketing Science, 33(6), 781-795.
Duties of a Marketing Manager. (2017). Smallbusiness.chron.com. Retrieved 2 October 2017,
from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/duties-marketing-manager-801.html
Hassan, D. N., Amos, A. A., & Abubakar, O. A. (2014). An evaluation of marketing strategies
undertaken by Coca Cola Company as a multinational corporation in Nigeria. Journal of
Business and Management, 3(2), 5-10.
Jensen, H. R. (2015). Creating and maintaining sustainable relationships with customers in
consumer markets. In Proceedings of the 1997 World Marketing Congress (pp. 631-635).
Springer, Cham.
Lee, H., Kim, S. G., Park, H. W., & Kang, P. (2014). Pre-launch new product demand
forecasting using the Bass model: A statistical and machine learning-based
approach. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 86, 49-64.
Li, M., Illner, R., Edwards, R., & Ma, J. (2015). Marketing new products: Bass models on
random graphs. Communications in Mathematical Sciences, 13(2), 497-509.