Product Life Cycle, or Indeed

¶ … product life cycle, or indeed any change to the product life cycle. Must be taken into account in the marketing and financial planning of any company. Essentially, maximizing profit potentials and future cash flows necessitates the alterations of product life cycles to bring the time between product release and revenue generation to the shortest possible, matching optimum production levels to an adequate supply based on market demand (VBM 2010). A shorter product life cycle means that a company must increase production capabilities in order to meet demand, and also means that there will be more cash flow generated through more frequent sales, leading to an increase in absolute sales over any given period of time (VBM 2010). This can lead to many different implications for the long-term planning the company engages in, significantly altering certain accounting figures based on expected cash flow, potentially altering the company's tax liability, and having a direct impact on production capacities and projections for the physical elements of the company's operations and its provision of the product to consumers.

2)

One of the main reasons that joint ventures have been increasing in this age of increasing globalization and the interconnectedness of world markets is simple cost effectiveness -- it is often cheaper, especially in initial stages, for an international venture to operate with a full partner located in the country of operation, often with existing or more cheaply available infrastructure and equipment (Sharp 2010). In addition, joint ventures allow for the pooling of resources, which can be a tremendous advantage especially in industries with heavy capital requirements, both in providing the necessary capital with minimized risks to both partners in the venture and through a faster acquisition and development of newer and more cost-effective technologies through the extended supply and development chains of the partners (Sharp 2010). The growth of organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund over the past several decades has also fostered many joint ventures and conditions that are favorable to these ventures, and this is cited as another reason for their increasing popularity in the current climate, despite high failure rates for many of these ventures and their essentially temporary nature (Sharp 2010).

3)

In order to understand the differences between entering into a developing foreign market vs. entering a market that is relatively untapped, with little competition, the effects that these situations have on demand and supply chain issues must first be broken down. In developed or developing markets, more competition will exist, decreasing demand for the company's specific product and also increasing the marketing struggle, as brand loyalties and simple recognition will be higher for companies already established in the market (Foley 2010). Beginning entry into such a market with simple exporting is advisable, as it has reduced costs and lower risks than other entry methods (provided that manufacturing in the country of entry is more costly than manufacture at existing plants) (Foley 2010). Where less competition exists, other methods of entry can be developed that confer the advantages of early entry more quickly, generally with greater upfront costs but more profit potential in the long-term, assuming the business and its marketing efforts are run properly and efficiently (Foley 2010). These markets, especially in the relatively saturated world that exists today, might have strong cultural resistances to direct investment attempts, making joint ventures a favorable method of initial entry into a market, establishing brand recognition and building cultural bridges between the company and the market before transitioning to a different type of venture, typically a direct investment subsidiary (Foley 2010).

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