ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Product life cycle management

Imagine you have a favorite toy, let's say a stuffed animal. You love playing with it all the time, but after a while, you start to notice that it's looking a bit shabby and worn out. Eventually, you might even stop playing with it altogether and move on to a new toy.

This is kind of how product life cycle management works. Companies create products they hope people will love, just like you love your stuffed animal. But over time, people's tastes and preferences change, and new products come along that might be more interesting or exciting.

Product life cycle management is about making sure that the company's products are constantly evolving and improving to keep up with these changes. They do this by breaking the life cycle of the product into several stages:

1. Introduction: This is when the product is first introduced to the market. The company is trying to generate excitement and get people interested in the product.

2. Growth: If the product is successful, it will start to grow in popularity. More and more people will start to buy it.

3. Maturity: Eventually, the product will reach a point where it is very popular but not growing very much anymore. This is called the maturity stage.

4. Decline: Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Eventually, people will stop buying the product, and it will start to decline in popularity.

Product life cycle management is about making sure that the company is doing everything it can to keep the product growing and improving during the early stages and then figuring out how to extend its life as it reaches maturity. This might mean making changes to the product to keep it fresh, finding new markets to sell it in, or even coming up with new products that build on the success of the original. The goal is to make sure that the company's products are always meeting the needs and wants of customers so that they continue to be successful over the long term.