The Product Life Cycle: Vehicle for Fashioning & Purchasing Strategy

Development of Research ProblemThe needs, wants, and desires of industrial customers are fulfilled in a market environment epitomised by exchanges between buyers and sellers. Both of these parties execute strategic moves which are intended to perpetuate their existence as well as optimise the use of available resources. While the over‐riding ambition of the investigator was to identify a model‐form which might serve as a reference for substantiating certain strategic moves by corporate purchasing executives, the more immediate desire was to test empirically the validity of applying such a theory to purchasing. The conceptual model‐form was hypothesised by Berenson. He posited it would answer some of the questions raised by purchasing executives concerning guidelines for establishing purchasing strategy as well as for setting priorities among strategies. The concept was the product life cycle (PLC) theory.