WHY BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP WAS CROWNED AS KING
This was a difficult choice and several theories could have been crowned king. But then I remembered what Drucker said: ‘There is only one valid definition of a business purpose – namely to create a customer’. Customers are created when they buy your products. Therefore the maintenance, growth and development of your product range is key to success. The BCG theory provides a strikingly clear way to analyse any product mix. If you know your business well, you should have very little difficulty placing each product in the appropriate box and then using the advice provided by the model to decide what to do. A simple and ingenious theory.
Although I’ve crowned BCG as king, I would offer one word of warning. Never refer to a product as a ‘dog’ within earshot of anyone who doesn’t know what the term means. The management team of one university decided to use the BCG grid to analyse its courses. Somehow staff got wind of the fact that senior management thought that some courses were ‘dogs’ that needed to be taken out and shot. Within a day the email system was red hot as apoplectic academics fumed and students complained at the disparaging remarks.
Organisations don’t always make it clear what role they expect their managers to play in the strategic planning process. That leaves a vacuum for you to exploit. A role in the planning process will bring you into contact with a wide range of people in the organisation, some of whom may be able to assist you in your current work or future advancement. Either way, it’s an opportunity to get noticed and to meet the key players in the organisation and its stakeholders. Therefore, if your planning role is limited, volunteer/negotiate to play a bigger part in the process – for the good of the organisation of course.