Analyse The Streingths and Weaknesses Of The Boston Matrix As An Aid T

In this essay I will look at the strengths and weaknesses of using the Boston Matrix to help make decisions in business. I will first briefly explain the Boston Matrix and then analyse its effectiveness as an aid to making a marketing strategy. Like Ansoff's matrix, the Boston Matrix is a well known tool for marketing managers. It was developed by the large US consulting group and is a way that a business can compare all of its products. The two aspects it looks at are market share (relative to that of competitors) and market growth. To use it you would look at all of your products and sort them into 4 categories, stars (products with a high market growth and a high market share), cash cows (high market share in a market with little growth), problem children/question marks (low market share in a growing market) and dogs (low market share in a market with no growth). There needs to be an equilibrium of the different types in your product portfolio. Never have any dogs, but try and keep the same amount of the other 3 types. This means that funds can be evenly distributed between the 3, money generated from cash cows needs to be spent turning problem children into stars, which will eventually become cash cows, and the cycle continues. Some problem children will become dogs, and money from cash cows m ay also have to be spent compensating for these failures. The Boston Matrix is commonly used to try and help plan the future of a company as well as simply categorising products. Bu...