WHAT IS THE BCG GROWTH-SHARE MATRIX? To begin with, BCG is the acronym for Boston Consulting Group—a general management consulting firm highly respected in business strategy consulting. BCG Growth-Share Matrix (see figure 1) happens to be one of many of BCG's strategic concepts the organisation developed in the late 1970s, and is being taught at leading business schools and executive education programmes around the world. It is a management tool that serves four distinct purposes (McDonald 2003; Kotler 2003; Cipher 2006): it can be used to classify product portfolio in four business types based on four graphic labels including Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks and Dogs; it can be used to determine what priorities should be given in the product portfolio of a company; to classify an organisation’s product portfolio according to their cash usage and generation; and offers management available strategies to tackle various product lines. Consider companies like Apple Computer, General Electric, Unilever, Siemens, Centrica and many more, engaging in diversified product lines. The BCG model therefore becomes an invaluable analytical tool to evaluate an organisation’s diversified product lines as later seen in the ensuing sections. WHAT ARE THE MAIN ASPECTS OF THE BCG GROWTH-SHARE MATRIX? The BCG Growth-Share Matrix is based on two dimensional variables: relative market share and market growth. They often are pointers to healthiness of a business (Kotler 2003; McDonald 2003). In other words, products with greater market share or within a fast growing market are expected to wield relatively greater profit margins. The reverse is also true. Let’s look at the following components of the model: Fig. 1: Source: 12manage.com 2006 Relative Market Share According to the proponents of the BCG (Herndemson 1972), It captures the relative market share of a business unit or product. But that is not all! It allows the analysed business unit be pitted against its competitors. As earlier emphasized above, this is due to the sometime correlation between relative market share and the product’s cash generation. This phenomenon is often likened to the experience curve paradigm that when an organisation enjoys lower costs, improved efficiency from conducting business operations overtime. The basic tenet of this postulation is that the more an organisation performs a task often; it tends to develop new ways in performing those tasks better which results in lower operating cost (Cipher 2006). What that suggests is that the experience curve effect requires that market share is increased to be able to drive down costs in the long run and at the same time a company with a dominant market share will inevitably have a cost advantage over competitor companies because they have the greater share of the market.
"Benchmarking's real role has to be seen in the context of the organization that is continuously implementing improvement" (Bendell, Boulter, & Goodstadt 1998). Organizations implementing the benchmarking process are continuously looking to improve, and planning improvement. Improvements can be made by looking at the firm both internally and externally. Internal improvements are implemented by analyzing processes and setting targets for performance. However, output performance measures are not able to help management understand why a practice is effective. This understanding is a result of personal interpretation of the process. Organizations must look to other firms for ideas to borrow from global leaders, regardless of the scope of the necessary improvement. Equally important as data collection is the actual implementation of the newly acquired business practice.
In his analysis, Charles Fine goes on to note that as the speed of an industry accelerates, the advantage one company may gain shortens – advantages are temporary. This conclusion is somewhat intuitive since the research and development to production cycle gets s...
Even though a myriad of tools and techniques learnt in the Strategic Cost Management and Strategic Business Analysis courses are not fully exploited in this essay, it is generally recognised that those techniques are useful for a corporate to formulate strategy, do strategic planning, control costing and quality, as well as eventually elevate its values, regardless the nature and size of organizations.
Cost advantage: by better understanding costs and constricting them out of the value-creating activities. Main focus of this strategy also known as cost leadership is to offer goods and services at lower cost than the competitors. To follow this strategy a company also consider these approaches- tight cost control, economics of scale in production and also cost minimisation.
And we will purchase capacities when plant utilisation above 90%. This will expand the business size and have a positive impact on economies of scale. Composed with High End and Size products transfer into Traditional and Low End, we have multiproduct in targeted segments. “Higher firm-level ability raises a firm 's productivity across all products, which induces a positive correlation to a firm’s intensive and extensive margin” (Bernard, Redding and Schott 2006). This means with an effective business strategy and management, businesses can boost sales of all products within the segment. With a larger product profile for Traditional and Low End, it works to generate larger market shares. Refer to Graph 4 and 5, Digby sold twice units of products than its core competitor-Baldwin by having Daze and Dixie in its Traditional segment, which drives its segment market share to double Baldwin’s. The boost in sales and market share prove the correct implication of the
The Boston Beer Company is able to obtain relatively low-cost funds for their working capital and expenditures. The company is constantly in search of the lowest cost items without suffering the quality of their products. The company has thrived and has been able to expand to become successful due to their ability to achieve this.
The protection enhances the ability of sustaining a business in a competitive marketplace for the long run. A firm should also undergo the DYB strategy to get rid of business units and other resources that do not add value to the company 's performance. It should adopt the GYB strategy, in which it would utilize the business opportunities lying at its disposal to its advantage. As a direct result of these two strategies, the company would gain a substantial competitive edge against rivals, as well as boost its profitability in the long run (Grimm, Lee & Smith, 2010). Knowing that today 's business environment is characterized by heightened competition that has led to extensive gaps between industry leaders and laggards, and that there are greater churns among the industry rivals, the GYB and DYB strategies are essential for any modern company. More importantly, the GYB strategy should be focused towards the increase of
Founded by Bruce D. Henderson in Boston, Massachusetts in 1963 to be the Management Consulting Division serving the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company; The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is now a global management consulting firm which is the world’s leading advisor on business strategy (BGG, 2014). With at least two offices at each continent, BCG is a private company that serves those in public, private as well as not-for-profit sectors. Some of the areas in which BCG provides it’s services to are, but not limited to, postmerger integration, transformation, strategy information technology and management in a two-speed economy (Bloomsberg, 2014). This year, The Boston Consulting Group earned the honor of being placed 3rd on the list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For”, falling just behind Google and SAS.
The Boston matrix can be tailored to Benetton to demonstrate how Market share can be gained by investment in marketing, Market share gains will always generate cash surpluses in the company, Cash surpluses will be generated when the product is in the maturity stage of the life cycle, The best opportunity to build a dominant market position is during the growth phase. The 4 categorise can could help Benetton be more successful in creating a better market share and growth.
The benefits of these assumptions are that while maintaining the current growth rate of 13%; we can maintain our COGS. One of the major factors contributing to the firm’s poor profit margin is operating expenses.
The BCG matrix is also a matrix that is used for the purpose of strategy formulation of a firm, but it is a four cell matrix. It is used to measure the position of a firm in relation to its relative market share as well as its market growth. In case of these two being high a firm is classified as a star. In case of these being low they are classified as dogs. In case of only a high market growth it is rated as a cash cow and in case of only a high market share it is rated as a question mark. Based on this t...
Key stakeholders of British Airways include customers, employees, those who have invested in BA by buying shares of the business as well as corporate organizations. To analyze the stake holders in BA the power/interest matrix (Gardner et al, 1986) can be applied in terms of its power and matrix. Brand reputation, economy of scale and cost control are some the key success factors of BA. In addition to Boston Matrix can position BA’s business in terms of short haul (cash cow business) and long haul (star business).
of a firm to attain new forms of competitive advantage (Müller, 2011). It is due to these
This video provides an overview of product diversification. It explains that there are two types of diversification, which are related diversification and unrelated diversification. In addition, the video informs that diversification often involves merger and acquisition activities. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of keeping diversifications balanced, as in some instances, companies that do not take advantage of diversification, can miss out on some benefits, and/or could experience negative effects. However, on the other hand, the opposite could also occur, because some companies that over-diversify, extend themselves too far and can experience detrimental and disadvantageous effects as well. The key is staying
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix is used by organisations to analyse whether their performance is either high or low, and indicate their market growth or position on the market, which is similar to the product life cycle, of the introductory, growth, maturity and decline stages.