hi friends,
The decline curve of the PLC graph does not touch the X-axis, because manufacturing companies and professional buisness houses are genrerally prepared to take appropiate action to analyse and prevent decline by changing marketing mix variables,i.e, 4 Ps. A decline in sale by changing may be transitory and generally is not allowed to continue further except in situation like recession, product and process obsolence following technological and socio-economic changes in domestic and global markets. Many firms are proactive in the sense that the moment sales start declining they immdiately respond by changing the product quality & form through product modification, material substitution, qualitative improvement and upgradation to such the mood of the customer and meet the changing market requirements.If all such product management and market development activities are planned and practiced by the firms as part of their marketing plan and diverisfication strategies,the decline can be checked in time and the decline stage of the PLc curve can be extended further to get the benefits of an old product which has its goodwill and high brand image in the market.This being the situation, the decline curve of PLC graph gradually falls downwards from left to the right but seldomn shows a tendency to touch the x-axis.Products having entered a decline phase need to be pruned but not dropped in general.
The various strategies or steps that company shows follow to maintain their product at the maturity stage are as follows:-
* Adopting a segmental approach
* Carving a niche even within a specific market segment
* Service augmentation, image marketing, creating a new value image.
* Strenthening the brand through repositioning
* Making changes in the channels of distribution(direct Vs indirect distribution) and sales promotion retention and boosting of sales
* Reminder AD
* Re-sale price maintainance
Hope this will help you..................
Abhishek Verma
Marketing, MBA
Accord School of Business
