Another issue that arises in developing a portfolio analysis concerns the unit of analysis. What constitutes a business? In MARKSTRAT, two alternatives are possible. It is possible to consider the Sonite and Vodite (or Squazol & Trigols; or Clinites & Nutrites) markets in the aggregate. Each firm has a given market share in each of these markets. This, however, aggregates all the segments as if they were homogeneous when, in fact, each market segment has its own peculiarity in terms of market size, stage of development, competition, etc. So it is generally more appropriate for firms to evaluate their portfolios using each brand in each segment (e.g., in Figure 16, TEAM (AD) is brand TEAM in segment Adopters) as the unit of analysis.
Because a brand can sell in multiple segments, even though it is positioned for a given segment, it could be appropriate to represent the brand in different locations in the portfolio to correspond to each segment in which it is sold. However, sales outside the segment for which the brand is positioned are usually relatively small, so the main segment for each brand might be sufficient to represent the firm’s portfolio.
The Analysis module of MARKSTRAT provides a tool that automatically generates growth/share portfolio matrices. The portfolio of each firm can be represented for each market or for the Sonite and Vodite markets combined.