What is a GE-McKinsey Matrix?

A GE-McKinsey Matrix is a strategic planning tool used to help an organization for portfolio planning. Use Vizzlo’s GE-McKinsey Matrix to visualize the allocation of resources effectively. Either as an analytical tool in portfolio analysis, brand marketing, product management, or strategic management.

A group of businesses that together make up a company is called a portfolio. These individual businesses are often referred to as Strategic Business Units, or SBUs for short. The aim of a company having a portfolio of products is a balance between cash flows from different product lines. The GE-McKinsey matrix provides a structured means to help you understand where to invest the limited resources of an organization. That is, a GE-McKinsey Matrix serves as a tool to communicate as to which SBUs should receive more or less investment, which SBUs should be added to the portfolio, and which should be divested.

The building blocks of a GE-McKinsey are

• the strengths of a business unit plotted on the horizontal axis,
• the market attractiveness plotted on the vertical axis, and
• once the SBUs have been plotted on the matrix, use different colors to indicate the three investment options grow, hold, and harvest.

Competitive strengths factors are: total market share, customer loyalty, brand awareness. Factors that influence the market on the other hand are total market size, market share, expectations about the growth rate of a market, etc. Conceptually, a GE-McKinsey Matrix is similar to a BCG matrix, but somewhat more complicated.

A brief history of the GE-McKinsey Matrix

In the 1970s, General Electric hired McKinsey to develop a business analysis tool to analyze their portfolio to make better investment decisions. Hence the name, GE-McKinsey Matrix.

How to make a GE McKinsey Matrix chart with Vizzlo?

• Adjust the layout of the matrix from rectangular to square.
• Show additional information in a legend or column headers.
• Use different styles to highlight the cells of the matrix.
• Change the axes positions from left to right and top to bottom. Or hide the axes completely.
• Add padding between the cells.
• Change colors and adjust fonts.
• Export your work as PDF or PNG.
• Embed the chart into PowerPoint or Google Slides.

GE-McKinsey Matrix maker: key features

• Switch between a square matrix layout and a rectangular layout.
• Add inner padding between the cells.
• Show or hide a legend, row, column, or cell headers.
• Move axes lines from top to bottom or left to right.

GE-McKinsey Matrix: What's new?