Bruce Henderson
Success in the past always becomes enshrined in the present by the over-valuation of the policies and attitudes which accompanied that success.
Content: Quotation | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Success / Failure
The Product Portfolio
To be successful, a company should have a portfolio of products with different growth rates and different market shares. The portfolio composition is a function of the balance between cash flows.
Content: Article, Related Content | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Strategy
Brinkmanship in Business
A businessman often convinces himself that he is completely logical in his behavior when in fact the critical factor is his emotional bias compared to the emotional bias of his opposition. Unfortunately, some businessmen and students take the attitude that competition is some kind of impersonal, objective, colorless affair.
Editor’s Note: written in 1968…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Negotiation
The Pricing Paradox
The profit equation has three variables: price, volume, and cost. Of these, price is the most common candidate for manipulation since nothing else need change to produce profits for everyone, provided everyone changes prices together.
Editor’s Note: written in 1970…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Pricing
The Experience Curve Reviewed – V. Price Stability
Whenever real (deflated) prices fail to parallel real (deflated) cost trends, then market shares will shift. When market share shifts, then relative costs of competitors will shift also.
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Experience Curve Reviewed – IV. The Growth Share Matrix
The use of cash is proportional to the rate of growth of any product. The generation of cash is sa function of market share because of the experience curve effect. The BCG growth share matrix is a diagram of the normal relationship of cash use and cash generation.
Editor’s Note: written in 1973…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Experience Curve Reviewed – III. Why Does It Work?
The whole history of increased productivity and industrialization is based on specialization of effort and investment in tools. So is the experience curve. It is a measure of the potential effect of specialization and investment.
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Experience Curve Reviewed – II. History
Experience curve is the name applied in 1966 to overall cost behavior by The Boston Consulting Group. The name was selected to distinguish this phenomenon from the well known and well documented learning curve effect. The two are related, but quite different. Read on for background on the development of this concept.
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The experience Curve Reviewed – I. The Concept
A short introduction to the concepts involved in the BCG experience curve which holds that the cost of value added declines approximately 20-30 percent each time accumulated experience is doubled..
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Rule of Three and Four
A stable competitive market never has more than three significant competitors, the largest of which has no more than four times the market share of the smallest.
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Economics, Strategy
Anatomy of the Cash Cow
The first objective of corporate strategy is protection of the cash generators. In almost every company a few products and market sectors are the principal source of net cash generated.
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Finance, Strategy
Business Thinking
Business thinking starts with an intuitive choice of assumptions. Its progress as analysis is intertwined with intuition.
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Miscellaneous