Билет №18
What are the differences between managers and leaders, if any?
What marketing strategies are appropriate at the decline stage of the product life cycle?
This is the idea that all products have a birth, a life and a death, and that they should be financed and marketed with this in mind. Even as a new product is being launched, its manufacturer should be preparing for the day when it has to be killed off.
Decline.The company will no longer be able to fend off the competition, or some change in consumer tastes or lifestyle will render the product redundant. At this point the company has to decide how to bring the product's life to an end - what is the best end-game that it can play? (The end game is a strategy that a company evolves for a product that seems to be on its last legs. Should the company bleed the product for all it is worth before it dies? Or should it introduce an aggressive pricing policy aimed at forcing its competitors out of business and allowing it to continue in a much reduced niche market? In her book Managing Maturing Businesses, Kathryn Harrigan, a Harvard professor, argues that end games can be highly profitable. She writes: ‘The last surviving player makes money serving the last bit of demand, when the competitors drop away.’ When some competitors choose to withdraw from a market, those who remain will obviously gain a temporary increase in sales as customers switch to their product.) A product can be replaced by new ones, due to advances in technology, or to changes in fashions and tastes. When a product has clearly entered its decline stage, some manufacturers will abandon it in order to invest their resources in more profitable or innovative products.