Ansoff Matrix of Virgin Groups, Mcdonald’s and Ebay
Ansoff Matrix of Virgin Groups, McDonald’s and eBay
Introduction
Ansoff Matrix was introduced by Igor Ansoff, a Russian-born pioneer of strategic management and corporate planning. He was also the strategist who first identified the fact that competitive advantage in the market was vital in the element of planning process (2001).
Ansoff matrix helps to define two vital factors for marketing: what is sold and who it is sold to. Therefore, it pertains on the products and markets and enables to give the four alternative courses of actions when considering marketing objectives:
· selling existing products to existing markets (market penetration);
· extending existing products to new markets (product development);
· developing new products for existing markets (market development); and
· developing new products for new market (diversification) (2005).
This paper will focus on analyzing the strategy development directions of Virgin Group, McDonald’s and eBay. In the end, the author also recommends changes to the matrices of each of them.
Virgin Groups: Diversification
For Virgin Groups, diversification is used in its strategic development. It is business growth through new products and new market. It is considered as appropriate option when the current markets are saturated or when the products are already reaching the end of its lifecycle because it can help in order to produce vital synergies and can also help in order to spread the risk by broadening the product and market portfolio (2002).
Unrelated diversification or conglomerate diversification was applied by the company. Virgin Group of UK was mainly associated with music and recording, however, the company ventured into new products and new markets including Virgin Cola, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Airlines and Virgin Telecommunications. As a result, the Virgin Group had been able to have a result of
Introduction
Ansoff Matrix was introduced by Igor Ansoff, a Russian-born pioneer of strategic management and corporate planning. He was also the strategist who first identified the fact that competitive advantage in the market was vital in the element of planning process (2001).
Ansoff matrix helps to define two vital factors for marketing: what is sold and who it is sold to. Therefore, it pertains on the products and markets and enables to give the four alternative courses of actions when considering marketing objectives:
· selling existing products to existing markets (market penetration);
· extending existing products to new markets (product development);
· developing new products for existing markets (market development); and
· developing new products for new market (diversification) (2005).
This paper will focus on analyzing the strategy development directions of Virgin Group, McDonald’s and eBay. In the end, the author also recommends changes to the matrices of each of them.
Virgin Groups: Diversification
For Virgin Groups, diversification is used in its strategic development. It is business growth through new products and new market. It is considered as appropriate option when the current markets are saturated or when the products are already reaching the end of its lifecycle because it can help in order to produce vital synergies and can also help in order to spread the risk by broadening the product and market portfolio (2002).
Unrelated diversification or conglomerate diversification was applied by the company. Virgin Group of UK was mainly associated with music and recording, however, the company ventured into new products and new markets including Virgin Cola, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Airlines and Virgin Telecommunications. As a result, the Virgin Group had been able to have a result of