Making An Ever Green Product

An evergreen product would be somewhat similar to ever green plants/trees out there. Considering the complex and ever changing market where consumers taste changes quite often, where your competitors always try to outdone you.

And where costs of bringing new products are phenomenal, how about a product that consumers/customers like and that also gives you the competitive edge plus its life cycle is always somewhere in between growth and maturity.
  
And when product life cycle of a product is in growth and maturity, it is indeed great news for organization and its stake holders. As that means growth in profits or proceeds on sales while in terms of an ever green product it would mean a continuous growth in profits. Aint that great?! I mean come on you always wanted to have a cash cow.

Imagine which one would survive if there is a constant and rapid change in weathers around the world. The usual plants and trees or the evergreen ones, the complexity and change of weathers is a right analogy for today’s market situation.

Reasons to Go for Ever Green Product

• Hyper competition, with the advent of internet, social media and continuous advances in technology the consumers have far more knowledge about different products while the competitors are using all these new advances to their own benefits in terms of promotion campaigns, in terms of product enhancements, price strategies so on and so forth.

• Well gone are the days when businesses used to do the strategy of new products to capture market, obviously that doesn’t mean that you can’t launch a new product. Yes you can. But at what cost ?, at what effort ?, launching a new product in hyper competitive market doesn’t sound like a right idea to me. Especially when all you are doing to keep your piece of cake safe. The honor of launching new product is now with the leaders and you as the follower needs to stick with what you have by continuously enhancing and improving. That doesn’t mean that this strategy is for followers rather considering the market flux it is valid for all. If Apple Inc is doing that like for instance in its flagship product where it has improved its product over the years and kept its product in between growth/maturity. And you know the proverb “Do what the Romans do”.

• The concept of continuously improving and enhancing product has brought companies huge profits, proceeds and had changed their day. Globally Apple Inc was unknown until “jesus phone” phenomena. Likewise Samsung whose brand worth has put it on 30^th spot on Brandz list from last year 55^th position, thanks to its market oriented innovation and constant enhancements to its products. Now my argument of evergreen product doesn’t mean ever green gadget the idea can be applied to all sorts of products. For instance, market has been stable in terms of flux for edible dealing giants but as we all know you can’t just improve the Coca Cola or McDonald specific product but adding new one. So what most of fast food giants are doing is adding healthy menus to their chow lists (though it seems like a least of concern to America considering over all obesity). That is another way to evergreen products where your focus is on target market lifestyles, demographics, income levels, inflation etc and adjusting your menus accordingly.

How to Have an Evergreen Product

• Constant Market reconnaissance 

  The continuous exploration and surveys would help the manufacturer to add new features or drop the dead wood as per its target market changing needs, tastes. Likewise look for the changes where a specific trend or feature of your product is on wane and others coming in. Similarly keep a close watch on latest developments in categories that relate to your product like for instance if you are dealing in electronic gadgets you should never lose focus of new developments in technology (category) and if you deal in foods etc you should watch health sector developments, target market health awareness this doesn’t mean that your company should overlook all other aspects like demographics, income fluctuations, economic conditions etc. But technology for electronic gadgets manufacturer and health awareness for food dealers can help in greatly enhancing its product in many ways like in terms of features, consumer/customer satisfaction and needs, attaining and maintaining competitive edge so on and so forth.

• Exceptional R&D

  Though for new/fresh investors/Entrepreneur it might sound impossible but you can’t just beat the tough guy overnight. When you start, keep your R&D or whatever you name it at a level that would at least give hard time to your types in market, such a strategy will help you going up step by step. Always try to improve your R&D one way or another; in a nutshell it should be your prime priority in your running concern. Adding habit and culture of improving R&D would help you a lot in long run. And as for giants/established businesses, they should make R&D their top priority especially when they are among those who deal in technology related stuff. Your R&D should bring constant improvements to your product otherwise it would be impossible to maintain the leading edge, competitive edge etc.

Bottom Line

Focusing on continuous market exploration and keeping exceptional R&D in conjunction with all other strategies (as per internal and external organization situation) is a sure way to achieve, continuous growth in profits and competitive edge.