2. Compare the information of texts 4 and 5 and say which of them provides more details. Using the texts suggest your own description of new product development.

1. Read text 6. Text 6. A Typical Product Life Cycle

In our fast-changing society nothing sands still for long. We expect to see individual products and brands, and occasionally even whole product groups, come and go over a period of time. Inevitably, however, individual timespans vary greatly, ranging from the chart-topping records, ultra-trendy fashion crazes and fads like skateboards and frisbees, which may be 'out' as fast as they are 'in', to an elite minority of products which look like surviving forever.

Benedictine liqueur, now owned by Martini, was made by the monks cen­turies ago. Gilbey Gin was first introduced back in 1876, Hovis bread in 1895 and Cadbury's Dairy Milk in 1905. Much can happen to products in their lifetime, but it seems that the hardiest survivors can look forward to a long and profitable old age. The chances are products like Fairy Liquid, Nescafe, Kit Kat, Oxo, Colgate and Gillette, which seem to have an enduring appeal for suc­cessive generations of consumers, will probably still be around in 50 to 80 years time. It remains to be seen how many of the strong new brands to emerge in recent years, such as Ariel, Flora, Perrier, Nike and Foster's, will be able to match the performance of these long-running favorites.

However, with the exception of the premier brands, the development of new technologies, activity of competitors and changes in tastes and fashions all con­tribute towards making lesser products obsolete more quickly than ever before. Product life cycles are therefore getting shorter and shorter, particularly within the high technology industries such as electronics. Within the car industry, for instance, even a highly innovative product like the Leyland Mini, which was a huge success in its day, was not manufactured indefinitely. In contrast, pro­ducts in the low-technology markets such as food, toiletries or household clean­ing materials do not date easily, which explains why the successful ones can often enjoy very long life cycles. However, it is worth remembering that although long life cycles do offer more potential for making profits as a rule, short life cycles are not necessarily disastrous. For example, Golden Wonder's Pot Noodles had only a fleeting moment of glory but proved extremely pro­fitable at the height of their popularity.

Yet whether they live for a century or more, or sink into obscurity within a short time, all products will nevertheless pass through a series of stages during their life span. They are born, grow rapidly in the early years then slow down as they reach maturity, until they eventually become old and die. In the same way, the sales of a newly-launched product will increase rapidly during the growth period until competitors enter the market, causing the rate of growth to slow down. When almost all potential customers have been exploited, the market can expand no further and becomes saturated. Once sales begin to decline, possibly because the product has lost its appeal or has been overtaken by a rival product, it then becomes unprofitable to continue and the product is withdrawn.

Given that the conditions experienced in each stage are so different, it is obviously important for companies to know which stage their products have reached in order to make the best planning decisions. This has implications for such issues as deciding when to invest (essential in the growth period), when to charge high prices (impossible in the growth period when competition is intense) and when to expect a profit (not in the period of introduction when investment costs have yet to be recovered).