What makes BCG Growth-Share Matrix notable?

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BCG Growth-Share Matrix

Activate when: user says "portfolio review," "cash cow," "Stars and Dogs," "growth-share matrix," "which business should we fund," or "resource allocation ac... Skill: BCG Growth-Share Matrix Owner: deciqai Summary: Activate when: user says "portfolio review," "cash cow," "Stars and Dogs," "growth-share matrix," "which business should we fund," or "resource allocation ac... Tags: latest:1.0.6 Version history: v1.0.6 | 2026-07-16T17:52:44.547Z | user Description tail link + agents machine-readable metadata line (deciqai.com/s/bcg-matrix.json) v1.0.5 | 2026-07-09T11:15:42.623Z

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Updated

Oct 10, 2026

Version

1.0.6

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About

What it does, and when to use it.

Capability contract not published. No trust telemetry is available yet. 1.2K downloads reported by the source. Last updated 10/10/2026.

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Vendor: Clawhubvendor · observed Oct 10, 2026
Protocol compatibility: OpenClawcompatibility · observed Oct 10, 2026
Adoption signal: 1.2K downloadsadoption · observed Oct 10, 2026
Latest release: 1.0.6release · observed Jul 16, 2026
Handshake status: UNKNOWNsecurity

Install and run

Setup complexity: low.

clawhub skill install s17a4mqcnk515kvaca5ze55d0x88pfpx:bcg-matrix

Setup complexity is classified as HIGH. You must provision dedicated cloud infrastructure or an isolated VM. Do not run this directly on your local workstation.
Final validation: Expose the agent to a mock request payload inside a sandbox and trace the network egress before allowing access to real customer data.

Contract: missing

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Documentation

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SKILL.md

---
name: bcg-matrix
description: >
Activate when: user says "portfolio review," "cash cow," "Stars and Dogs," "growth-share matrix,"
"which business should we fund," or "resource allocation across units"; firm has multiple business
units competing for shared capital; investor or board discussion needs a visual portfolio health read.
Do NOT activate when: firm is a single-product startup with no portfolio to balance; user needs
competitive analysis within one market (use Porter's Five Forces or VRIO instead).
More: deciqai.com/c/bcg-matrix
---

# BCG Growth-Share Matrix

## Overview

Maps each business unit on a 2×2 grid of market growth rate vs. relative market share, revealing which units generate cash, which absorb it, and which to invest in, harvest, or exit. Four quadrants: **Stars** (invest), **Cash Cows** (harvest), **Question Marks** (binary decide), **Dogs** (exit or hold minimally). Rests on two empirical anchors: experience curve (high share = lowest cost) and industry life cycle (high growth demands reinvestment; maturity throws off cash).

Composes with: `porters-five-forces` to define industry boundary first · `swot-analysis` for internal-capability depth · `ansoff-matrix` to set growth direction for units worth investing in.

## When to Use

- Firm operates **≥ 3 distinct business units** competing for a shared capital pool
- Annual **strategy or budget reviews** need a forcing function for prioritization
- **PE/VC portfolio** requires a quick health-read across holdings; M&A teams assessing retain vs. divest
- **AI capital reallocation:** deciding which units to harvest to fund AI capex / AI-native bets, and whether an AI unit is a true Star or an expensive Question Mark amid AI-native competition

**When NOT to use:** single-product startup · highly interdependent units where divesting a Dog may destroy a Cash Cow · market in technology transition with unreliable growth data · firm-level competitive analysis within one market

## Coaching Novices (Adaptive Front Door)

- **Engine mode:** user has specific BU data → run The Process directly.
- **Coach mode:** user is unfamiliar → guide step by step.

In Coach mode, respond one step at a time. Each [WAIT] is a hard stop — output only that step's question, then stop.

1. BCG shows which businesses fund others, which burn cash, and which need a decision — using two numbers: market growth rate and your share relative to your biggest competitor.
2. Check fit: does the user have multiple distinct units? If single-product, redirect to Ansoff or Five Forces.
3. Ask: "Which business units are you trying to prioritize?"
> **[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]**
4. Walk through unit definition, data collection, quadrant plotting, trend analysis, and strategy assignment one step at a time.
> **[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]**
5. Close: "The key thing BCG just revealed is [which unit is your implicit funder and which is consuming it without a clear path to self

_meta.json

{
  "ownerId": "kn754b8sk22s8c6gjxt02bftbn88q7ye",
  "slug": "bcg-matrix",
  "version": "1.0.6",
  "publishedAt": 1784224364547
}

references/sources.md

# Sources — bcg-matrix

> *Primary sources for the [bcg-matrix](../SKILL.md) skill.*

- Henderson, B.D. (1970). "The Product Portfolio." *BCG Perspectives* #66. Boston Consulting Group. The founding document. Verbatim quote above is from this source. https://www.bcg.com/publications/1970/strategy-the-product-portfolio
- Henderson, B.D. (1973). "The Experience Curve Reviewed." *BCG Perspectives* #124. Boston Consulting Group. The underlying empirical pillar of the matrix. https://www.bcg.com/publications/1973/experience-curve-reviewed-history
- Seeger, J.A. (1984). "Reversing the Images of BCG's Growth/Share Matrix." *Strategic Management Journal*, 5(1), 93-97. The primary academic critique showing the matrix's empirical limits. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250050108
- Hambrick, D.C., MacMillan, I.C., & Day, D.L. (1982). "Strategic Attributes and Performance in the BCG Matrix." *Academy of Management Journal*, 25(3), 510-531. Empirical test of matrix predictions against actual business unit performance. https://doi.org/10.2307/256079
- Procter & Gamble Annual Reports (2012–2016) and investor day materials. Primary source for the P&G worked example. https://pginvestor.com/financial-information/annual-reports/
- Welch, J., with Byrne, J.A. (2001). *Jack: Straight from the Gut*. New York: Warner Business Books. Primary source for the GE worked example — the #1-or-#2 "fix, sell, or close" rule, the three-circles framework, and the 1995 below-10%-share market redefinition.
- Microsoft Corporation. Forms 10-K (FY2024, FY2025) and quarterly earnings releases. Primary source for the 2024–2026 AI-capital-reallocation example — three-segment structure (Productivity & Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, More Personal Computing), Azure growth, and AI capital-expenditure guidance. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor
- Cloud-infrastructure market-share and growth trackers (e.g., Synergy Research Group, Canalys) as reported through 2025. Context for the relative-share axis (AWS leader, Azure #2, Google Cloud follower) in the Microsoft example. Used as directional market-share context, not as precise-figure evidence.

Not cited and why: Malcolm Gladwell-style "David vs. Goliath" portfolio parables — vivid but not primary-source documented. Pop-business references to "kill your darlings" or similar attributed-but-unverified management aphorisms are not used as evidence here.

examples/general-electric-fix-sell-or-close-portfolio-pruning-1981-1995.md

# Method in Action: General Electric's "Fix, Sell, or Close" Portfolio Pruning (1981–1995)

> *Example for the [bcg-matrix](../SKILL.md) skill.*

When Jack Welch became CEO in April 1981, General Electric was the archetypal diversified conglomerate: dozens of strategic business units — a structure GE itself had pioneered in its 1970 reorganization — spanning lighting, appliances, motors, power systems, aerospace, mining, housewares, and consumer electronics. The company was profitable in aggregate, but shared capital was spread across hundreds of product lines regardless of competitive position. Welch's response was an operational enactment of growth-share portfolio logic.

**Step 1 — SBU definition:** GE's existing SBU structure already passed the standalone-manager test — each unit had an identifiable market, named competitors, and a separable P&L. This made the portfolio immediately mappable.

**Steps 2–3 — The two axes, collapsed into a rule:** Welch compressed the matrix's two dimensions into a single test. The relative-share axis became the famous rule that every business must be **#1 or #2 in its market** — leadership in Henderson's relative-share sense — or be fixed, sold, or closed. The growth axis became his "three circles" sketch of 1983: only businesses inside the circles of **core manufacturing, technology, and services** — the sectors GE judged to have structural growth or defensible economics — earned a claim on capital. A business outside the circles with a follower share was, in matrix terms, a Dog.

**Steps 4–6 — Quadrant actions and cash rebalancing:**

- **Dogs and weak Question Marks — exit.** GE sold the housewares business to Black & Decker (1984), divested Utah International's mining operations (1984), exited air conditioning, and in 1987 traded its consumer electronics business to Thomson of France in exchange for Thomson's medical-imaging business — swapping a follower position in a brutal market for added share in a business where GE led. Headcount fell by well over 100,000 during the 1980s through divestiture and restructuring, earning Welch the "Neutron Jack" nickname.
- **Cash Cows — harvest.** Mature leaders such as lighting, motors, and major appliances were run for cash with disciplined capital expenditure rather than growth investment.
- **Stars and promoted Question Marks — invest.** Divestiture proceeds and Cash Cow surplus funded aggressive investment in GE Capital, medical systems, and plastics, and financed the $6.3 billion acquisition of RCA (1986), which brought NBC into the portfolio.

**Validation:** GE's market capitalization grew from roughly $13 billion in 1981 to over $400 billion by Welch's retirement in 2001 — for a period, the most valuable company in the world.

**The built-in critique (1995):** The case also documents the matrix's classic failure mode. Welch recounts in his memoir that by the mid-1990s, managers had learned to game the #1-or-#2 rule by defining their markets narrowly enough to c

examples/microsoft-ai-capital-reallocation-portfolio-2024-2026.md

# Method in Action: Microsoft's Product Portfolio as AI Reallocates Capital (2024–2026)

> *Example for the [bcg-matrix](../SKILL.md) skill.*

By 2024–2026, Microsoft had become the clearest large-cap case of a diversified technology portfolio being re-mapped by the AI capital cycle. The strategic question was not "are we in AI" but a portfolio question the growth-share matrix is built for: **which mature units throw off enough cash to fund a historically large AI capex build-out, which AI bets are genuine Stars versus expensive Question Marks, and which legacy units are quietly slipping toward Dog status.** This example applies the skill's process to Microsoft's reported segment structure as of early 2026. Figures are drawn from Microsoft's public segment reporting and widely-reported disclosures; where an exact number is uncertain it is qualified or omitted.

**Step 1 — Define SBUs.** Microsoft reports three segments, each passing the standalone-manager test (identifiable customers, named rivals, separable P&L):
- **Productivity & Business Processes** — Microsoft 365 / Office, Copilot for M365, LinkedIn, Dynamics. Rivals: Google Workspace, Salesforce.
- **Intelligent Cloud** — Azure and server products. Rival: AWS (leader), Google Cloud (follower).
- **More Personal Computing** — Windows, devices (Surface), search/advertising (Bing), and gaming (Xbox / Activision Blizzard). Rivals vary by line: Apple, Sony/Nintendo, Google.

For AI-specific reads we also treat **Azure AI / Copilot** as an emerging unit-within-a-unit, because it is where the capital and the competitive fight are concentrated.

**Step 2 — Market growth rate (threshold raised to ~20% for cloud/AI).** Following the skill's rule to raise the dividing line for AI-adjacent markets: public cloud infrastructure was reported growing at roughly 20%-or-more annually through this period, and the generative-AI segment faster off a smaller base. Mature PC software (Windows, Office seat growth) and console gaming grew in the low single digits — clearly *below* the line. Never use Microsoft's own revenue growth as the proxy; the axis is external market CAGR.

**Step 3 — Relative market share (own share ÷ largest rival's share).**
- **Azure:** the reported #2 in cloud infrastructure behind AWS, so relative share is **below 1.0** — a follower that had been reported gaining share.
- **Microsoft 365 / Office:** dominant in paid enterprise productivity, relative share **well above 1.0** — a leader.
- **Windows:** dominant in desktop OS, relative share **above 1.0**, but in a flat-to-declining market.
- **Search (Bing):** relative share far **below 1.0** against Google — a structural follower.
- **Gaming:** a strong #2/#3 in consoles; leadership contested.

**Step 4 — Plot and assign quadrants.**

| SBU | Market growth | Relative share | Quadrant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azure (incl. AI services) | High (>20%) | <1.0 vs. AWS | **Star** (high-growth follower reported gaining on the leader; classic Star t

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