REJUVENATING THE LIFE CYCLE CONCEPT

Traditionally, it has been thought that a product life cycle is as irreversible as a biological life cycle. That is, a product inevitably moves from birth to adolescence, maturity, and death. Now there is mounting evidence that a turnabout in management thinking is under way. The new thinking is that it is actually possible to reverse the product life cycle. The key lies in introducing technological considerations into the planning process from the beginning.