Course material · Lesson 12 · Product

Where is each product actually earning?

Bruce Henderson's growth-share matrix (BCG, 1970) plots every product in the portfolio on two axes: how fast its market is growing, and how strong its position is relative to the largest competitor. Enter your products below to see who is generating the cash, who is consuming it, and who could move to a better quadrant with focused work.

Add a product
Relative market share = your share ÷ largest competitor's share. Above 1.0 means you're the category leader; below 1.0 means someone else is bigger. Revenue sizes the bubble on the chart.
% Divides "high growth" from "low growth." Category-specific — FMCG staples 2–4% · consumer tech 8–15% · SaaS 15–30%. Adjust to your category.
The four quadrants
Bubble size = revenue. Log-scale X axis (share) with 1.0 as the midpoint. Y axis is your market-growth midpoint. Products in the top-right are your future; products in the bottom-left are your legacy.
Star Cash Cow Question Mark Dog
Quadrant actions
Every product needs a decision. These are the default plays per quadrant — but there is no substitute for judgement about whether a specific product can be moved to a better position.
Portfolio read

Framework source. Bruce Henderson, The Product Portfolio, BCG Perspectives, 1970. Henderson's original matrix used relative market share on a log scale (specifically because share advantages compound at scale — the experience curve). Absolute share is a common miscalculation that breaks the framework.

Reading heuristic. The midpoint on the growth axis is category-specific — do not use a fixed 10% for every category. Use the median growth rate of your category over the last 3 years. A SaaS category growing 25% overall makes 15% growth a Cash Cow signal, not a Star signal. Adjust the growth midpoint above to match your category.

Where the framework breaks. BCG assumes cash flows within the portfolio (Cash Cows fund Stars and Question Marks). In modern P&L structures — especially D2C and subscription — that cross-subsidy is often not visible or governance-approved. The matrix is still useful for diagnosing where a product sits and what its default move should be, even when the internal reallocation mechanism differs.

Course material for the CMO Course by GPS for Marketers. Lesson 12 — Product.