Product development and management
Once the market research has enabled the evolvement of specifications of a product or service, the next step in the marketing management process is the making of the product. Getting the right raw materials, dies, fabrication, prototype making and other processes are some of the details to be worked out with the production planning and manufacturing units. The success of a product would depend on raw materials, technological know-how and good inventory management. Experts say that with rapid advances in technology and availability of raw materials, product life-cycle is getting shorter and shorter. Each product goes through a cycle popularly known as Product Life Cycle (PLC) which is made up of the following stages-development of product, introduction to market, growth through increased promotion and sales, maturity when sales reaches a peak, followed by saturation in the market and subsequent decline. Product Life Cycle (PLC) will differ across products and categories, some...