1. Introduction

It has been well established that Product Life Cycle (PLC) concept has a significant impact upon business strategy and corporate performance. Since the term was first used by Levitt (1965 ) in an Harvard Business Review article “Exploit the Product Life Cycle” the concept has been widely accepted and applied by marketing practitioners all over the world.
The product life cycle concept is one of the most quoted and most frequently taught elements of marketing theory. According to Mercer (1993: 269) the influence of the product life cycle can be seen in other theories, from new product development, positioning & differentiation and portfolio analysis.

Since its adoption by marketing, the product life cycle (PLC) has …show more content…

Differentiating is the deliberate marketing decision by organizations to differentiate their products on the basis of various dimensions such as product features, benefits, performance, conformance, durability etc. or even its service dimensions such as ordering ease, durability, installation, maintenance & repair etc.( Kotler,1998)
Whatever dimensions a company selects to differentiate its product it then decides to effectively position it in consumer’s mind.

2.4 What is Product Life Cycle Concept (PLC)? PLC includes the different stages an organization’s product goes through right from the day it introduced in the market to the day it is withdrawn or declines from its market. It includes four stages- Introduction, Growth, Maturity & Decline. (Kotler, 1998)

This PLC Concept is usually for a product category (training), a product form (retail training) or product/brand (City & Guilds retail training qualifications). Typically the product life cycle is a bell shaped curve as seen in figure 1 ,but their can be variations such as growth slump maturity pattern, cycle – recycle pattern and scalloped pattern (Swan & Pinl 1982; Tellis & Crawford,