Chapter 5 - 1

Chapter 5

organization questions

01 Business

listen to a lecture in a business class. fill in the diagram with the information that you hear.

W: today we’re going to move on to something called the product life cycle.

Just like people, well, products go through stages of life.

I mean, your born, you start out kind of slowly, then you mature, make your impact on the world, and then, well, sad, but we all die.

Likewise, every product goes through a life cycle too.

Soap, toys, clothes, computers, everything.

As I was saying, just like human beings, a product has to be born.

And that’s what happens in the development and introduction phase.

Two major things happen in this stage. First, the product, is created and of course, in doing so, in creating the product, the company pours a lot of money into making a prototype.

Once that’s done in the product is ready, advertising starts, and customers are introduced to the product concept first, closely followed by the actual product. So yeah, the product hits the market in this phase.

Now, you need to understand that sales for new products except in really, really rare cases usually start out slowly.

So the company needs aggressive marketing to get customers to take notice that the new product.

Typically, the company is losing money on the product at this phase.

So I product grows up a little, and now it’s a teenager, so to speak.

The second phase is the growth stage, and yeah, it’s kind of like being a teenager.

Not quite mature, but getting bigger and better all the time.

What do I mean?

Well, remember, in the first phase, money is typically not made on the product, but now, the now the thing starts making money.

The product starts to stand on its own two feet.

This stage can bring intensified demand for the product, and it begins to gain a reputation.

The general public is more interested in the product, because they heard about it some.

But if you think everyone is just fine in this stage and there are no problems, let me tell you something.

Competition increases in this stage as other companies start to copy the product, making their own versions of it. Hey, life’s tough!

Moving on, when people hit their twenties, they began to mature.

The third stage is called, you got it, the mature stage.

Now people recognize the product immediately, and it has an established customer base with a good, long-standing reputation.

This lasts for a while - it varies by product and the company can make lots of money, typically more than in any other phases.

People know the product and continue to buy it.

Now, as a side note, it’s important to realize that some products never reach this stage.

Hay, some people never grow up, right? Well, some products are released, never become popular, and are immediately taken off the market.

Now comes the sad part: just like we humans there’s a time to uh, call it quits.

Everything dies, including our once-strong product.

The final stage in a product’s life is called the decline stage.

Eventually the popularity of a product has to end.

And when the product becomes outdated, or customers lose interest, it goes into the decline stage.

The product is not worth producing anymore, so the company phases the product out.

1) How does the professor introduce the topic?

2) How does the professor organize the information she presents to the class?

3) Why does the professor mention competition?