Other complementary analyses have been proposed, such as the Growth-share matrix.

Business strategists often use a formula called the growth-share matrix to categorize companies and new technologies in which they want to invest.

Similar to the growth-share matrix, the Advantage Matrix groups businesses into four categories.

"Growth-share matrix"

He applied BCG principles such as the growth-share matrix, and executives viewed him as having a bright future there.

As with most marketing techniques, there are a number of alternative offerings vying with the growth-share matrix although this appears to be the most widely used.

The initial intent of the growth-share matrix was to evaluate business units, but the same evaluation can be made for product lines or any other cash-generating entities.

In 1968, BCG created the "growth-share matrix", a simple chart to assist large corporations in deciding how to allocate cash among their business units.

The growth-share matrix or BCG Matrix, as it came to be known, is a managerial tool used to visually represent a company's portfolio.

"Cash cow" is used in a Growth-share matrix to represent one of the four quadrants in the BCG matrix.

It is a break from previous firms' development models which advocated growth at first to achieve economies of scale and then profitability (see BCG Growth-share matrix).

After its well known growth-share matrix the Boston Consulting Group subsequently developed another, much less widely reported, matrix which approached the economies of scale decision rather more directly.

The growth-share matrix thus offers a 'map' of the organization's product (or service) strengths and weaknesses, at least in terms of current profitability, as well as the likely cashflows.

While theoretically useful, and widely used, several academic studies have called into question whether using the growth-share matrix actually helps businesses succeed, and the model has since been removed from some major marketing textbooks.

This approaches some of the same issues as the growth-share matrix but from a different direction and in a more complex way (which may be why it is used less, or is at least less widely taught).

The BCG then coupled the importance of market share with the rate of growth in the market to produce a growth-share matrix upon which all a corporate group's main product groups would be plotted (see figure 4.1).

The BCG growth-share matrix developed by the Boston Consulting Group, still used by analysts in large companies, uses the term "cash cow" to describe business units experiencing high market share and low market growth.

In essence, the former category covers the approach described in the more popular growth-share matrix, while the latter represents the approach (described by Michael Porter) of differentiating products so that they do not compete head-on with their competitors.

The growth-share matrix evolved as a collaborative effort of BCGers (likely Kent Aldershof, Alan Zakon, Sandy Moose, Richard Lochridge, Lorne Weill, Bill Bain, and Bruce Henderson) in the period between 1968-1970.

Determining this cut-off point, the rate above which the growth is deemed to be significant (and likely to lead to extra demands on cash) is a critical requirement of the technique; and one that, again, makes the use of the growth-share matrix problematical in some product areas.

The growth-share matrix (aka B.C.G. analysis, B.C.G.-matrix, Boston Consulting Group analysis) is a chart that had been created by Bruce Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1970 to help corporations with analyzing their business units or product lines.