5/19/2021 Top 5 Business Frameworks according to Strategy Consultants

 ABOUT ARTICLES STRATEGY  BUSINESS GROWTH  MANAGEMENT  CASE INTERVIEW  FRAME

Strategic Planning  

Top 5 Business Frameworks according to

Strategy Consultants
 May 24, 2017  Administrator  0 Comments  Anso , Anso Matrix, BCG Matrix, Hambrick and

Fredrickson, Porter, Porter's Five Forces, Strategy Diamond, Treacy and Wiersema, Value Disciplines

Business Frameworks are useful tools that help you analyze business issues and
structure your thinking. Strategy consultants and business analysts  often use these Recent Posts
frameworks in order to clearly communicate their recommendations to their clients.
There have been thousands of scienti c articles trying to come up with innovative and Porter’s Generic Strategies:
useful frameworks in business, management and strategy. This article will cover the ve Di erentiation, Cost Leadership and
most used and most helpful frameworks in today’s business world according to strategy Focus

consultants. GE McKinsey Matrix: A Multifactorial

Portfolio Analysis in Corporate

Porter’s Five Forces Model Strategy

Product Life Cycle: The Introduction,

Growth, Maturity and Decline of a
Michael Porter’s Five Forces model is probably the best-known strategy framework out
Product Category
there. It is especially used when analysing industries. The Five Forces model helps
determining how competitive an industry is based on ve di erent factors: the rivalry Three Levels of Strategy: Corporate
among existing competitors, the threat of new entrants (potential competitors), the Strategy, Business Strategy and
Functional Strategy
threat of substitute products (alternatives), the bargaining power of suppliers, and the
bargaining power of buyers. If these forces are strong, competition can be considered 
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5/19/2021 Top 5 Business Frameworks according to Strategy Consultants

high. In that case, a company might want to think twice before entering that speci c Fiedler’s Contingency Model of
 ABOUT ARTICLES STRATEGY  BUSINESS GROWTH 
industry. According to this framework, industries with little competition allow for greater
MANAGEMENT  CASE INTERVIEW  FRAME
Leadership: Matching the Leader to
margins and are therefore more attractive to enter. For more information and examples the Situation
on using Porter’s Five Forces, click here. Hersey and Blanchard Situational
Leadership Model: Adapting the
Leadership Style to the Follower

Business To You

YouTube 16K

Figure 1: Five Forces Model

Hambrick and Fredrickson’s Strategy

Diamond
Top Frameworks
Unfortunately, Hambrick and Fredrickson’s Strategy Diamond hasn’t received the
attention it deserves. The Strategy Diamond is an attempt to explain what strategy truly Anso Matrix: How to Grow Your
means and is a great framework to distinguish the di erent elements that make up a Business?

good strategy. According to this model, a strategy consist of ve essential parts that Porter’s Five Forces
together should form a uni ed whole: Arenas, Vehicles, Di erentiators, Staging and
Scanning the Environment: PESTEL
Economic Logic. For each element concrete and deliberate choices have to be made on Analysis
what to do and more importantly what NOT to do. In addition, choices made within one
BCG Matrix: Portfolio Analysis in
element should reinforce and match choices made in the other four elements. Only that
Corporate Strategy
way companies can achieve a sound and sustainable strategy. More information and
SWOT Analysis: Bringing Internal and
examples on using the Strategy Diamond can be found here.
External Factors Together

VRIO: From Firm Resources to

Competitive Advantage

Figure 2: Strategy Diamond

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5/19/2021 Top 5 Business Frameworks according to Strategy Consultants

Treacyand Wiersema’s
ABOUT ARTICLES STRATEGYValue
 BUSINESS GROWTH  MANAGEMENT  CASE INTERVIEW  FRAME

Disciplines
The Value Disciplines framework builds upon the key message of Porter’s Generic
Strategies (i.e. companies should have a clear focus in what they want to be known for
and what they want to excel in). If a comany tries to excel in multiple (often
contradicting) disciplines, it is likely to end up stuck somewhere in the middle. Treacy
and Wiersema propose three value disciplines from which companies can choose from
in order to become a market leader: Product Leadership (the best and most innovative
product o ering), Operational Excellence (the cheapest products through a cost-e cient
production process), and Customer Intimacy (amazing customer service and customer
relationship management). Choosing each one of the disciplines has tremendous
consequences on how the company should be operating in terms of structure,
processes and culture. More information on the Value Disciplines can be found here.

Figure 3: Value Disciplines

Anso Matrix
There are di erent ways of growing a business. Igor Anso identi ed four strategies for
growth and summarized them in the so called Anso Matrix. The Anso Matrix (also
known as the Product/Market Expansion Grid) allows managers to quickly summarize
these potential growth strategies and compare them to the risk associated with each
one. The four growth strategies are Market Penetration (o ering more of the existing
products to existing markets), Market Development (o ering the existing products to
new markets), Product Development (o ering new products to existing markets) and
Diversi cation (launching new products in new markets). The idea is that each time you
move into a new quadrant (horizontally or vertically), risk increases. More information
on the Anso Matrix can be found here.

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 ABOUT ARTICLES STRATEGY  BUSINESS GROWTH  MANAGEMENT  CASE INTERVIEW  FRAME

Figure 4: Anso Matrix

BCG Growth-Share Matrix

The Boston Consulting Group’s product portfolio matrix (also known as BCG Growth-
Share Matrix) is designed to help companies consider growth opportunities by reviewing
its portfolio of products or business units in order to decide where to invest and where
to divest. The matrix is divided into four quadrants based on two factors: market growth
and relative market share. The four types of business units (or products) are Dogs,
Question Marks, Cash Cows and Stars. Most business units start o as Question Marks
with a relatively small market share in a high growth market. Depending on how well the
unit and the industry is doing, it might end up as a Star or Dog. Eventually when industry
growth is attening, the unit becomes a Cash Cow that can be ‘milked’ in order to invest
in more promising businesses. The BCG Matrix is  therefore a great tool for portfolio
analysis and corporate strategy purposes. More information and examples on using the
BCG Matrix can be found here.

Figure 5: BCG Matrix

Together these ve frameworks cover a wide variety of purposes in strategic

management consulting. For a more extended list of business frameworks, check out
this page. Let us know what your favorite business framework is in the comment section
below and perhaps we will cover your framework next time as well!

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Related

SWOT Analysis: Bringing Porter's Five Forces Value Net Model:

Internal and External Factors Coopetition instead of
Together In "Industry Analysis" Competition

In "Strategic Planning" In "Industry Analysis"

← SWOT Analysis: Bringing Internal and External Factors Together

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions →

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