Have you heard about the terminology 'Sunset' linked to a product. Sunset of a product means that the product is going to be retired from company's product line. But why a company should retire a product or what should be the procedure to retire a product. An organization just can't remove a product overnight (until and unless it is a serious legal violation), as it would bring bad image to its brand value. There are certain steps which a company follows to retire a product. Mainly it is a twostep process.
- Company decides why to retire the product:
► New product replaces old - The current product becomes obsolete. Disruption is the way of life and products are evolving so much that the current products also need to adapt with the time. The classic example for this case is the digital camera which replaced the old traditional photo-film based camera.
► Unable to generate revenue - The product is not selling and unable to generate revenue. There might be alternative product or product substitute available in the market, which directly impacted the selling of the current product. The total addressable market of the current served market is becoming less day by day. At this point of time the company might focus to look for other markets to serve.
► No longer able to serve the customer problem - All products are developed to solve a customer problem. When the customer need evolves, the old way to satisfy its need might not be the answer. So, the product value or need diminishes.
► Technical Debt - The technical debt of the product might have increased so much that complete revamp will cost the company more. The company will soon communicate the End of Service date for the markets where it operates. The End of Life will follow.
► Market conditions - The market conditions like government rules, legal requirement, demographic requirement might have changed. In India quite a few Chinese app were banned to operate due to the legal reason.
2. Executing the sunset plan - To execute the product sunset plan, there are few things a company follows.
► Communicate to customers - The End of Service of the current product and End of Life of the current product needs to communicate with the customers. The customer might have a huge dependency, and they need time to transition from legacy application to a new product. If this is not done properly, the company might face bad feedback, reputational damage, even lawsuit against it.
► Communicate to support team - The current support team needs to have a detailed timeline and roadmap about how the current product is planned to retire. It will help them to plan their resource effectively.
► Communicate to sales and marketing team - Similarly to support team, the sales and marketing team needs to be communicated. They also need to plan for the marketing strategy and focus on other products.
Hope I am able to define the terminology properly for your understanding. If you have any questions, please get in touch with me.
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