Short product life cycles: implications for the marketing activities of small high‐technology companies*

Many high‐technology products are characterized by a “short” product life cycle (PLC)—a short life on the market, a steep decline stage and the lack of a maturity stage. The paper discusses the implications for marketing activities of this pattern in the case of small high‐technology companies. It is shown that the marketing of a short PLC product requires a high level of marketing, managerial ability and sophistication as well as an investment of a large amount of resources. It is pointed out that small high‐technology firms are faced with a particularly difficult situation in this case because they lack appropriate resources and marketing sophistication. An understanding of the short PLC problem will help the small companies to conduct a more realistic assessment of the magnitude of the marketing task they face in order to adequately prepare themselves or avoid a commitment to projects which are beyond their abilities.