Ansoff Product Market Growth Matrix Marketing Essay

A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff (H Igor Ansoff, 1918-2002), who is regarded by some as the ‘Father of Strategic Management’. Fully titled the Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix, the tool was first published in Harvard Business Review, 1957, in Ansoff’s paper Strategies for Diversification.

The Ansoff product-market matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business, or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use.

This is a fundamentally simple and effective way of looking at strategic development options.

existing products

new products

existing markets

market penetration

product development

new markets

market development

diversification

Each of these strategic options holds different opportunities and downsides for different organizations, so what is right for one business won’t necessarily be right for another. Think about what option offers the best potential for your own business and market. Think about the strengths of your business and what type of growth strategy your strengths will enable most naturally. Generally beware of diversification – this is, by its nature, unknown territory, and carries the highest risk of failure.

Here are the Ansoff strategies in summary:

Market penetration – Developing your sales of existing products to your existing market(s). This is fine if there is plenty of market share to be had at the expense of your competitors, or if the market is growing fast and large enough for the growth you need. If you already have large market share you need to consider whether investing for further growth in this area would produce diminishing returns from your development activity. It could be that you will increase the profit from this activity more by reducing costs than by actively seeking more market share. Strong market share suggests there are likely to be better returns from extending the range of products/services that you can offer to the market, as in the next option.

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Product development – Developing or finding new products to take to your existing market(s). This is an attractive strategy if you have strong market share in a particular market. Such a strategy can be a suitable reason for acquiring another company or product/service capability provided it is relevant to your market and your distribution route. Developing new products does not mean that you have to do this yourself (which is normally very expensive and frequently results in simply re-inventing someone else’s wheel) – often there are potential manufacturing partners out there who are looking for their own distribution partner with the sort of market presence that you already have. However if you already have good market share across a wide range of products for your market, this option may be one that produces diminishing returns on your growth investment and activities, and instead you may do better to seek to develop new markets, as in the next strategic option.

Market development – Developing new markets for your existing products. New markets can also mean new sub-sectors within your market – it helps to stay reasonably close to the markets you know and which know you. Moving into completely different markets, even if the product/service fit looks good, holds risks because this will be unknown territory for you, and almost certainly will involve working through new distribution channels, routes or partners. If you have good market share and good product/service range then moving into associated markets or segments is likely to be an attractive strategy.

Diversification – taking new products into new markets. This is high risk – not only do you not know the products, but neither do you know the new market(s), and again this strategic option is likely to entail working through new distribution channels and routes to market. This sort of activity should generally be regarded as additional and supplementary to the core business activity, and should be rolled out carefully through rigorous testing and piloting.

Consider also your existing products and services themselves in terms of their market development opportunity and profit potential. Some will offer very high margins because they are relatively new, or specialised in some way, perhaps because of special distribution arrangements. Other products and services may be more mature, with little or no competitive advantage, in which case they will produce lower margins. The Boston Matrix is a useful way to understand and assess your different existing product and service opportunities:

boston matrix model – product/service develeopment

The Boston Matrix model is a tool for assessing existing and development products in terms of their market potential, and thereby implying strategic action for products and services in each category.

low market share

high market share

growing market

problem child

(rising) star

mature market

dog

cash cow

Cash cow – The rather crude metaphor is based on the idea of ‘milking’ the returns from previous investments which established good distribution and market share for the product. Products in this quadrant need maintenance and protection activity, together with good cost management, not growth effort, because there is little or no additional growth available.

Dog – This is any product or service of yours which has low market presence in a mature or stagnant market. There is no point in developing products or services in this quadrant. Many organizations discontinue products/services that they consider fall into this category, in which case consider potential impact on overhead cost recovery. Businesses that have been starved or denied development find themselves with a high or entire proportion of their products or services in this quadrant, which is obviously not very funny at all, except to the competitors.

Problem child – These are products which have a big and growing market potential, but existing low market share, normally because they are new products, or the application has not been spotted and acted upon yet. New business development and project management principles are required here to ensure that these products’ potential can be realised and disasters avoided. This is likely to be an area of business that is quite competitive, where the pioneers take the risks in the hope of securing good early distribution arrangements, image, reputation and market share. Gross profit margins are likely to be high, but overheads, in the form of costs of research, development, advertising, market education, and low economies of scale, are normally high, and can cause initial business development in this area to be loss-making until the product moves into the rising star category, which is by no means assured – many problem children products remain as such.

rising star – Or ‘star’ products, are those which have good market share in a strong and growing market. As a product moves into this category it is commonly known as a ‘rising star’. When a market is strong and still growing, competition is not yet fully established. Demand is strong; saturation or over-supply do not exists, and so pricing is relatively unhindered. This all means that these products produce very good returns and profitability. The market is receptive and educated, which optimises selling efficiencies and margins. Production and manufacturing overheads are established and costs minimised due to high volumes and good economies of scale. These are great products and worthy of continuing investment provided good growth potential continues to exist. When it does not these products are likely to move down to cash cow status, and the company needs to have the next rising stars developing from its problem children.

After considering your business in terms of the Ansoff matrix and Boston matrix (which are thinking aids as much as anything else, not a magic solution in themselves), on a more detailed level, and for many businesses just as significant as the Ansoff-type-options, what is the significance of your major accounts – do they offer better opportunity for growth and development than your ordinary business? Do you have a high quality, specialised offering that delivers better business benefit on a large scale as opposed to small scale? Are your selling costs and investment similar for large and small contracts? If so you might do better concentrating on developing large major accounts business, rather than taking a sophisticated product or service solution to smaller companies which do not appreciate or require it, and cost you just as much to sell to as a large organization.

Customer Matrix:-

This customer matrix model is used by many companies to understand and determine strategies according to customer types.

good products

not so good products

good customers

develop and find more customers like these – allocate your best resources to these existing customers and to prospective customers matching this profile

educate and convert these customers to good products if beneficial to them, failing which, maintain customers via account management

not so good customers

invest cautiously to develop and improve relationship, failing which, maintain customers via account management

assess feasibility of moving these customers left or up, failing which, withdraw from supplying sensitively

Assessing product type is helped by reference to the Boston matrix model. There is a lot of flexibility as to what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘not so good customers’ – use your own criteria. A good way to do this is to devise your own grading system using criteria that mean something to your own situation. Typical criteria are: size, location, relationship, credit-rating and payment terms, is the customer growing (or not), the security of the supply contract, the service and support overhead required, etc. This kind of customer profiling tool and exercise is often overlooked, but it is a critical aspect of marketing and sales development, and of optimising sales effectiveness and business development performance and profitability. Each quadrant requires a different sales approach. The type of customer also implies the type of sales person who should be responsible for managing the relationship. A firm view needs to be taken before committing expensive field-based sales resources to ‘not so good’ customers. Focus prospect development (identifying and contacting new prospective customers) on the profile which appears in the top left quadrant. Identify prospective new customers who fit this profile, and allocate your business development resources (people and advertising) to this audience.

Consider also What are your competitor weaknesses in terms of sectors, geographical territory and products or services, and how might these factors affect your options? Use for assessing each competitor as well as your own organization or department.

Many organizations issue a marketing budget from the top down (a budget issued by the Centre/HQ/Finance Director), so to speak, in which case, what is your marketing budget and how can you use it to produce the best return on investment, and to help the company best to meet its overall business aims? Use the models described here to assess your best likely returns on marketing investment.

The best way to begin to model and plan your marketing is to have a record of your historical (say last year’s) sales results (including selling and advertising costs if appropriate and available) on a spreadsheet. The level of detail is up to you; modern spreadsheets can organize massive amounts of data and make very complex analysis quick easy. Data is vital and will enable you to do most of the analysis you need for marketing planning. In simple terms you can use last year’s results as a basis for planning and modelling the next year’s sales, and the marketing expenditure and activities required to achieve them.

Simple business plan or sales plan tools examples:-

These templates examples help the planning process. Split and analyse your business or sales according to your main products/services (or revenue streams) according to the profit drivers or ‘levers’ (variables that you can change which affect profit), eg., quantity or volume, average sales value or price, % gross margin or profit. Add different columns which reflect your own business profit drivers or levers, and to provide the most relevant measures.

quantity

total sales value

average value

% gross margin

total sales or gross margin

product 1

product 2

product 3

product 4

totals

Do the same for each important aspect of your business, for example, split by market sector (or segment):

quantity

total sales value

average value

% gross margin

total sales or gross margin

sector 1

sector 2

sector 3

sector 4

totals

And, for example, split by distributor (or route to market):

quantity

total sales value

average value

% gross margin

total sales or gross margin

distributor 1

distributor 2

distributor 3

distributor 4

totals

These simple split analysis tools are an extremely effective way to plan your sales and business. Construct a working spreadsheet so that the bottom-right cell shows the total sales or gross margin, or profit, whatever you need to measure, and by changing the figures within the split (altering the mix, average prices, quantities, etc) you can carry out ‘what if?’ analysis to develop the best plans.

If you are a competent working with spreadsheets it is normally possible to assemble all of this data onto a single spreadsheet and then show different analyses by sorting and graphing according to different fields.

When you are happy with the overall totals for the year, convert this into a phased monthly plan, with as many lines and columns as you need and are appropriate for the business. Develop this spreadsheet by showing inputs as well as sales outputs – the quantifiable activity (for example, the numbers of enquiries necessary to produce the planned sales levels) required to produce the planned performance. Large businesses need extensive and multiple page spreadsheets. A business plan needs costs as well as sales, and will show profit as well as revenue and gross margin, but the principle is the same: plan the detailed numbers and values of what the business performance will be, and what inputs are required for incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. Adapt it to suit your purposes. This plan example is also available as a PDF, see The numbers could be anything: ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more – the principle is the same.

Consider also indirect activities that affect sales and business levels, such as customer service. Identify key performance indicators here too, such as customer complaints response and resolution levels and timescales. Internal lead referral schemes, strategic partnership activity; the performance of other direct sales activities such as sales agencies, distributorships, export activities, licensing, etc. These performance factors won’t normally appear on a business plan spreadsheet, but a separate plan should be made for them, otherwise they won’t happen.