Section B

PLC (Product lifecycle):

1. Product development stage: Begins when a company develops a new product idea. During the product development, sales are zero and the company’s investment add up.
1 .idea generation:
To generate a large number of ideas. 2. Idea screening: 3. Spot good ideas and drop bad ideas Marketers need to develop the new product into alternative product concepts, find out how attractive each concept is to customers, and choose the best one. Then, test the new-product concepts with a group of target consumers to find out if the concepts have strong consumer appeal. 4. Marketing strategy development: Designing an initial marketing strategy for a new product based on the product concept. 5. Business analysis: A strategic or financial evaluation of the expected return on investment in a new product. 6. Product development: Develop the product concept into a physical product to ensure that the product idea can be turned into a workable market offering. 7. Test marketing: The stages of new-product development in which the product and marketing program are introduced into more realistic market settings. 8. Commercialisation: Introduce a new product into the market.

2. Introduction: A period of slow sales growth as the product is being introduced in the market. Profits are non-existent in this stage because of the heavy expenses of product introduction. Example: microwaves, laptop, disc players had low sales for many years before they entered a stage of rapid growth.

3. Growth: A period of rapid market acceptance and increasing profits, sales starts to increase. The early adopters will continue to buy, and later buyers will start following their lead, especially if they hear favourable word of mouth. However, markets almost invariably become more competitive at the growth stage: attracted by the opportunities for profit, new competitors enter the market. Prices typically remain where they are or fall slightly. Profits increase during this growth stage, as promotion costs are spread over a large volume and units manufacturing costs fall.

4. Maturity: A period of slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers. This period normally lasts longer than the previous stages, and it poses strong challenges to marketing management. Most products are in the maturity stage of the life cycle, and therefore most marketing management deals with the mature product.

5. Decline: The period when the sales fall off and profits drop. Sales decline for a number of reasons, including technological advances, shits in consumer tastes and increased competition. As sales and profits decline, some companies withdraw from the market. Those remaining might reduce the number of their product offerings, drop the smaller market segment and marginal trade channels, or cut the promotion budget and reduce their prices further.

MIS (marketing information system)

Definition:
People, equipment and procedures used to gather, sort, analyse, evaluate and distribute needed, timely and accurate information to marketing decision makers. 1. Assessing information need: The organization begins by interviewing managers to find out what information they would like. 2. Internal databases: Electronic collections of consumers and market information obtained from data sources within the company network. 3. Marketing intelligence: The systematic collection and analysis of publicly available information about competitors and developments in the marketing environment. 4. Market research: The systematic gathering, recording and analysing of data relevant to a particular market. 5. Analysing and using information:

Micro-environment

Definition: The forces close to the organization that affects its ability to serve its customers---the