Two Journeys: A Product and an Organization

The chart below once again plots the journey that personal computers took through the four market archetypes.  It also plots the journey that one particular PC manufacturer might have taken as its leaders responded to changes in the market.

Note that the organization was rarely in the same exact position on the grid as its primary product.  This is typical; indeed, it should be management's goal to keep the organization closer to the center of the grid than the relevant product or service. 

The leaders of this hypothetical company have done this well.  In fact, because its leaders were wise and watchful, and because they made good adjustments to the organization and its PCs at the right times, at only one point did it flirt with dysfunctionality.  This was during the last days of the jungle market, when many competitors were duking it out, margins were almost gone, and it was obviously time for consolidation. 

As you can see, each organization gets pulled into and through the grid by its products and services.  The chart on the previous page is rather typical: products and services begin their existence in a frontier and normally (but not necessarily) drift into a jungle; then, as they mature, and competition forces out some players and establishes others as leaders, they are pulled into a battleground.  After that, one of three things typically happens: they remain in that battleground indefinitely; a ruler emerges from among the major players; or an unexpected innovation or turn of events pulls the product back into the jungle or frontier.

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