Ansoff Matrix

The Ansoff Matrix is a strategic tool often used by senior management teams to brainstorm, categorize, discuss and decide on the best strategy for future growth.

A team might already know they want to apply one of the growth strategies:  Market Penetration, Market Development, Product Development or Diversification, or they may want to explore a few of these strategies.  Cards with different ideas can be placed into each of the four boxes of the Ansoff Matrix: For example:  Placing a “Decrease the price of a loss leader” card under Market Penetration.

A key feature of this model is that as you move up and to the right, the strategies take on higher risk which will need to be mitigated and managed.

For more information, here’s the Wikipedia entry about this framework.

Cardsmith Pro-tip: Use the Zoom Slider Bar to make the Ansoff Matrix background image larger or smaller in order to fit your screen.