Teladoc Inc.: Product Life Cycle The life cycle of a telehealth product enters multiple stages to include market development, growth, maturity, and decline (Levitt, 1965). The life cycle of a product is influenced by the market situation and economy. During the market development stage, a company is seeking to build brand awareness and to develop a market for the product. The demand for the product is not fully established during the market development stage, which required Teladoc to establish pricing, distribution, and promotion of the product. For Teladoc Inc., the market development stage of telehealth product life cycle began in 2005. Teladoc would dominate the telehealth market by offering telehealth products for $35 per consultation and limiting distribution to physician practice, health care systems, insurers, and health care organizations. In 2005, Teladoc only offered telehealth solutions via telephone medical consultations (AMA, 2005). By 2005, Teladoc Inc. would acquire 20,000 members across the United States regardless of barriers to implementation to include medical ethics, provider resistance, and reimbursement issues (AMA, 2005). The market growth stage of the product life cycle is the time for a business to focus on brand preference and increasing market shares. The most common …show more content…
Diversification occurs when a small company sells new products to new markets. Teladoc Inc. is considered a pioneer of the telehealth industry because the company was one of the first companies in the United States to offer telehealth products. Although, Teladoc only offered telephone medical consultation in the beginning, the company began to grow at rapid pace because of the challenges facing the health care delivery system including provider shortage, the prevalence of chronic disease in the population, and an increasing elderly