Portfolio Analysis
Portfolio analysis in strategic management involves analyzing
every aspect of product mix to identify and evaluate all products or service
groups offered by the company on the market, to prepare the detailed
strategies for each part of the product mix to improve the growth rate
This technique, which can
be found in many different variations, helped to satisfy the emerging need for
centralised decisions on key strategic issues in multinational corporations.
Portfolio analysis provided a means of comparing numerous business activities
in relation to each other, establishing priorities and deciding between winners
and losers.
Strategic Portfolio Analysis, alternatively termed Business Portfolio
planning or Portfolio strategy or Policy-Strategy Profile or Organisational
Portfolio Plan, is a broad term and refers to a technique found in many
different variations.
Corporate portfolio
analysis is a set of techniques that help strategist in taking strategic
decision regard to individual product or business in a firm’s portfolio. Each
segment of a company’s product line is evaluated including sales, market share,
cost of production and potential market strength.
The original work is
accredited to General Electric whose concept included dividing activities into
strategic business units with like characteristics, related to the life cycles
of the products. Strategic business units may be a composite of product and
geographical area. It is quite possible for a product to be in a mature stage
in developed countries and in a take-off phase in less developed ones. This
life-cycle difference could result in two strategic business units, instead of
one on a more traditional product grouping.
Strategic portfolio analysis has, as its primary objective,
the optimal allocation of cash resource among the various business activities
comprising a diversified corporate portfolio. In addition, it can help top
management decide what business activities the company should be in, how
performance of the different business units should be evaluated, and who should
manage these units.
The formulation of the organisational portfolio plan is the
final phase of the strategic planning process. Strategic portfolio analysis
assumes that most organisations, at a particular time and in reality, are a portfolio
of businesses.
Well-known frameworks for portfolio analysis include:
· Boston Matrix
· McKinsey’s nine-box matrix
· Market-activated corporate strategy (MACS) framework
·
Hofer’s Product Market Evolution
·
Directional Policy & the Strategic Position
·
Strategic Planning Institute’s Matrix
·
Arthur D. Little Company’s Matrix
The purpose of analysis is to optimally allocate resources for the best total return, with focus on the corporate strategies. Many different approaches involving different display matrices have evolved over the years, with the common objective of successful diversification. Some of the common display matrices are:
·
BCG’s Growth-share Matrix
·
McKinsey Matrix
·
Strategic
Planning Institute’s Matrix
·
Arthur D. Little Company’s Matrix
·
Hofer’s Product/Market Evolution Matrix
These methods all consider a firm on a per business unit
basis in which you analyse each unit for its value. The first two
approaches both examine the attractiveness of the unit’s environment and its
ability to compete in that environment. The third method combines these two
considerations as a single measure of standalone value while also advising the
importance of the parent company’s ability to extract synergies from the
business unit.
However,
all these factors only focus on maximising the economic value of the firm
whereas other considerations such as culture or social benefit may override the need to maximise dollars.
1. Standalone Value
You can holistically assess standalone value by the industry
attractiveness and competitive strength of each business unit.
Structure, growth, players and other external forces will
influence the attractiveness of an industry. Structural considerations include
supply, demand and market growth rate, which in turn shape the conduct and
financial performance of its players. For example, the sharing economy
currently services a major untapped but increasingly popular market. A 2013 PwC
report suggests that the sharing sector will grow from $15 billion to $335 billion
by 2025, ten times faster than the rental sector. As an emerging industry, it
is attracting many new entrants and resulting in record startup valuations for
companies such as Uber and Airbnb.
Competitive strength also contributes to standalone value and
can be segmented into quantitative and qualitative factors. Quantitative
factors include the business unit’s market share, growth rate, profitability
and debt/equity ratio. Qualitative factors include its brand name, values, core
strengths and management. These factors, where unique and valuable, contribute
to the business unit’s strategic advantage amongst its competitors.
For example, an airline such as Qantas or Virgin
can service thousands of clients in the highly fragmented airline
passenger industry. In contrast, a private jet charter company servicing
corporate clients has far fewer client relationships to manage but risks
losing much business if a single client withdraws. In this example, client
relationships are a valuable business asset that increases the valuation of the
unit.
As a strategic advantage, it also raises the barriers to
entry for new competitors. However, this advantage would not be as valuable in
a highly commoditised market – that is, where brand loyalty is far less
important than price. In such markets, having high-profit margins which allow
for the ability to offer low prices to customers would be a substantial
strategic advantage.
2. Ability to Extract Synergies
The ability of the parent company to extract synergies from a
particular business unit, relative to the ability of other firms to do so, is
perhaps a more important consideration than the business unit’s standalone
value. It may be more profitable to sell the business unit to another firm than
to retain and collect the cash flows if the other firm is more suited to
extract value from it. That is true even if the business unit is extremely
valuable on its own.
For example, in 2012, Qantas sold its in-house catering
business to Gate Gourmet, an independent airline catering service provider. As
a non-core asset to Qantas, it was less able to extract value from it than the
buyer, who was a specialist in the airline catering industry. Since cash flows
from the business unit under Gate Gourmet’s management would be greater than
with Qantas, its valuation and sale price was higher than the profits Qantas
would otherwise have collected. The deal also allowed Qantas to devote more
resources to its core assets and reduce maintenance and overhead costs of
non-core functions.
Another example Google’s acquisition of YouTube. When Google
bought YouTube in 2006, YouTube was making little revenue on its own and
profited far more with the sale than they would have with developing their
existing resources. At that time, YouTube’s standalone value was about $650
million. In addition to that, Google paid a $1 billion premium, appraising the
potential synergies at that price, as it was well placed to extract more value
from YouTube with its assets and resources. In particular, Google’s expertise
in search algorithms and its data on people’s browsing patterns were two assets
that it successfully monetised in YouTube by providing better navigation and
more targeted ads.
3. Other Considerations
Non-economic considerations for merging, acquiring or
divesting business units include purpose, cultural fit, feasibility and legal
issues.
If the business unit is a charity, social venture or
volunteering organisation, it may have much lower returns or even run at a loss
to the parent company. However, the parent company may still have good reasons
to retain it. The parent company provides and receives social benefit rather
than only economic benefit.
Cultural fit or misfit can decide the fate of a merger or
acquisition. In 1998, European automotive manufacturer Daimler-Benz merged with
American Chrysler as Daimler-Chrysler. It was a promising trans-Atlantic market
giant, but Chrysler employees felt controlled by the high-end, elitist
management of Daimler-Benz. The merger ended after nine years when Daimler-Benz
sold Chrysler for $30 billion less than its acquisition price.
Legal is another consideration such as whether the business
unit can conform to local laws, especially with international purchases. There
are also feasibility considerations such as how operationally practical it is
to acquire or sell off a business unit, how long it would take to do so and at
what additional cost.
Purpose of Portfolio Analysis
These considerations suggest several potential
actions for businesses:
·
Sell off attractive business units if they
are worth more to another firm;
· Retain average or even poor-performing
business units if you can extract more value from them than any other owner
could;
· For business units with a high
standalone value, develop them or sell them off depending on your ability to
extract synergies from them relative to others; and
· If you are not the best owner to run the
business unit but are well positioned to improve its value, consider doing so
before selling it to the best owner.
Portfolio analysis results in a better understanding of your
business units or product lines and where you should allocate resources to
maximise value. Major considerations are its standalone value, the ability of
potential owners to extract synergies, and non-economic factors. Actions include
developing business units to create assets as strategic advantages and sharing
resources across business units to minimise overheads and maximise synergetic
value. Where another firm is more suited to benefit from the business unit, it
would be better to sell it to them if you can address non-economic concerns.
Optimising and strengthening your portfolio of business units or product lines
places your firm well in a position of economic strength.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Portfolio Analysis
Portfolio analysis offers the following advantages:
1.
It
encourages management to evaluate each of the organization's businesses
individually and to set objectives and allocate resources for each.
2.
It
stimulates the use of externally oriented data to supplement management's
intuitive judgment.
3.
It
raises the issue of cash flow availability for use in expansion and growth.
Portfolio
analysis does, however, have some limitations.
1.
It
is not easy to define product/market segments.
2.
It
provides an illusion of scientific rigor when some subjective judgments are
involved.
Considering
both its advantages and disadvantages, portfolio analysis should be regarded as
a disciplined and organized way of thinking about asset allocation. It is only
a subjective tool, however, and is not a substitute for the ultimate
professional judgment of the responsible decision-makers.
For example, an appliance manufacturer may have several
product lines (such as TV, Refrigerators, Stereos, Washers, Dryers) as well as
two divisions (consumer appliances and industrial appliances). In other words, the
corporate portfolio consists of all of the businesses, product lines, divisions
or other components of the parent multi-industry corporation.
Managing such groups of businesses is made little easier if
resources and cash are plentiful and each group is experiencing ‘growth’ and
‘profits’. Unfortunately, providing larger and larger budgets each year to all
business groups [may be Strategic Business Units (SBU’s)] is no longer
feasible.
Many are not experiencing growth, and profits and/or
resources (financial and non-financial) are becoming more and more scarce. In
such a situation, strategic portfolio analysis helps the management make
choices in the form of master strategies as well as programme strategies
(included would be competitive strategies, financial strategies, and so on).
Those who read this, also read:
1. Organizational Capability Profile
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