Apple and the New PLC
March 19, 2010 1 Comment
Continuing from my last post on the New Product Life Cycle. I stumbled across some really interesting sales data for the iPod. Notice how Apple’s new product introduction process coincides perfectly with the decline of each product’s individual PLC. This is the challenge that companies will increasingly face. Even a blockbuster product like the iPod requires constant innovation to keep the sales numbers growing.
This may be simple in concept. But hardly any companies in India seem to have the capability or even the mentality to be innovation leaders. On this front, at least, the US seems to have little to worry about!
amtgrg
Gaurav Rastogi
Two MBAs, One Blog 
@Amit…great illustration. I can see how Apple has been able to “ride the wave” very effectively. The traditional way of doing this (I daresay, the “Indian way”) would be to send out a product, and keep it out in the market until the demand plateaus, finally starting *investment* into a new product after thd old cow has been milked dry completely.
I am wondering if this model is peculiar only to the tech industry…are there non-tech examples of this truncated PLC? We have to remember that R&D investments are expensive, and not many product categories have the competitive intensity that consumer electronics does.