The Ansoff Matrix, also known as the Product/Market Expansion Grid, is a framework that can help your organization develop growth opportunities. Additionally, it enables you to understand the inherent risk associated with each growth option.
The output from the Ansoff will be one or more potential ways for your organization to grow.
The Ansoff Matrix goes by several different names, including the Product/Market Expansion Grid, the Product-Market Matrix, and the Corporate Ansoff Matrix.
The Ansoff Growth Matrix was first introduced in the Harvard Business Review in 1957 in an article called Strategies for Diversification by Igor Ansoff, an applied mathematician and business manager.
According to the Ansoff Matrix, there are essentially just two options available to firms that want to grow: changing what is sold (product growth) and/or changing who it is sold to (market growth).
When combined into a matrix, the options result in four strategic options, each with a different level of risk and reward.
From the diagram, you can see that four strategies for growth are:
The easiest way to understand the matrix is to imagine that before you begin your Ansoff Matrix, you are positioned in the bottom left of the diagram.
The next thing to understand is that the more’ newness’ you introduce to your strategy, the greater the risk of failure. That is, the more you move away from your starting position, the greater the risk of failure.
This means that the lowest risk strategy is to sell more of your existing products to your current markets because this involves moving the least distance from your starting position.
If you decide to create a new product or sell to a new market, the risk increases as you’re moving away from your starting position either horizontally or vertically.
Finally, suppose you decide to create new products AND sell those products to entirely new markets. In that case, the risks are greatest, as you’re moving away from your starting position both horizontally and vertically.
It’s important to understand that just because the risks are high does not mean you shouldn’t follow a particular approach. It is up to you to choose the right strategy for your firm by balancing the risks against the potentially higher rewards a riskier strategy may bring.
Once you’ve chosen the right strategy for your organization, you can then take steps to manage and mitigate the risks as you execute your strategy.
Let’s examine each of the four growth strategies in turn.
With this strategy, you aim to grow your organization by selling more of your existing products and services to your current markets. Another way to say this is that you are trying to increase your market share within your existing markets.
There are several different ways in which organizations can seek to improve market penetration, including:
This strategy aims to secure growth by selling existing products to new markets. This strategy refers to markets in the broadest sense and could mean new customer segments or new overseas markets.
There are several different ways in which organizations can seek to develop a market, including:
Market development can sometimes be the obvious choice, for example, when there are large and untapped markets beckoning or new distribution channels have opened up, making it easy to supply new markets.
With this strategy, you attempt to secure growth by creating new products for your existing markets.
There are several ways you can seek to develop products, including:
Using this strategy, you aim to grow by offering new products to new market segments. This strategy is the highest risk, but conceptually it can offer the highest rewards.
There are two broad types of diversification:
In theory at least, related diversification is a lower-risk option than unrelated diversification.
As a simplified example of how the Ansoff Matrix might be used in the real world, we’re going to look at how McDonald’s might populate the matrix.
Let’s run through each strategic option and its purpose that you can see in the example above.
Market Penetration
Market Development
Product Development
Diversification
The market penetration strategy whereby McDonald’s is trying to sell more of its products to existing customers is the least risky. Conversely, McDonald’s trying to sell mushroom burgers (a new product) to Vietnam (a new market) is the riskiest strategy to achieve growth.
If you’d like to perform your own Ansoff Matrix analysis, you can download our free template here.
Although the Ansoff Matrix is most frequently used to help organizations find and understand their growth opportunities, you can also use it as a personal career planning tool.
It can help you to understand what career options are available to you, along with the risks and rewards associated with each. From this information, you can choose the right career option for you.
There are several advantages and disadvantages associated with the Ansoff Matrix.
The advantages of the Ansoff Matrix include:
The disadvantages of the Ansoff Matrix include:
The Ansoff Growth Matrix can help organizations make strategic decisions about how to grow. It is based on the idea that there are just two fundamental options available to firms that want to grow: changing what is sold (new products) or changing who it is sold to (new markets).
The matrix also incorporates the concept of risk to help strategists better understand the intrinsic risk associated with each growth option.