The Shyam

It took me 7 months to realize and recognize this. For some reason, it had never stood up and demanded its attention till I was recently slogging over the Marketing Research slide decks, valiantly trying to cram in 6 weeks of material into a two hour study session.

I turned a slide. And there was one. I turned a few more pages, and yet another one. And suddenly, it was like my entire ISB life was flashing before my very eyes, smacking me with every flash with a dead fish. There was a moment of dread, of realization dawning and wondering if I had just joined a club that I could never exit.

It was the trap of 4. It was as if the entire MBA population, once they entered any MBA school, forgot how to count beyond 4. How else could you explain the fact that any and every graph or concept that the MBA tried to teach me could be represented by a 2 by 2 graph?

Need to figure out how your brand portfolio is doing with regards to your competitors? No issues. Use a 2 by 2 matrix known as the BCG matrix

Want to figure out if the next big idea you have is going to make you gazillions of money or not? Plot a 2 by 2 matrix with Criticality (High / Low) on one axis, and Discontentment (High / Low) on the other as follows:

In both cases, you pick a quadrant you want to be in, and try to frame your solution to get to that point. Its an overly simplistic approach that aims at reducing the amount of clutter that we have to deal with in our “messy” realities. The buck doesn’t just stop here though, no!

• Want to figure out which Marketing Research question types to use? Theres a 2 by 2 matrix for that
• Want to compare the nature of service? There’s a 2 by 2 matrix which plots degree of customization against degree of labor intensity to give you that answer
• Want to figure out the types of people in the world? Want to figure out how to scratch an Aardvark’s back? There’s probably a 2 by 2 matrix for that too!

It doesn’t stop with 2 by 2 matrices though. Ever heard of SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)? While represented in a 2 by 2 tabular form, the number of items in in is still 4.

The GE-McKinsey  matrix tried to be novel, unique, prove how much more awesome it is than a simple, trivial BCG matrix. What did it do? Added 1 to each dimension, to give us a 3 by 3 matrix. Literally! Thats their claim to fame! (Well, to be fair, they did change the axis from Market Growth to market attractiveness, but thats about it).

I keep meaning to one up them all, and come up with a 4 by 4 matrix. And then MBA students all over the globe will have a new framework to memorize, and a new person to curse to his eternal doom! The Shyam Matrix. Pure Awesomeness on one axis, and sheer craziness on the other. Deal with that, MBA students!

Now thinking back though, I finally realize why every single person at an MBA school goes gaga over one theory in particular. It is something that is repeatedly used in class after class once it has been introduced to the students.

Porters 5 Forces!

Thats right. I bet the guy is famous for no other reason than the fact that he went beyond MBA’s traditionally accepted wisdom of students not being able to count beyond 4. He went and established 5 forces. Thats right! And suddenly, students found they were challenged beyond belief. It was as if they were being shown the light after spending years in mediocrity. And the 5 forces (not 4, 5!) became the single biggest rage of MBA’s.

Disclaimer: 2 by 2 matrices can actually be useful. There’s even a book published on the awesomeness of 2 by 2 matrices (Find book here). But still, there’s an over-abundance and over-reliance on over-simplifying concepts that might leave you over and out in the ditch. This was just an attempt to remind people of that.