Content
Chapter 4: Disposition of the Army
Sun Zi said: In antiquity those who were excelled in warfare result that they would not be defeated and then waited for opportunities to defeat the enemy.

Positioning means that importance to defend the existing position lead you to move in advance on your opponents and how you must recognize for the opportunities to defeat the enemy. As indicate in business application, according to the Product Life Cycle there are 3 stages. According to the above as Sun Zi said, this is the first stage of the Product Life Cycle. If your company would like to come out a new product wait for the good opportunity and see the external environment such as government policy, competitor’s strategy, consumer behaviour, trend, supplier and more. The manager of the company have to do some research about the current market, collect more information, build up connection, build up strong financial background, build up internal culture and Research and Development in order to succeed in the future. The vital action is being well prepared before the opportunity coming.

In this stage, when an established company comes out with a new product and the product may invest a lot of research and development capital. However the investor might not getting good returns or feedback when compare with the effort they are putting. In other words, this also show an indication that the company to rest and do another well preparation before they start over again for the next battle. As a leader or the top management, must have advance mission and do forecast for the market trend in the future. Future development and improvement is one of the method and vital element to let the company growth. A company can control the market however the right timing should impose properly as well. Therefore if the company just follow the trend, this may cause them maybe cannot make more profit as they require attaining more. The worst is if the organization can’t examine what is their current trend and maintain their traditional way with no improvement of their product or the operation system this will lead the company loss and might be bankrupt in the future. Sun Zi said: The ability to prevent defeat depends on oneself, while the opportunity for victory depends on the enemy.

In the second stage of the business application transformation, when the opportunity arrived a company can earn make more profit as they expected. This is because they have a good planning and well prepared like financial and material support. With this will enhance the company easy to penetrate the market. Therefore when you are the market leader, you can actually control all the factors like pricing, product, promotion and place. Something like if you have a lousy car you will not be able to drive fast or speed hence you will take longer time to reach your destination. However, if you have a good condition or a sport car, you can drive few thousand of miles as far and fast as you can. It is save your time too.

Sun Zi said: Those who are skilled in combat can ensure that they will not be defeated by the enemy, but they are unable to ensure victory over the enemy. This means that the company or the organization will ensure they can still survive in this market but maybe with little profit nevertheless they are unable they can still be the victory as compare to their competitor. In the business application conversion, every product have their life cycle and also they life time. In the third stage, profit of one company may goes down or stable. Creative, innovation and improvement on their origin products is to help to continue its life and sales. If not the old product will be replace by others. Sun Zi said: He does not make mistakes because he adopts measures, policies and strategies that certain to lead to victory. He wins because he chooses to engage an enemy that is already in a position.

In order to achieve higher level, people who are the most successful will predict the future and create the market and realize the prediction. Followers of the company will enjoy in the end once they had passed they obstacles the reason is because to success in the future you will suffer in the period that you work hard. Therefore a company who wish to make more profit, the company should have their own policies and strategies in order for the employees to follow.

Discussion
Recently, KFC had launched two new products one is black pepper chicken and the most recent one is KFC fish donuts. These two products can classify it as in introduction stage. The reason of KFC comes out with the new product was because the trend. KFC in every few months later will launch a new product. The purpose is to attract more customer and the new products to its current assortment are based on its competitors the product’s demand and its compatibility with the environment standard. Moreover, sometimes some of its promotional products that introduced to the market were Twister and Waikiki Burger. Developing a new product will help KFC to gain significant market shares as people will try the new products. In this stage, the new products of the KFC just launched might make a profit for them but not much.
Through this second stage, KFC easier to penetrate in this market the reason is because they are also well prepare with the 4 factors such as pricing, products, promotion and place. One of the example of the factor like product of the KFC can remain at this stage to earn extremely more profit are KFC has its own special packaging which is disposable and environmental friendly packaging. They do family packaging and use paper material for packaging in order to avoid health hazards and environmental pollution. Recently, another innovation KFC pioneering for the fast-food industry is the reusable, recyclable side dish container. The polypropylene side dishes are microwavable, dishwasher safe, leak resistant and are fully recyclable. It is a great improvement and innovation in the packaging of mashed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, green beans and coleslaw, which were previously contained in polystyrene foam containers.
Another factor is like promotion also one of the method to boost KFC sales. KFC made advertisement via television, Internet, newspaper and radio. For television, KFC advertise mainly of its new meal or promotion, such as Snack Box and Afternoon Cravers, during the commercial break. Through the promotion sometime provide free voucher, so customers can get discount by showing the voucher to the cashier. The third stage which is maturity stage KFC has a Quality Assurance Department to decide new products innovation. This department prepares screening of the new ideas and product’s feasibility. Besides, this department also does technical evaluation to make sure whether it is practical to produce that product. An example is KFC has maintained the original flavour of KFC fried chicken and some meal which is in this stage like dinner plate and snack plate even though kind of meals that KFC has already introduce as their new product. One of the strategies that KFC used likes for example the pricing strategy. KFC always compare its price with McDonald, Dominoes and Pizza Hut. For example, if McDonald offer the same product, but at a lower price than KFC, KFC will lower its price too in order to maintain its customers and keep its competition advantages. Besides, a KFC policy also important for as it is like the rules and regulation for the company.
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Recommendation
KFC has a long time to market but their new products are not so popular after they implemented. Because of the nature of the chicken segment of the fast food industry, innovation was never a primary strategy for KFC. However, during the late 1980’s, other fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Kenny Rogers began to offer chicken as a menu option. During that time, McDonald’s had already introduced McChicken while KFC still testing its own chicken sandwich .This delay significantly increased the cost of developing consumer awareness for the KFC sandwich. Kenny Rogers are starting to introduce grilled chicken in their main course and they have more side dishes choice. KFC currently lack of innovation and most of their new products are not satisfying with consumer choice such as the black pepper flavor which is implemented last few years and most of the consumer found out it is too spicy and not acceptable by consumers, so in the end they are back to spicy flavor and remain the same.
Apart from this ,the advertisement in television or newspaper picture are attracting many peoples to try out the new product, but after buying the products, most of the consumer are complaint that the food are different with what they had mentioned in the newspaper or advertisement, because the exaggeration, it leads to low sale again for the new product. So, KFC should do more research on current region what they like and is more preferable for them and it will lead to more sale with matching consumer taste.
KFC should improve its research and development due to the stiff competition in fast-food industry. They need to move on and develop new products regularly in order to increase its performance and values and maintain its competitiveness. By doing so they have to evaluate whether they had plan and the right timing. Moreover, KFC should aware and alert with new technology, so that can improve its productivity and able to compete more effectively.

Conclusion:
As conclusion being defeat by other fast food industry, KFC should plan well and do some preparation such as Research and Development in order to be the top in the market. Through this, they can achieve their objective easily. In this Product Life Cycle, we have learnt that they are three stages, on how KFC goes through each stage with different products from introduction, growth and maturity stage. Each stage shows the different characteristics on how KFC deal with it. Being survive in the market and become the top of the leader of fried chicken fast food industry, KFC should implement on how creative and innovative when introduce a new product in the market. KFC should not just conceive want to make more profit and neglect his own uniqueness because this will affect not only the reputation and also on how the customer to view on it.

In this chapter I have learn that plan well, do well and choose the right timing is the most important of all. In addition not being defeat by the opponent, well prepare also another term that to lead us to success in the market or in this world. Therefore be wise and not make any mistake, you can be victory in the future.