Manufacturers of electrical goods can experience very short lifecycles for their products, For such companies, portfolio management necessarily involves identifying tomorrow’s star products, updating existing products, trying to make a stable level of earnings from mature products, and finally deleting those products which are almost at the end of their marketable life.

Visit the websites of the following consumer electrical goods manufacturers:

Sony: www.Sony.com
Kodak: www.kodak.com
Dyson: www.dyson.co.uk

Questions:

1. Go through the companies' product lists and identify which stages of the product life cycle you think each of the products are in.

2. Can you distinguish between the life cycle of the product form (e.g. cameras); the product type (e.g. SLR cameras) and the brand (e.g. Kodak)?

3. Select one product which is approaching the end of its lifecycle. What strategies - if any - are open to the company to profitably extend the life of the product?

Note-remember in your analysis that the term “product” refers to the tangible goods that you see listed, as well as services.