Pequenos negócios

CICLO DE VIDA

"The Embryonic Stage. The embryonic stage is marked by excitement, naive euphoria, thrust, clumsiness, a high failure rate, and much brainstorming. Pricing is high and experimental. Sales volume is low because the market is very small, and production and marketing costs are high. You need to locate your core customer and stress the benefits. Educating the customer may be necessary and costly. Competition has not yet appeared. It's difficult to find distributors, and resellers demand huge gross margins. Profit is chancy and speculative. Shrewd entrepreneurs, however, can close their eyes and divine the presence of a core market. Keep trying! (...). The Growth Stage. Product innovation, strong product acceptance, the beginnings of brand loyalty, promotion by media sizzle, and ballpark prices make the growth stage. Distribution becomes all important. Resellers who laughed during the embryonic stage now clamor to distribute the product. Strong competitors, excited by the smell of money, enter the arena of the market-place, as do new target customer groups. Profit percentages show signs of peaking. Brand loyalty begins as you try to establish your unique position. Media responses start to sizzle. The Mature Stage. Peak customer numbers mark the mature stage. Design concentrates on product differentiation instead of product improvement. Competitors are going at it blindly now, running momentum even as shelf velocity slows. Production runs get longer, so firms can take full advantage of capital equipment and experienced management. Resellers, sensing doom, cool on the product. Advertising investments increase in step with competition. Some firms go out of business. Prices are on a swift slide down. Competition is very heavy. One needs to enter only if one has a unique twist on the product or truly provides a better product. But first ask yourself, "Can you realistically convey his message to your target customer?" The Decline Stage. The decline stage is marked by extreme depression and desperation in the marketplace. A few firms still hang on. Research and development cease. Promotion vanishes. Price wars continue. Opportunities emerge for entrepreneurs in service and repair. Diehards fight for what remains of the core market. Resellers cannot be found; they've moved on."

Fonte: Ryan, J. D. e Hiduke, Gail P. (2003), Small Business: An Entrepreneur's Business Plan, 6.ª edição, Thompson Learning.