What Is Product Lifecycle Management: All You Need To Know

Experienced product managers know that their job isn't over once the product is launched. They're on duty during the entire product's lifecycle until the product is retired or replaced with a new one.

But the good news is that this journey is exciting and has many benefits, like driving innovations and increasing user satisfaction.

In this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about product lifecycle management and its stages.

What is product lifecycle management

Product lifecycle management (PLM) refers to managing the complete journey of a product, from its initial ideation, through developing and launching the product, until its disposal.

In other words, it covers the entire product lifecycle:

• Introduction stage
• Growth
• Maturity/Stability
• Decline

Product management lifecycle isn't limited to the product development process, it also includes marketing and promotion, and all important decisions regarding a product. That's why it usually involves cross-functional teams.

Before we dive into PLM, you may want to get back to basics and check out our articles on product management principles.

The history of PLM

Although the elements of PLM probably existed in various forms before the concept was fully developed, the term first appeared in the 1980s in the manufacturing and engineering industry.

Early forms of PLM are tied to Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems that allow engineers to create digital models before actually building products. The purpose of PLM was to facilitate collaboration and data sharing among designers and engineers and make sure that everyone had up-to-date information.

With time, as business processes became more complex, PLM involved and started including other aspects, such as supply chain collaboration.

In the early 2000s, PLM expanded beyond traditional manufacturing to include industries like producing consumer goods. Companies started to build more complex PLM solutions and software as we know them today.

With the rise of digital products such as apps and online tools, PLM technology has adjusted to drive innovations in SaaS product management as well.

The topics we cover in this article can apply to both physical and digital products, with slight variations depending on the industry.

The product lifecycle stages

Before diving into product lifecycle, it's worth mentioning that companies sometimes use different terms for product stages or categorize them in different ways. Plus, there could be some variations depending on the industry.

Also, bear in mind that product lifecycle management is rarely linear. Some stages may overlap, or it may be necessary to return to a previous stage to fix or refine something.

However, these are the universal stages that almost all products go through.

Concept stage

The initial stage is also known as product ideation as this is the stage in which the team is gathering and testing ideas.

This phase also includes market research, identifying user persona, customer needs and problems, and determining the feasibility of the product.

Before proceeding to product development, it's essential to validate your idea. Check out our guide on product validation that will make sure you don't invest time and money in a product that's simply not viable or doesn't have a large enough market.

Development stage

Also known as the design and engineering phase, this is an essential stage in which you create a detailed design of the product and its prototypes or pilot versions.

Before proceeding to the actual production, it's necessary to test the pilot version and gather user feedback to see whether any changes or adjustments are necessary.

Production stage

The duration and complexity of the production stage may differ based on the type of the product.

If we're talking about digital products like apps and software, in this stage developers have to implement user feedback, refine the product and create its final version. This may take more or less time, depending on how detailed your pilot version was.

However, if we're talking about physical products, this stage refers to the manufacturing process that includes sourcing raw materials, assembling components and creating a final product. PLM of physical products can often be more complex than digital ones as it depends on supply chain management as well.

In any case, after the production process, a company should have a finished product that they're satisfied with, which doesn't require tweaking the design.

Launch stage

This is where marketing and sales teams come into play. In this article, we've explained why product management and digital marketing should collaborate and how this approach benefits everyone.

Product launch includes creating a marketing strategy, building anticipation and creating buzz about the product. It also includes promotions, advertising and sales calls.

In many cases, product launches start during the production phase and happen simultaneously, as you need time to warm up your audience before offering the product.

Service and support stage

Product lifecycle management doesn't finish once the product is launched and people have bought it. You must provide ongoing customer support, including customer service, warranties, and repairs.

In some cases, this also includes organizing training or creating tutorials on how to use your product.

New business owners often calculate the costs of production and marketing but forget to add in the cost of service and support. These costs can quickly add up, depending on the complexity of your product or your target group.

However, this stage is essential for customer relationship management and building trust. As you already know, selling to an existing customer (who was satisfied with your product or service) is much easier than acquiring a new one.

Therefore, investing in providing great customer support may lead to significant cost savings in the long run.

Retirement stage

There are various reasons for product retirement and withdrawal from the market. Maybe the product is outdated or there's no more demand for it. Maybe the competitors have come up with a much better solution. Or maybe you simply want to switch to something else and build a new product.

In any case, someone has to manage the so-called end of life of the product, including public announcement, clearing remaining inventory and recycling or re-purposing.

Successful products often get enhanced with new features or a better design and launched again. A classic example would be the iPhone, where each generation represents a similar product, just improved with new technology and innovative features.

***

Now that you're familiar with all stages of a product lifecycle, it's worth mentioning different types of product management tools.

Some product management software specialize in one or two stages, leading you to end up overwhelmed as you constantly have to switch from one tool to another, losing valuable data.

On the other hand, some modern PLM software like Zeda.io cover all stages of the product lifecycle ensuring data integrity and speeding up the whole process.

What are the benefits of PLM

Product lifecycle management has many benefits, both for your company and your customers. Here are some of them:

Data centralization

Product lifecycle management fosters creating centralized databases and having a "single source of truth" in PLM jargon.

Everyone who works in the product sector knows how quickly product-related data can change and become outdated. If the data is not kept in the centralized PLM system, some departments could end up working with outdated data, or there could be miscommunication.

By using PLM systems to automate product data management, there's no need to manually update your colleagues from other departments, as they can be notified about all changes in real-time.

Faster product release

Product lifecycle management streamlines product development and fosters collaboration among different teams, including designers, developers, and marketers. This reduces development cycle times and leads to faster product launches.

Increased innovation

This approach fosters a collaborative environment and encourages innovation by providing a structured platform for idea generation.

Everyone has insight into every stage of the process, and everyone's ideas are welcomed, which means that innovations are no longer reserved only for some departments and can come from different sources.

PLM also facilitates rapid prototyping and testing, allowing you to quickly validate your ideas.

Lifecycle transparency

PLM provides insights into every stage of a product's lifecycle, which comes with many benefits.

First, it allows you to monitor progress in real-time, ensuring that each phase stays on track. It also allows you to identify and fix potential issues early on, for example, design flaws or compliance risks. This leads to minimizing delays and reducing costs along the way.

Finally, full transparency is the best way to build trust with stakeholders and investors.

Continuous improvement and user satisfaction

Product lifecycle management promotes gathering and implementing customer feedback in every stage and constantly improving the product. This proactive approach leads to increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, but also staying ahead of competitors.

How can Zeda.io help with product lifecycle management?

Zeda.io is an AI product management platform that can be used in all stages of product lifecycle management. It helps you streamline the processes, collect and analyze customer feedback and build products that users love. It comes with built-in product management frameworks so you don't have to waste time and start from scratch.

Here are its key features:

• Centralized feedback: We provide you with a centralized platform for capturing, organizing and analyzing customer feedback from different sources (Zeda.io integrates with over 5,000 apps). You don't have to analyze large volumes of feedback manually, as our AI platform does it for you. It can summarize feedback and provide you with key takeaways and action steps.
• Product validation: Zeda.io enables you to validate ideas and predict opportunities 10 times faster than in a traditional way. Use our Ask AI tool to ask questions about your potential product and get answers based on customer data. It's a much faster and more efficient way than using a focus group to get your answers.
• Product roadmaps: You can use our templates to build highly customizable product roadmaps that will speed up product development. You can also use them for feature prioritization and maximizing revenue.
• AI insights: You no longer have to spend hours analyzing tons of user feedback to find something valuable that you can implement. We transform customer signals into actionable insights to help you improve your products.
• Predictive reports: Our predictive reports forecast all potential issues and problems customers might have with your product so you can proactively address them before launching it.

This is just a quick preview, so try it out for free and discover everything you can do with Zeda.io.

Conclusion

Product lifecycle management seems like a long and complex process, but it becomes much simpler when you centralize all your product data into a single PLM solution that can be used throughout all the stages of the product lifecycle.

Zeda.io is an AI-powered platform that helps you transform customer feedback and product data into actionable insights, build products your customers want, and increase your revenue.

Sign up today and try it out for free.