A three‐step matrix method for strategic marketing management

This paper proposes a simple three‐step matrix method to assess the situations in the marketplace. First, an industry perspective matrix is developed to assess the opportunities and threats in the operating environment. Next, a competitive position matrix is constructed, to determine the strength and weakness of the strategic business unit. Then, the two are combined to produce a market situation matrix. Any firm can locate its strategic business unit into these matrices, and thereby assess its current and predicted future position in a given marketplace. This approach is very easy to implement in practice, and provides a clearer assessment of strategic options than any single decision matrix alone.