On Marketing: Read That Pet, Not Dog
By Jack Mixner
In all the business texts I have ever seen, the Boston Consulting Group's Growth Share Matrix charting market share versus growth rate has had the now familiar labels Question Mark, Star, Cash Cow and Dog. BCG came up with the Matrix in 1970 when Bruce D. Henderson, summarizing internal discussions, wrote an article entitled The Product Portfolio for the BCG Perspectives series.
It ends up that the texts all got it wrong. The labels from Bruce Henderson's original 1970 paper indeed talk about Stars and Question Marks, but Cash Cows and Dogs aren't there. Cash Cow is actually Cash Flow and Dog is Pet.
Somehow, Pet sounds a whole lot better than Dog. The implication is that everyone loves the Pet and is unwilling to cull it from the portfolio for poor performance. How about you? Love your Pets too much to cull them?
If so, can you justify your position with a favorable business case or a strategy explaining how your Pet will become a Question Mark and ultimately a Star?
Reference
Stern, Carl W. and Michael S. Deimler. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2006. Page 36.