bcg marketing
Concept
An introduction to the management basics
The
n x The Boston Consulting Group came up with several well-known strategic concepts under its inspirational founder
Bruce Henderson. The most famous is the Boston Matrix.
U
ntil the 1960s, models were the impenetrable domain of economists. The man who can be largely credited with bringing business models into the mainstream was Bruce Henderson (1915-92), an
Australian engineer who worked as a strategic planner for General Electric.
From GE, Henderson joined the management consultancy A rt hur D. Li tt le. In 1963, he announced that he was leaving to set up his own consultancy, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
An engineering hybrid
The first model discovered — or in this case rediscovered — by Henderson was something of an antique. In the 1920s, an obscure company called
Curtiss Aircraft came up with the concept of the
"learning curve", which also became known as the
"experience curve". It posited that unit costs declined as cumulative produ ct ion increased because of the acquisition of experience. This had been applied solely to manufacturing. Henderson
dimensions is straightforward but may be
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At the time, management consulting was establishing itself as a profession. BCG is regarded by some as the first purely strategic consultancy. While strategy drifts in and out of fashion, it is a cause which BCG still robustly champions. "Strategy leads to the continuous creation of real value. Real value requires sustained competitive advantage. Leaping at opportunities without strategy consistently produces failure," it says. BCG quickly became a great success. Within five years it was in the top group of consulting firms — where it has largely remained.
F fMMR 28
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applied it to strategy rather than production and found that it still worked and provided a useful
An introduction to the management basics
The
n x The Boston Consulting Group came up with several well-known strategic concepts under its inspirational founder
Bruce Henderson. The most famous is the Boston Matrix.
U
ntil the 1960s, models were the impenetrable domain of economists. The man who can be largely credited with bringing business models into the mainstream was Bruce Henderson (1915-92), an
Australian engineer who worked as a strategic planner for General Electric.
From GE, Henderson joined the management consultancy A rt hur D. Li tt le. In 1963, he announced that he was leaving to set up his own consultancy, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
An engineering hybrid
The first model discovered — or in this case rediscovered — by Henderson was something of an antique. In the 1920s, an obscure company called
Curtiss Aircraft came up with the concept of the
"learning curve", which also became known as the
"experience curve". It posited that unit costs declined as cumulative produ ct ion increased because of the acquisition of experience. This had been applied solely to manufacturing. Henderson
dimensions is straightforward but may be
. MF ,
_
,
,
a ..
.,
.
At the time, management consulting was establishing itself as a profession. BCG is regarded by some as the first purely strategic consultancy. While strategy drifts in and out of fashion, it is a cause which BCG still robustly champions. "Strategy leads to the continuous creation of real value. Real value requires sustained competitive advantage. Leaping at opportunities without strategy consistently produces failure," it says. BCG quickly became a great success. Within five years it was in the top group of consulting firms — where it has largely remained.
F fMMR 28
^
^.
.^a sss
.
..,.,
.,. m >.^
1
applied it to strategy rather than production and found that it still worked and provided a useful