Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

● Volatility: Any sales person will tell you that sales levels will fluctuate

over time. The reality of the PLC is that sales will vary and the smooth

graph shown in most text books will in fact display considerable

volatility. This makes predicting your exact position in the life cycle

difficult. Does a fall in sales mean we have reached the point of decline

or is it a temporary blip? Only time will tell. Examine Figure 8.14 and

you will see the variation in the curve.

● Duration of stages: Some would argue that the length of each PLC phase

is closely related to marketing decisions and not simply a natural

cycle. Effective marketing should be able to extend and sustain the

growth or maturity of a product offering. Equally, ineffective market-

ing would hasten its decline.

■ Strategic wear-out

The adage – ‘nothing lasts for ever’– is certainly true of marketing strategy.

Care must be taken to avoid strategic wear-out. This occurs when the

organisation no longer meets customer needs and the pursued strategy is

surpassed by competitors. Davidson (1997) summarises the causes of

strategic wear-out (see Table 8.1).

172 Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control

Table 8.1Reasons for strategic wear-out

1 Changes in customer requirements

2 Changes in distribution systems

3 Innovation by competitors

4 Poor control of company costs

5 Lack of consistent investment

6 Ill-advised changes in successful strategy

Source: Davidson (1997)

Future business requires active steps to ensure that your strategy does not

‘wear-out’ and the role strategy formulation is to develop/maintain a mar-

keting orientation. This is based on the premise of defining customer need

and prospering through customer satisfaction and loyalty. Sound general

and financial management should underpin this orientation and the entire

corporate focus should relate to key asset of any business – customers.

■ Difficult market conditions

Marketing strategy is often linked to a premise of favourable market con-

ditions. For example, strategies tend to work well when we are experiencing