Product Life Cycle – Dr. Vidya Hattangadi

Why Organizations use Disruptive Market Positioning for Brand’s Success

Dr Vidya Hattangadi — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:01:00 +0000

Brand positioning is crucial for differentiating a brand and shaping consumer perceptions in a competitive market. Disruptive market positioning, through strategies like Stealth, Reverse, and Breakaway Positioning, enables brands to stand out by redefining consumer expectations. These strategies can be effective at different stages of the Product Life Cycle (PLC). Air India and Vistara merged on November 12, 2024, creating a single full-service airline under the Air India brand. The merger makes Air India the only full-service carrier in India. This merger exemplifies Breakaway Positioning, creating a unique market identity by blending luxury and affordability. Successful brand positioning requires focusing on unmet needs and untapped markets, broadening appeal beyond competitors for long-term success. Disruptive brand positioning is a marketing strategy that challenges traditional marketing methods to differentiate a brand from competitors. It involves reconfiguring existing attributes to create a disruptive thought in consumers’ minds.

This paper talks about disruptive brand positioning which is a marketing strategy that challenges traditional marketing methods to differentiate a brand from competitors. It involves reconfiguring existing attributes to create a disruptive thought in consumers’ minds. Disruptive brands challenge the status quo and traditional category conventions. They use innovative, unexpected, and attention-grabbing tactics, they don’t shy away from risking controversy.

While brand positioning is the process of establishing a unique and compelling identity for a brand in the minds of consumers, setting it apart from competitors. It focuses on creating a distinct perception that aligns with the target audience’s needs, aspirations, and values, ensuring the brand holds a meaningful and differentiated place in the market. By clearly communicating the brand’s value and relevance, effective positioning shapes consumer preferences, drives purchase decisions, and builds loyalty. It also enables brands to justify premium pricing and achieve long-term success. Successful brand positioning is grounded in a deep understanding of the market, consumer insights, and the competitive landscape.

Disruptive Market Positioning help in today’s highly customer-centric world, the market is saturated with numerous competitors and brands, all vying to fulfil basic consumer needs. Even if the firm has a superior product that meets those needs better, standing out in such a competitive landscape can be challenging. This is where Disruptive Market Positioning becomes a game-changer.

By breaking conventional norms and redefining market expectations, disruptive positioning allows a product to capture consumer attention and carve out a unique space. It’s not just about being better—it’s about being different in a way that resonates deeply with marketer’s audience.

Disruptive Market Positioning is best utilized in different phases of the Product Life Cycle (PLC) to spark curiosity and drive consumer engagement. It targets markets that are: underserved but have future potential or thriving with competition but not fully catering to all segments or addressing necessities with better solutions. Let’s look at few types of disruptive marketing positioning strategies.

Stealth Positioning

Stealth means sneaking, secretive strategy where a product is introduced discreetly or disguised in a way that makes it seem less threatening, unfamiliar, or complicated to the target market. It doesn’t challenge existing categories but takes a fresh approach in the introductory phase. This strategy is often employed after previous product failures or when there’s resistance to more overt market strategies. The goal is to gain gradual traction without attracting immediate attention or competition. The aim is to move the product from Introduction to Growth stage. In 2015, Starbucks started what turned out to be a nationwide controversy with the design of its traditional Christmas cups. Each year, the coffee brand releases a unique design for its holiday cups, but the 2015 design was thought by some to be very understated, too plain, and not festive enough! Pundits, consumers, and critics voiced their opinions about the design. The whole ordeal sparked a massive media buzz about the product worldwide. It later turned out the controversy was fake: very few people hated the cup, but the stir caused Starbucks’ sales to soar. We describe this example as Stealth Positioning.

Another example is Tom Hanks’ powerful portrayal of a survivor stranded on a deserted island in “Cast Away” also featured stealth marketing. He played a FedEx delivery man who finds himself in a life-and-death situation. Throughout the movie, FedEx branding and packages are featured prominently, in which Hanks’ character keeps his sanity by vowing to find his way back home to deliver a letter. The movie’s underlying message was, come hell or high water, FedEx will deliver and get the job done.

Reverse Positioning

Stripping a product to its baseline, removing non-essential features, and reintroducing it with selectively added attributes to create a unique competitive position. It moves the product from the Maturity Phase back to the Growth Phase in its PLC. The best example we give here is of the brand “Dove,” which instead of solely focusing on the hygiene aspect of soap, actively promotes body positivity and self-acceptance through campaigns that celebrate women’s natural beauty, effectively creating a deeper emotional connection with consumers beyond just the product itself.

Another example is of reverse positioning in India is IKEA, which entered the furniture market by focusing on offering affordable, self-assembly furniture, going against the traditional model of high-end, fully assembled pieces offered by other furniture stores, thereby attracting a large customer base who were looking for value and design without the high price tag; essentially “reversing” the expected experience in the furniture buying process. The low-cost, flat-pack design unlike competitors who emphasize on high-quality, pre-assembled furniture, IKEA focused on providing accessible, flat-pack furniture that customers could assemble themselves, lowering costs significantly. IKEA stores are designed to be interactive, allowing customers to explore and build their own furniture, creating a unique shopping experience.

Breakaway Positioning

This strategy allows a product to break free from its current category and position itself within a new one. This shift influences how the product is perceived and consumed by the consumer, creating a fresh identity and appeal. It moves the product from the Maturity Phase back to the Growth Phase in its PLC. A major example of breakaway positioning in India is “Swatch watches,” which positioned themselves as a fashion accessory rather than a high-end luxury timepiece, effectively separating themselves from the traditional Swiss watch market and creating a new category for affordable, stylish watches in the Indian market; essentially “breaking away” from the established perception of expensive watches. A breakaway campaign stands out, as it can connect with the consumer at a different level. The brands which follow breakaway strategy always try and maintain their niche. They create their own image in the mind of consumers which can’t be associated with any other brand. This helps the brand in retaining their consumers. Brands create their niche by introducing such features which are not available in any other product, or the pricing is such that no other brand can match it, etc. Once the brand establishes itself in this type of strategy, consumers also get interested in other products from the same brand.

Nestle’s breakaway was a brand of chocolate-covered digestive biscuit from Nestlé called Kit Kat, which started production in 1970 in the United Kingdom, manufactured by Rowntree Mackintosh Confectionery. Nestlé acquired the brand in 1988. This somewhat simple name was derived from the Kit Kat Club, an exclusive 18th-century club for the elite in London. The name was chosen to add a hint of sophistication and grandness to this sweet and smooth snack.

Positioning Strategies and Product Life Cycle Stages

Disruptive positioning” is used by marketers at distinctive Product Life Cycle (PLC). This refers to a marketing strategy where a company purposely challenges the established norms within a market by introducing a product or service that disrupts the existing competition, often by targeting underserved segments or offering a fundamentally different value proposition, which can be particularly effective during the growth or maturity stages of the PLC when the market becomes saturated with similar offerings.

Strategy	PLC	Purpose	Example
Reverse Positioning	Maturity	Differentiates in saturated markets to extend product life.	IKEA
Breakaway Positioning	Maturity to Growth or Introduction	Escapes competition by redefining categories.	Swatch
Stealth Positioning	Introduction	Introduces disruptive products subtly to gain acceptance.	Tata Nano

Conclusion

A prominent example of a disruptive strategy in India is Flipkart’s entry into the e-commerce market, where they successfully challenged established players by offering a convenient online platform with a robust delivery system, targeting a previously underserved market segment in India, ultimately becoming a major player in the Indian retail landscape; effectively disrupting the traditional brick-and-mortar retail model. To successfully implement brand positioning strategies, brands must shift focus from industry competition to alternatives and non-customers, broadening the scope of how customer needs can be met.

A disruptive strategy can benefit a firm by allowing them to tap into new market segments, gain a competitive advantage by offering innovative products or services at a lower price point, potentially disrupting established players in the industry, and driving significant growth by creating new customer bases; essentially, it can open up new opportunities and challenge the status quo, forcing a company to adapt and innovate further.

This paper is written by author as an empirical study based on secondary data.

What is ABC Analysis in Inventory Management?

Dr Vidya Hattangadi — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:01:25 +0000

The word inventory in management science refers to the process of counting or listing items. As an accounting term, inventory gets listed in current assets and refers to all stock in the different production stages such as raw materials, work-In-process (WIP), finished goods, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO). Inventory management is one of the vital management processes. A good inventory management system prevents product and production shortages. It also prevents excess stock and stacking of additional raw materials.

ABC analysis (Always Best Control) is an inventory management method that helps to regulate the value of inventory items based on their importance in the business. ABC ranks items based on demand, cost, and risk data which inventory managers cluster into classes based on those criteria. This helps the organization to understand which products or services are most critical for them. ABC Analysis allows easy inventory analysis on any device.

Amazon does not stock every single item offered on its site. It stocks only those items that are popular and frequently purchased. If an ‘unpopular’ item is ordered, Amazon would then request it from its distributor who then ships it to the company. The item would then be unpacked and shipped to the respective customer.

The most important stock-keeping units (SKUs) are created on the basis of either sales volume or profitability, they are “A” category items, the next-most important are “B” category and the least important are “C” category. Some companies may choose a classification system that breaks products into more than just those three groups.

ABC analysis in cost accounting or activity-based costing is loosely related but different from ABC analysis for inventory management. Accountants use activity-based costing in manufacturing to assign indirect or overhead costs like utilities or salaries to products and services. Classifying inventory with ABC analysis helps organizations to optimize operations, and make clear decisions.

ABC Analysis is based on Pareto’s 80/20 rule

80/20 is a maxim that says that 80% of outputs result from 20% of all inputs for any given event. In business, a goal of the 80-20 rule is to identify inputs that are potentially the most productive and make them the priority. The rule signifies that 20% of goods deliver about 80% of the value therefore about 20% of a company’s inventory accounts for 80% of its value. Therefore, most businesses have a small number of ‘A’ items as compared to a larger group of B products and a big group of C goods. C category occupies the majority of items. ‘A’ items are annually consumed highest value. They are the highest priority items that cannot be afforded to be out of stock. ‘B’ items in inventory are required regularly but not as much as compared A items. Often B Items inventory costs more to hold than A items. C items occupy the rest of the inventory which has the lowest inventory value and make up the bulk of the inventory cost.

Toyota believes in making only what is needed when it is needed, and in the amount needed. This way, the company eliminates waste, inconsistencies, and unreasonable requirements, resulting in improved productivity. In fact, Toyota functions a bit like a supermarket. They make sure to stock the items that customers want when they want them, but, at a quantity that helps them optimize cost savings.

Inventory categorization is essential with physical products because it protects the profit margins and prevents write-offs and losses for damaged inventory. It is also the first step in reducing outdated inventory which is calculated and considered for supply chain optimization, increasing prices, and forecasting demand.

How Is ABC Inventory Analysis Calculated?

ABC analysis is calculated by multiplying the annual sales of a certain item by its cost. The results tell which goods are high priorities and which yield a low profit this helps organizations to organize investment on inventory and focus on human and capital resources.

Platforms for the usage of ABC inventory analysis: Organizations use Microsoft Excel to do a basic ABC inventory analysis by listing each product or resource in descending order according to its product usage value; this helps the organization to calculate the total of each item in the cumulative amount. Determining the values for the A, B, and C categories helps in assigning group names to each item. The goods with the highest value get the closest attention.

Using ABC analysis for inventory helps better control working capital costs. The information gained from the analysis reduces outdated inventory and this can boost the inventory turnover rate, or how often a business needs to replace items after selling through them. Almost every type of business can benefit from ABC analysis. Companies worldwide use the method to improve processes and increase profitability.

ABC Analysis Benefits

There is a long list of benefits of applying ABC analysis to inventory management:

Better optimization of warehouse: The analysis identifies the products that are in demand. A company can then use its limited warehouse space to adequately stock those goods and maintain lower stock levels for B or C items. By carrying the correct proportion of stock based on A, B, or C classes, you can reduce the inventory carrying costs that come with holding excess inventory.
Enhanced Inventory Forecasting: Monitoring and collecting data about products that have high customer demand can increase the accuracy of sales forecasting. Executives can use this information to set inventory levels and prices to increase overall revenue for the company.
Improved product pricing: A surge in sales for a specific item implies increased demand and a price increase for those products may be sensible which improves profitability.
Helps in negotiations with suppliers: Since companies earn 70% to 80% of their revenue on ‘A’ items, it makes sense to negotiate better terms with suppliers for those items. If the supplier doesn’t agree to lower the prices, organizations can negotiate post-purchase services, free shipping, or other benefits for cost savings.
Planned resource allocation: ABC analysis is a way to continuously evaluate resource allocation to ensure that ‘A’ category items align with customer demand. When demand lowers, re-classify the item into ‘B’ or ‘C’ can help in making space for the new Class A products.
Better customer service: Service levels depend on many factors, like quantity sold, item cost, and profit margins. Once the most profitable items are determined it helps offer better service levels for those items.
Better product life cycle management: ABC Analysis helps in understanding the stages of the product life cycle (launch, growth, maturity, or decline) which are critical for forecasting demand and stocking inventory levels suitably.
Maintaining and regulating high-cost Items: Category ‘A’ inventory needs to be observed closely and is important to a company’s success. Prioritizing and monitoring demand is important for maintaining suitable stock levels so that enough key products are always at hand.
Streamlined supply chain management: Use of ABC analysis of inventory helps in determining and consolidating the selection of suppliers or shifting to a single source to reduce carrying costs and simplify operations. ABC ranks items on-demand, cost, and risk data, and inventory managers group items into classes based on those criteria.

Apple, the consumer electronics giant keeps as little inventory on hand as possible. By lowering the amount of stock on hand, Apple carries a lower risk of overstocking and chalking up dead stock in its warehouses. As explained by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, “Inventory is fundamentally evil” You kind of want to manage it like you’re in the dairy business. If it gets past its freshness date, you have a problem.”

Understanding Product Life Cycle for Effective Marketing

Dr Vidya Hattangadi — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 01:36:38 +0000

We consume many products and services every day of our life; from hiring a cab, consuming groceries, snacks, tea/coffee/cold-drink, and education for kids, flowers, maid/gardener’s service, water, electricity etc, etc. We get used to consuming certain products and services on regular basis, which we don’t like to change.

The picture above of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate shows it in the maturity stage of the product Life cycle. It currently has a market share of 70% in the Indian chocolate market and is way ahead of its competitors. There is a high degree of brand awareness. The color purple and the ‘glass and half full’ logo is amongst the most recognized logos and the association of the two with Cadbury Dairy Milk is synonymous.

I think, it’s a wrong notion that, long-established products eventually don’t get consumed, in fact some century old brands are still in demand because they are handled well throughout their lifecycles and these brands have maintained their consistency. The Product Life Cycle concept was coined by the economist Raymond Vernon in 1966, and it is still a widely used model in economics and marketing. Products enter the market and gradually get withdrawn, according to Vernon, each product has a certain life cycle that begins with its development and ends with its decline. Like human beings, products also go through different stages in their lives. If we look after our health and happiness well, we live longer life, similarly if products are looked after well and given proper treatment, they also last longer in the market.

Product Life Cycle Stages Explained: The product life cycle has four clearly defined stages, each with its own characteristics.

Introduction Stage: In this stage, the product is introduced in the market. This stage of the cycle could be the most expensive. For a company launching a new product, the size of the market, competition from the existing players in the market, engaging marketing channels, everything matters. In this stage three things such as pricing of product, distribution and promotion needs to be tackled effectively. Activities such as marketing research, consumer testing, and promotional activities require huge investment, especially if the product is introduced in a competitive sector. In the early stages of brand launch, people ask ‘what is it’? This question is asked by customers, also by potential investors, partners, and vendors. How effectively this question is answered, dictates whether a brand will grow or not.

Growth Stage: Marketing campaigns during the Introduction stage tend to benefit from all the buzz and hype that surrounds the launch of a new product. But as the product starts getting sold at a good pace, and it starts establishing, a more refined marketing approach is needed in order to make the most of the growth potential of this phase. The growth stage can be seen as when a product’s sales begin to increase rapidly and when the demand is high. The marketer also experiences a noticeable increase in competition as other firms develop similar products to compete for available revenue and market share. The Internet is a current example of a product that can be found in the growth phase of its life cycle. The benefits the Internet has provided have resulted in rapid reception in consumer and business markets.

Maturity stage: During this stage, the product is established and the most important activity of the marketer in this stage is to maintain the market share they have built up. This is probably the most competitive time for most products. And, businesses need to invest wisely in any marketing activity they undertake. The marketer needs to look at strategies such as product modification or improvement to the production process which might give them a competitive advantage. The market maturity stage occurs when the market has become saturated; sales growth rate tends to decrease. Efforts are focused on differentiation of the product. Pricing may be lower because of increased competition. Margins begin to shrink as marginal competitors are forced out of the market. Distribution is maximized and promotions come into play as a way to encourage preference over competing products. Market share becomes the main focus in the maturity stage. If the product maintains profits, regardless of the stage of the lifecycle, it should be said that the product is outstanding.

Decline Stage: Eventually, the market for a product at some point starts weakening, and this is what’s known as the decline stage. The shrinkage could be due to the market saturation, new innovative products introduced in market, or because the consumers are switching to a different type of product. While the decline is a fact and inevitable, it may still be possible for companies to make some profit by switching to less-expensive production methods and discounting prices.

Either at the maturity stage of decline stage a company might look out for strategies such as:

New-packaging: this helps in providing a new image to a product, particularly if the product had a limited target and limited market. Fresh packaging can draw new customers. For example, ‘Go’ dairy product brand came in with its new packaging, it instantly cut the clutter with its bold logotype and image in an otherwise sedate looking category. Interestingly, for its non-traditional dairy products like flavored yogurts and various cheese spreads among others, it went with the name ‘Go’ which is an extension of the mother brand ‘Gowardhan’. The brand design was designed smartly so that the new brand gained from the equity of the umbrella brand but at the same time, it maintained a distinct identity of its own since it very clearly targeted a different consumer set than brand Gowardhan did. New packaging helps the visual effect.

Discounting: Sometimes marketers start designing new pricing strategy which can be a short-term option for a mature product; in some cases, re-pricing the product by discounting can reach out to a target market that has typically seen the product as being just out of reach. The best example can be – hotels offer discounts in the off seasons, in winter we get electric fans, air-conditioners refrigerators at special reduced prices.

Re-Branding: Rebranding is the process of changing the corporate image of a corporate brand/an organization/product/service which many markers have successfully adopted. It is a market strategy of either giving a new name, symbol, change the logo, or change in design for an already-established brand. The idea behind rebranding is to create a different identity for a brand, to make it stand out from clutter, from its competitors. Re-branding a mature product can be a rather extreme approach to extending its life cycle, and it requires to be done proficiently. Re-branding results in changing not only the packaging but also the name and total appearance of the product.

For example, after the exposure of 2009 deception, Satyam Computer Service was pushed to the brink of liquidation. The company was sold to Tech Mahindra. The whole process was stringently followed by the Government authorities and Tech Mahindra named the new corporation as ‘Mahindra Satyam’ in the year 2013, by merging with Satyam Computer Services, which is among the topnotch IT service providers.

Expanding in new markets: In some cases, a product life cycle can only little far in one place. Expanding the product in new markets in abroad to reach out to a completely untapped market can extend the product life cycle on a different level. However, expanding in abroad can be costly, because the product has to be introduced completely in a new market, but if the move is effective the company can bring in profits that give the product new life.

The Biggest Marketing Challenge: The biggest challenge, rather the main challenge for all marketers is creating differentiation among the targeted markets. The answer to the question ‘what is the product’ must clearly differentiate a brand from competitors’ offerings. Each marketer must answer this question by adding relevance and consistency. At all stages of the life of the product, if the brand isn’t differentiated in an attractive way, it loses its market share and visibility. At times in the introduction stage itself, a product can be defunct.