BA Techniques: Ansoff’s Matrix

Written by Bharath Ravi | Jul 6, 2020 2:09:40 PM

Purpose

Ansoff’s matrix is strategic planning tool that provides a framework to help the executives, analysts, senior managers, and marketers to devise the strategies for future growth.

The concept of Ansoff’s matrix was developed by Igor Ansoff in 1957, an applied mathematician and a business manager. It is a useful tool for organizations wanting to identify and explore their growth in the market. The Ansoff’s matrix is also called as the product or the market expansion grim, used by the firms to analyze and plan the strategies for growth of the organization. It helped many marketers and leaders to clearly understand the risk of growing their business. Ansoff’s matrix suggests that the business attempts to grow depend on whether it markets the new or existing products in a new or existing markets. The output from the Ansoff’s matrix is a series of suggested growth strategies which set the direction for the business strategy.

The Ansoff’s matrix is essential for strategic marketing planning where it can be applied to look at the opportunities to grow the revenue for the business through developing new products and services or tapping into new market. It is also called as a product-market matrix. Ansoff’s matrix is one of the most widely used marketing models. It is used to evaluate the opportunities for companies to increase their sales through showing alternative combinations for new markets. By using the Ansoff’s matrix, the business gets an idea of how the success of the organization relies on its existing, and potential market and products. The product and market are the two dimensions of the Ansoff’s matrix. It is used in the marketing plan process. The Ansoff’s matrix is used to identify which strategy the business should use and then informs which tactics should be used in the marketing activity.

Some of the articles related to Ansoff’s matrix techniques are as follows,


The four strategies of Ansoff’s Matrix are,

  • Market Penetration - In this strategy, the firm uses its product in the existing market. It is aiming to increase its market share in the market penetration strategy. It can be done in number ways such as,
  1.  Decreasing prices to attract the existing or the new customers.
  2. Increasing Promotion and Distribution efforts
  3. Acquiring a competitor in the same market place
  • Product Development - In this, the firm develops a new product to cater the existing market. It involves extensive research, expansion, and development of the product range. It can be done in number of ways such as,
  1.  Investing in R&D to develop new products
  2. Acquiring the competitors product and merging the resources
  3. Strategic partnership with other firms to gain the access

  • Market Development - In this, the firm enters a new market with their existing product. The expansion of new market means expanding into new customer segments, regions etc. It can be done in number of ways such as,
  1. Catering to a different customer segment
  2. Entering into new domestic market
  3. Entering into foreign market
  • Diversification - In this, the firm enters a new market with a new product. Although this strategy is riskiest, it can be mitigated through related diversification. There are two types of diversification such as,
  1. Related - There are potential synergies to be realized between the existing business and the new product.
  2. Unrelated - There is no potential synergies to be realized between the existing business and the new product.
Some of the books for Ansoff’s matrix techniques are,