On the basis of these findings, we can make the following recommendations: the management should either increase the market share of the electronics division in order to justify its cash consumption or they need to sell this business unit.

This division can be regarded as self-sufficient and according to the classification, adopted by the Boston Consulting Group, it should be called a “cash cow” (Butje 2005, p 157). In turn, the appliances division generates excessive amounts of cash.

Overall these findings indicate at that the given moment one of the company’s business units (the electronics division) cannot break even, and its expenditures are higher than its returns. Most importantly, this tool fails to take into account, the external environment (economic, legal, social and political factors) in which the firm operates. If the divisions are interconnected with one another, and each of them is an inseparable part of value chain, the use of the BCG matrix is no appropriate. It should be noted that the BSG matrix does not provide conclusive evidence as to the contribution of each division to the overall success of the company, especially if we are speaking those organizations, where business units work on the creation of the same or similar products.

stars, which hold high market share and at the same time they use large quantities of cash (Griffin, 2006, p 219).

dogs, those units which yield sufficient returns to break even but their profitability is small.

question marks, those divisions, which require considerable expenditures to become successful, and it is difficult to determine whether they will increase their market share or not.

cash cows, which generate sufficient amount of profit to sustain themselves.

Judging from this grid, we can single out several types of business units:

Bcg matrix boeing