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UNIT
3
Planning a marketing strategy
http://www.hattiaghandi.com/bostonmatrix.html
Read the following article from marketing guru Cheryl Hattiaghandi’s website and answer the
questions below.
Cheryl Hattiaghandi helps
you see what’s in your
company’s stars
Cash cows? Dogs? Stars? Are we in the
marketing department or in a children’s book?!
Don’t worry, you haven’t clicked on the wrong
link. These items all refer to parts of the Boston
Matrix, created by members of the Boston
Consulting Group to analyse a company’s product portfolio.
While the names are strange, the matrix is extremely useful when writing your marketing
plan. Let’s look at each quadrant in more detail.
•
Cash cows
are mature products that have a large market share and that are earning
a lot of money. The market is static, so there’s not much opportunity for growth, but
that’s not a problem. These products require little attention from the marketing
department.
•
Stars
are recently-introduced products with a large market share. But, unlike cash
cows, the market is growing, so stars have the chance to attract even more new
customers. If stars are successful, they become cash cows once the market has
stabilized.
•
Question marks
, as you might guess, are products where no one is positive what’s
going on. They have a low market share, but they are also in a growing market area.
It’s possible that they will become stars if given time.
•
Finally, there are the
dogs
. Dogs are products which have a low market share in a
market that’s not growing. And, as you can guess, the best thing to do with a dog is
take it for a walk – outside of your product portfolio. Dogs are in the decline stage of
the product life cycle and should probably be retired.
So, cows, question marks, stars, dogs: use this handy tool the next time you’re trying to
decide ‘what next’ when writing your marketing plan!
OUTPUT
How useful do you think the Boston Matrix is?
Can you think of a potential star product or service in your industry that your company doesn’t
make or o≈er?
•
•
OVER
TO
YOU