INTERNATIOLLEGE LINGUA

Towards Educational Excellence

Reg No: D/2014/0535
Accreditation No: 000003

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Surname: Veiko
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Name: Saima BY STUDENT
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Student’s Signature Gisbertha Hausiku

Date :14/09/ 2020

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International training College of Lingua

Question 1

What is Product Life Cycle?

- refers to the length of time a product is introduced to consumers into the market until
it’s removed from the shelves. The life cycle of a product is broken into four stages:
Introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
Introduction stage strategy implications
- during the early stages of the life cycle, marketing strategy should focus on correcting
product problems in design, features, and positioning so as to establish a competitive
advantage and develop product awareness through advertising, promotion, and
personal sales.
- at the same time, personal strategy should focus on planning and recruiting for new
product human resource needs and dealing with union requirements.
- also, one would expect the nature of research and development (R&D) strategy to
shift from a technical research orientation during the phase prior introduction to more of
a development orientation during actual introduction.
- financial strategy would primarily address sources of funds needed to fuel R&D and
marketing efforts as well as the capital requirements of later production facilities.
Capital budgeting decisions would be adequate to serve growth needs when sales
volumes begin to accelerate.

Growth stage strategy implications

- during the growth stage, strategic emphases change.
- marketing strategy is concerned with quickly carving out a niche for the product or firm
and for its distribution capabilities, even when doing so may involve risking over
capacity. Too, often, firms have inadvisably accepted quality shortfalls as a necessary
cost of rapid growth. Widening profit margins during the growth phase may even permit
certain functional inefficiencies and risk-taking.
- communication strategy is directed toward, establishing brand preference through
heavy media use, sampling programmes, and promotion programmes, and strategy
should emphasise resource acquisition to maintain strength and development of ways
to continue growth when it begins to slow.
- personnel strategy may focus on developing loyalty, commitment, and expertise.
Training and development programmes and various communication systems are
established to build management and employee teams that can deal successfully with
the demands of impending tight competition among firms during the maturity phase.

Maturity stage strategy implications

- efficiency and profit generating ability become major concerns as products enter the
maturity stage. Competition grows as more firms enter the market and the implication is
that only the most productive firms with established niches and competent people will
survive. Marketing efforts concentrate on maintaining customer loyalty.
- production strategy concentrates on efficiency and, at the same time, sharpens the
ability to meet delivery schedules and minimise defective products. Cost control
systems are often put in place.
- personnel strategy may focus on various incentive systems to increase manufacturing
efficiency. Advancements and transfers are used and some firms try to fit management
positions to managers who have personalities more attuned to the belt-tightening needs
associated with the maturity stage.

Decline stage strategy implications

- when a product reaches the point where its markets ate saturated an effort is often
made to modify its so that its life cycle is either started anew or its maturity stage
extend. When falling sales of product cannot be reversed and it enters the decline
stage, management’s emphasis may switch to milking it dry of all profit.
- advertising and promotion expenditures are reduced to a minimum. People are
transferred to new positions where their experience can be brought to bear on products
in earlier growth stages (if management were skilful enough to have created such
products).

Various strategies have been suggested for products that entered the decline stage.
Hofer and Schendel suggest four choices when sales are less than 5% of those of the
industry leaders:
 Concentrate on a small market segment and reduction of the firm’s asset base to
the minimum levels needed for survival
 Acquisition of several similar firms so as to raise sales to 15% of the leaders’
sales
 Selling out to a buyer with sufficient cash resources and the willingness to use
them to effect a turnaround liquidation
 Liquidation

Question 2

Planning – is the process of setting goals and defining the actions required to achieve
the goals. Planning begins with goals. Goals are derived from the vision and mission
statements, but these statements describe what the organization wants to achieve, not
necessarily what it can achieve.
Pro’s

Planning provides a guide for action: plans can direct everyone’s actions toward
desired outcomes. When actions are coordinated and focused on specific outcomes
they are much more effective.

Planning improves resource utilization: resources are always scarce in

organizations, and managers need to make sure the resources they have are used
effectively. Planning helps managers determine where resources are most needed so
they can be allocated where they will provide the most benefit.

Plans provide motivation and commitment: people are not motivated when they do
not have clear goals and do not know what is expected of them. Planning reduces
uncertainty and indicates what everyone is expected to accomplish. People are more
likely to work toward a goal they know and understand.

Plans set performance standards: planning defines outcomes as well as mileposts to

define progress. These provide a standard of assessing when things are progressing
and when they need correction.

Planning allows flexibility: through the goal-setting process, managers identify key
resources in the organization as well as critical factors outside the organization that
need to be monitored. When changes occur, managers are more likely to detect them
and know how to deploy resources to respond.

Makes you stay updated: with the rapid growth of technological development, it is
essential for a manager to keep abreast of the up-to-date technology. Otherwise, the
products are likely to become obsolete. Planning helps in this process.

Leads to growth of economies: by avoiding waste of men, money, materials and

machinery, planning indirectly leads to large-scale economies.

Planning encourage the sense of involvement and team spirit: planned targets
provide a basis upon which good performances can be rewarded and poor
performances can be improved.

Planning is the essence of all management activities: once it is done well, other
activities automatically follow.

It educates people: it gives them a sense of direction and the stimulating feeling that
their efforts are being put to useful purpose, rather than being wasted. They begin to
feel that they are worthy partners in productive enterprise.

Cons
Planning prevents action: managers can become so focused on planning and trying
to plan for every eventuality that they never get around to implementing the plans. This
is called “death by planning.” Planning does little good if it does not lead to the other
functions.

Planning leads to complacency: having a good plan can lead managers to believe
they know where the organization is going and how it will get there. This may cause
them to fail to monitor the progress of the plan or to detect changes in the environment.
Planning is not a one-time process. Plans must be continually adjusted as they are
implemented.

Plans prevent flexibility: although good plans can lead to flexibility, the opposite can
also occur. Mod and lower level managers may feel that they must follow a plan even
when their experience shows it is not working. Instead of reporting problems to upper
managers so changes can be made, they will continue to devote time and resources to
ineffective actions.

Plans inhibit creativity: people in the organization may feel they must carry out the
activities defined in the plan. If they feel they will be judged by how well they complete
planned tasks, then creativity, initiative and experimentation will be inhibited. Success
often comes from innovation as well as planning, and plans must not prevent creativity
in the organization.

It requires a lot of time: time, money and effort are required in the collection and
analysis of data and in the formulation and revision of plans. It is a time consuming
process. It is an expensive process. Planning is useful only when the expected gains
from it exceed its costs. Often it is remarked that the cost of planning is in excess of its
actual contribution.

Planning takes time: i.e., adequate time. Sometimes, it may cause delay in taking
decisions. A manager may be bogged down by procedures, rules, etc., when quick
decision is essential.

It may create a false opinion: planning may create false opinion that all problems will
be solved if the plans are implemented. In practice, management has to revise the
plans continuously and check on their execution.

There are various other alternatives: every alternative has its own merits and
limitations. Every alternative presents different results also. In this way, diversity of
alternative cause many difficulties in the way of formulating planning.
Machinery of planning cannot be free from bias: forecasting methods, statistical
data supplied, etc., are all inaccurate and the results of operation research cannot be
applied to all cases that come under planning.

Garbage in garbage out: in the planning process, the quality of the output depends
upon the quality of input.
Reference
(British journal 20(7)), pp, 516-520
http//uwl.busmanagement.com