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Last week, I sat across from a CEO at the AWS Data & Ai Day who  detailed their company's innovative product development process and inflight Ai projects. The presentation was polished, the roadmap impressive. But when I asked about their post-launch governance framework, the conversation suddenly lost its momentum.

This scenario plays out more often than you might think. As the founder of Skyjed, I've seen how even the most visionary executives can have significant blind spots when it comes to comprehensive lifecycle management and governance.

The disconnect is understandable. Most business schools and executive programs still teach lifecycle frameworks developed in the 1960s‚ (we have all seen that lifecycle graph) approaches created before the digital revolution, before real-time analytics, and certainly before artificial intelligence changed the entire business landscape.

The Questions That Separate Market Leaders from Followers

The most forward-thinking CEOs I work with are asking fundamentally different questions about their product portfolios‚ questions that reveal a deeper understanding of where true competitive advantage lies in today's market:

1. How are we using modern Lifecycle Management & Governance to anticipate product sunset timing rather than reactively managing end-of-life?

Most organisations still address product retirement as a reactive exercise, typically initiated when revenue declines become impossible to ignore. By this point, significant value has already been lost. Leading companies are now using predictive AI models to forecast optimal sunset timing years in advance, allowing for strategic resource allocation and maximum value extraction throughout the entire product journey.

2. Can our systems automatically adjust lifecycle strategies based on real-time customer usage patterns and strategic reviews?

The traditional approach involves quarterly or annual reviews of product performance. In today's market, that's simply too slow. The companies gaining market share have integrated systems that continuously analyse usage patterns, automatically flagging when products are shifting between lifecycle phases and recommending strategic adjustments in real-time.

3. What's our ratio of proactive vs. reactive lifecycle decisions, and how does that compare to industry leaders?

This question often reveals uncomfortable truths. When executives honestly assess their decision patterns, many discover that over 70% of their lifecycle management governance remains reactive‚ responding to market shifts rather than anticipating them. The companies outperforming their sectors typically maintain at least a 60/40 ratio of proactive to reactive decisions. This single metric often correlates directly with long-term market performance.

4. What percentage of our revenue comes from products in decline phases we failed to identify early?

This question cuts to the heart of the matter. When companies lack sophisticated lifecycle management governance, they often find that 25-40% of their revenue derives from products already in decline‚ consuming resources that could be directed toward higher-growth opportunities. Market leaders typically keep this number under 15%, allowing them to redirect investment toward emerging opportunities months or years before their competitors.

The Real Cost of Outdated Lifecycle Approaches

The consequences of using outdated lifecycle management frameworks extend far beyond missed opportunities. They directly impact:

Resource allocation efficiency

Companies with advanced lifecycle management typically achieve 22-30% higher resource efficiency across their portfolios.   -

Time-to-insight advantage

Leading companies identify market shifts 4-6 months before competitors using traditional frameworks.

AI implementation success

Organisations that modernise their lifecycle governance framework before implementing AI see faster adoption, less over-runs, early decisions on closing-out a project and substantially higher ROI.

The Path Forward

At Skyjed, we've reimagined lifecycle management and governance from the ground up‚ not as an incremental improvement to 1960s thinking, but as a fundamental rethinking of how products should be managed throughout their journey.

The top CEOs recognise that launching innovative products is only half the battle. The real competitive edge comes from mastering the entire product journey in ways your competition hasn't even considered. So I'll leave you with this question:

Which lifecycle questions are you asking that your competition isn't?

If you're ready to move beyond outdated product management approaches and implement a solution that drives competitive advantage through the entire product lifecycle, I'd welcome a conversation. Reach out for a 30-minute discussion on how Skyjed's AI-based lifecycle management and governance solution can be implemented in just 8-12 weeks, transforming how you identify opportunities and mitigate risks across your product portfolio.

Let's talk about pragmatic solutions and what's possible for your products.

Leica

Contact Skyjed today for a personalised demonstration.

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