Jesus was Born a Jew!: Strategy, Religion and the Product Life Cycle

The Product Life Cycle remains one of the more popular tools of modern management that has survived in a universally acceptable form. More a product of logic and pedagogical learning than the rigors of empirical validation, the PLC concept has survived the myriad of changes that have taken place in the field of strategic management. The PLC has had two major contributions: First, the process of innovation is an eternal quest for identifying the “new curves.†Second, the new curve identified may not be a singular. This is true for all products, and this paper takes the stand that the concept and dimensions of the PLC can also be applied to religion. This paper argues that on three fundamentals: one that religion like all other commodities needs to be “sold†and therefore growth paths need to be identified (refer The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino), two there is a common thread running through all religions, and that strategies of differentiation and focus dominate; and three that it is possible to identify a unique PLC for each religion, along with the accompanying assumptions of predictability with, of course, with different periodicities. The process of application of the PLC to five different religions has resulted in the series of seven propositions outlined in the paper. The implications of the propositions would have substantial learnings for the “managers†of religion.