2. Corporate level analytical tools-BCG
Matrix
• The BCG Matrix (Growth-Share Matrix) was designed In the late 1960s the Boston Consulting
Group, a leading management consulting company.
• It was designed a four-cell matrix to help his clients with efficient allocation of resources
among different business units.It has since been used as a portfolio planning and analysis tool
for marketing, brand management and strategy development.
• In order to ensure successful long-term operation, every business organization should have a
portfolio of products/services rather than just one product or service. This portfolio should
contain both high-growth and low-growth products/services.
• High-growth products have the potential to generate lots of cash but also require substantial
amounts of investment. Low-growth products with high market share, on the other hand,
generate lots of cash while needing minimal investment.
• The BCG Matrix presents graphically the differences among these business units in terms of
relative market share and industry growth rate in four cells.
The BCG Matrix helps managers classify business units/products as low or high performers
using the following criteria:
1. Relative market share (strength of a business unit’s position in that market) Relative
market share (RMS) is the percentage of the total market that is being controlled by the
company being analyzed.
2. Market growth rate (attractiveness of the market in which a business unit operates)
3. BCG matrix places business units/products in the
following four categories:
• 1. Stars – BUs/products characterized by high-
growth and high- market share. They often
require heavy external investment to sustain
their rapid growth as they may not be
producing any positive cash flow. Eventually,
their growth will slow, and they will turn into
cash cows.
Strategic choices: Vertical integration, horizontal
integration, market penetration, market
development, product development
• 2.Cash Cows – BUs/products characterized by
low-growth, high-market share. These are well
established and successful BUs that do not
require substantial investment to keep their
market share. They produce a lot of cash to be
used for other business units (Stars and
Question Marks) of the company.
Strategic choices: Product development,
diversification, divestiture, retrenchment
• 3. Question Marks – BUs/products
characterized by low-market share in high-
growth markets. They require a lot of financial
resources to increase their share since they
cannot generate enough cash themselves. The
crucial decision is to decide which Question
Marks to phase out and which ones to grow
into Stars.
Strategic choices: Market penetration, market
development, product development,
divestiture
• 4. Dogs – BUs/products with low-growth, low-
market share. In addition, they often have
poor profitability. The business strategy for a
Dog is most often to divest. However,
occasionally management might make a
decision to hold a Dog for possible strategic
repositioning as a Question Mark or Cash Cow.
Strategic choices: Retrenchment, divestiture,
liquidation
5. Strengths and weaknesses of BCG
model
Strengths
• The BCG Matrix allows for a visual presentation
of the competitive position of all units in a
business portfolio.
• The BCG model allows companies to develop a
customized strategy for each product or
business unit instead of having a one-size-fits-
all approach.
• Simple and easy to understand.
• It works well for companies with multiple
divisions and products
• Allows for quick and simple screening of
business opportunities in order to determine
investment priorities in the portfolio of
products/business units.
• It is used to identify how corporate cash
resources can be best allocated to maximize a
company’s future growth and profitability.
Weakness
• Business can only be classified to four
quadrants. It can be confusing to classify an
SBU that falls right in the middle.
• It does not define what ‘market’ is. Businesses
can be classified as cash cows, while they are
actually dogs, or vice versa.
• Does not include other external factors that
may change the situation completely.
• Market share and industry growth are not the
only factors of profitability. Besides, high
market share does not necessarily mean high
profits.
• It denies that synergies between different units
exist. Dogs can be as important as cash cows to
businesses if it helps to achieve competitive
advantage for the rest of the company.
6. Corporate level analytical tools-GE
nine cell matrix
• The GE Matrix was developed jointly by McKinsey and General Electric in the early
1970s as a derivation of the BCG Matrix.
• GE-McKinsey nine-box matrix is a strategy tool that offers a systematic approach
for the multi business corporation to prioritize its investments among its business
units.
• BCG Matrix showed to have some limitations. It was considered not flexible
enough to include all the broader issues that a company was facing while
operating in a fast changing global environment. The GE/McKinsey Matrix solves
most of the issues of the BCG model and proposes a more sophisticated and
comprehensive approach to investment decision making.
• The GE/McKinsey Matrix is a nine-cell (3 by 3) matrix and it is primary used to
perform business portfolio analysis on the strategic business units (SBU) of a
corporation
• The nine-box matrix plots the BUs on its 9 cells that indicate whether the company
should invest in a product, harvest/divest it or do a further research on the
product and invest in it if there’re still some resources left. The BUs are evaluated
on two axes: industry attractiveness and a competitive strength of a unit. Each axis
is then divided into Low, Medium and High.
7. Contd..
• In the business world, much like anywhere else, the problem of
resource scarcity is affecting the decisions the companies make.
• With limited resources, but many opportunities of using them, the
businesses need to choose how to use their cash best.
• The fight for investments takes place in every level of the company:
between teams, functional departments, divisions or business
units. The question of where and how much to invest is an ever
going headache for those who allocate the resources
• At least, it was hard until the BCG matrix and its improved version
GE-McKinsey matrix came to help. These tools solved the problem
by comparing the business units and assigning them to the groups
that are worth investing in or the groups that should be harvested
or divested.
8. Axis in GE matrix(x and y axis components)
• Industry Attractiveness:The vertical axis
denotes industry attractiveness, which is a
weighted composite rating based on eight
different factors. Industry attractiveness
indicates how hard or easy it will be for a
company to compete in the market and
earn profits. The more profitable the
industry is the more attractive it becomes.
Industry attractiveness consists of many
factors that collectively determine the
competition level in it. There’s no definite
list of which factors should be included to
determine industry attractiveness, but
some are the most common.
• Competitive strength of a business unit or
a product:It indicates business strength or
in other words competitive position, which
is again a weighted composite rating based
on several factors in the next slide
10. Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
• Helps to prioritize the limited
resources in order to achieve
the best returns.
• Managers become more aware
of how their products or
business units perform.
• It’s more sophisticated business
portfolio framework than the
BCG matrix.
• Identifies the strategic steps the
company needs to make to
improve the performance of its
business portfolio.
Disadvantages
• Requires a consultant or a highly
experienced person to
determine industry’s
attractiveness and business unit
strength as accurately as
possible.
• It is costly to conduct.
• It doesn’t take into account the
synergies that could exist
between two or more business
units
11. Using the tool GE matrix(steps)
• Step 1. Determine industry attractiveness of each business units_ for the sake of
simplicity in the table we have taken only two but there can be many( First Make
a list of factors-second Assign weights from 0.01 (not important) to 1.0 (very
important)- third Rate the factors in say 5 point likert scale- finally Calculate the
total scores by multiplying weights and ratings
12. • Step 2. Determine the competitive strength of each business unit
• ‘Step 2’ is the same as ‘Step 1’ only this time, instead of industry
attractiveness, the competitive strength of a business unit is
evaluated
13. • Step 3. Plot the business units on
a matrix
• Each business unit is represented
as a circle. The size of the circle
should correspond to the
proportion of the business
revenue generated by that
business unit. For example,
‘Business unit 1’ generates 20%
revenue and ‘Business unit 2’
generates 40% revenue for the
company. The size of a circle for
‘Business unit 1’ will be half the
size of a circle for ‘Business unit 2’.
14. • Step 4. Analyze the
information
• There are different
investment implications
you should follow,
depending on which
boxes your business units
have been plotted.
15. • Step 5. Identify the future direction of each business
unit
• the company should consult with the industry
analysts to determine whether the industry
attractiveness will grow, stay the same or decrease in
the future. You should also discuss with your
managers whether your business unit competitive
strength will likely increase or decrease in the near
future.
• For example, our previous evaluations show that the
‘Business Unit 1’ belongs to invest/grow box, but
further analysis of an industry reveals that it’s going
to shrink substantially in the near future. Therefore,
in the near future, the business unit will be in
harvest/divest group rather than invest/grow box.so
the investment decision will be NO
16. Step 6. Prioritize your investments
• The last step is to decide where and how to invest the company’s
money. While the matrix makes it easier by evaluating the business
units and identifying the best ones to invest in, it still doesn’t
answer some very important questions:
• Is it really worth investing into some business units?
• How much exactly to invest in?
• Where to invest into business units (more to R&D, marketing, value
chain?) to improve their performance?
• Doing the GE McKinsey matrix and answering all the questions
takes time, effort and money, but it’s still one of the most important
product portfolio management tools that significantly facilitate
investment decisions.