問31
頻出度★★★
プロダクトライフサイクルに関する記述のうち, 最も適切なものはどれか。
平成21年度 春期 ITパスポート試験 問31
ストラテジ系経営戦略マネジメント › マーケティング
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 31
Incorrectア
In the introduction stage the product is still little known and sales are small, while spending on R&D, equipment investment, and advertising comes first. Cash flow (money coming in and going out) is therefore usually negative, so the statement that it is positive is wrong. Recovering that up-front investment and turning cash flow positive comes only from the growth stage onward, when sales rise sharply.
- イ
正解 The correct answer is イ. The product life cycle is a way of viewing a product from the time it appears on the market until it disappears, in four stages: introduction → growth → maturity → decline. Of these, the growth stage is when the product is accepted by the market and sales and profits rise sharply, but it is also when competitors enter the market one after another to go after those profits. To keep being chosen among many similar products, it is effective to improve product features such as function, quality, and design and to adopt a differentiation strategy that highlights the difference from competitors’ products. Therefore イ, which says “In the growth stage, the strategy is to improve product features and differentiate from competitors,” is the most appropriate statement.
Incorrectウ
Competitors entering the market one after another and competition intensifying is a feature of the growth stage, so using it to describe the maturity stage mixes up the stages. In the maturity stage growth of the market as a whole has stopped and demand has run its course; new entrants actually settle down, and existing companies compete for the limited demand through share battles and price competition.
Incorrectエ
The decline stage is when demand falls and the market itself keeps shrinking, so even increasing advertising expenses can hardly be expected to restore growth. The standard approach in this stage is to hold costs down and harvest the remaining profit, or to decide on withdrawing from the market or switching to the next product; increasing advertising expenses is not an appropriate strategy.
ここがポイント
- Learn the four stages of the product life cycle and the features of each. Introduction = small sales and negative cash because of up-front investment; the task is to raise awareness. Growth = sales surge and competitors enter one after another, so you respond by improving the product to differentiate it. Maturity = growth slows, and share battles and price competition among existing companies are the main activity. Decline = demand falls, and you decide on cost cutting or withdrawal.
- Questions in this area typically swap the pairing of stage and measure. If you remember the matches — more entrants and differentiation = growth, defending share and price competition = maturity, deciding to withdraw or scale down = decline, up-front investment accepting losses = introduction — you can see through swapped choices.
用語