Overview
Use market growth rate and relative market share to interpret a business or product portfolio, linking cash sources, investment needs, and capital allocation. By default, provide the full analysis in Traditional Chinese, retaining Cash Cows / Stars / Question Marks / Dogs English equivalents;Pets、Problem Child、Wild Cat aliases such as these are also handled according to the same concept.
Only narrow the deliverable when the user explicitly requests classification or calculation. BCG is a portfolio screening tool and does not replace full strategic judgment; for a deep dive into a single business strategy with no portfolio allocation issue, or when a more detailed assessment of industry attractiveness and competitiveness is needed, a suitable analytical framework should be used instead.
Input Contract
Obtain the group background, strategic objectives, funding constraints, time horizon, and list of business units from the existing materials. Portfolio analysis includes at least two business units or products; each unit requires:
- Name and market growth rate.
- Relative market share, or the company's own market share and the largest competitor's market share that can be used to calculate it. When relative market share is already available, do not list raw market share as a necessary gap for classification.
Revenue scale, cash generation capability, synergies, competitive advantages, capital expenditure intensity, and industry barriers, for use in subsequent capital recommendations. The data sources, periods, and market definitions must be able to support the comparisons being made.
Data Sufficiency Gate
First determine which conclusion the gap affects, rather than forcing a classification. Explain in natural language what is missing and why it affects the judgment, then ask for the most critical data; do not force output of a missing-data JSON.
When there are missing values, only high/medium/low, unclear definitions, or a need for temporary assumptions, read Data completeness and follow-up questions. When there is enough to classify but not enough to decide capital actions, you may complete the classification first and point out what data the capital recommendation still awaits. Temporary assumptions must state the basis, risks, and follow-up verification; when no usable data is available and assumptions are not allowed, do not give a definitive quadrant.
Workflow
- Confirm market and calculation definitions: before classification, read BCG fundamentals and measurement, and calculate according to the formulas, thresholds, and boundary rules therein. Retain the sources or calculation methods and explain the thresholds used; when close to a boundary, mark sensitivity and alternative interpretations.
- Interpret each business unit: provide the quadrant and basis. For full analysis, also read Four-quadrant strategy handbook, to determine development potential, possible transition paths, conditions for validity, strategic posture, and capital priority.
- Form portfolio recommendations: for full analysis, read Modern market constraints and portfolio logic, linking the cash from mature businesses with the investment needs of growth businesses, and checking succession, resource dispersion, and dependency risks. Calibrate recommendations with cash, synergies, competitive advantages, and capital needs; if they conflict with the quadrant, retain the quantitative quadrant and explain the exception. When only doing classification, also read this document when encountering such exceptions, but do not expand into a full capital plan.
- Organize the deliverable: read Analysis template to obtain the complete fields and coordinate format. Select content according to the Output Contract, and align the tracking schedule with decision deadlines and investment validation cycles.
Output Contract
- Full analysis is the default: Includes portfolio overview, classification and development assessment of each business unit, strategies for each quadrant, capital allocation, adjustment priorities, coordinate data, assumptions and limitations, as well as data to be supplemented, experiments or financial validation, and tracking metrics. The complete fields are defined by the template.
- Only classification or calculation is required: Provides coordinates, quadrants, basis for determination, thresholds, and related gaps or boundary explanations, without additionally producing capital allocation and tracking plans.
- Both scopes are retained
matrix_plot_data. Units with insufficient data have their gaps explicitly listed, and are not filled in with zeros or fabricated coordinates.
Quality Rules
- Use data to support classification and capital actions, and explain which judgments may change due to market definition, thresholds, or data quality.
- Strategy cannot be determined by quadrant names alone. The investment, maintain, harvest, exit, and exception conditions for each quadrant are judged according to the strategy manual, not merely by outputting labels.
- Only explain the BCG limitations relevant to this case and the decisions that still need validation, without repeatedly restating a fixed framework disclaimer.