The Product Life Cycle was something that interested me and I realized that can be seen and used in my different instances. After reading a few of the posts and commenting on it I noticed a lot of people in the past have posted about Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites. That topic is something common and something that many people can relate too, which helps to put the product life cycle into perspective and helps a reader understand it better.

Something that I’ve seen in business organizations is the use of communication. I believe overtime that has changed, improved, and become more efficient for the business world.

The four stages of the Product Life Cycle are Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline – in that order. After one idea/product is introduction, it goes to the growth process where the idea is rethought and further developed and perfected a little more. Then when it reaches the maturity stage that is usually when other companies start to copy the idea and improve it further and when it has become something common for people or that particular target market.

Communicating in the business world first started of with handwritten letters that would be delivered to companies over time with slow courier services. That now is in the decline stage, but I feel back then when it first started that was there only means of communication.

Next after that, continuing to go backwards, is the maturity stage where faxes stand as a means of communication between businesses. I feel that faxes are still needed and used to easily transfer documents even nowadays. I sent a fax just the other day to DePaul for financial aid documents. At times this is easier than scanning and emailing documents.

Then there is the growth stage, email has reached the growth stage and for the most part is moving onto maturity. There is still so much you can do with email and I feel like they still keep coming out with small changes in email – making it easier to upload photos, and email can even send bigger files with the right add-ons.

And nowadays, you have e-conferencing used for communication in businesses, there is Skype, and other similar programs, which allow you to video chat and/or make conference calls with your business associates. This also helps businesses with international clientele. It is a more cost effective way to make calls as well.

All these things have helped business to not only grow in their means of communication, but grow as a whole business. Communication is required in any business big or small to make sure things get done the way they need to. Nowadays cell phones are a big part of every industry as well because they allow emailing and e-conferencing, so you don’t even have to be in your office to take care of your business duties.

What do you guys think will be the next innovative and efficient step in communication for businesses worldwide?