PRODUCT LIFECYCLE FORECASTING USING SYSTEM'S INDICATORS

The concept of product lifecycle is one of the tools of strategic management and gives a company the guidelines for marketing their product. It is very important that companies know in which lifecycle stage their product is. When conceiving a product platform, companies rely on the researches of socioeconomic parameters. These parameters are called influence parameters, because by changing through time they influence the sales of the product and consequently the lifecycle curve, and require the company to change its business model, business strategy or their product. The changes of influence parameters reflect the changes of consumer needs, which is why in most cases the product needs to be adapted to the new parameters. In order for companies to know in which lifecycle stage the product is or will be, they often use forecasting methods. In this process, all the socio-economic parameters are projected that were valid in that specific period. The purpose of the article is to develop a model that takes into account the changing of influence parameters and gives reliable medium-term forecasts of the sales of a given product (attached is an example of a built-in oven lifecycle).