PLC: The Missing Link between Physical Distribution and Marketing Planning

Physical distribution (PD) management has often been viewed only as the administration of storage and transportation activities. However, increasing demands on customer service, added product complexity, increased transportation costs and intensifying competition have significantly broadened the scope of PD management. A modern PD manager must do more planning, command greater decision‐making authority and become more active in formulating and implementing marketing strategies (e.g. price setting, packaging design, etc). In order to assume these new responsibilities, PD managers will require a reconceptualisation of their jobs and function as an integral part of the firm. Most important is the need for a set of carefully conceived PD strategies and tactics that are sequenced according to some workable framework. The authors maintain that the product life cycle (PLC) concept represents such a guideline. They discuss how the PLC concept can be used to gauge changing market conditions as well as the subsequent impact this has on the formulation and implementation of timely PD strategies and tactics.