T.4 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix questions for IB Business Management

Tindra Outdoor

[1] Tindra Outdoor (TO) is a public limited company in Tromsø, Norway, that makes outdoor clothing. Its product portfolio has three main lines: the Polar fleece jacket (launched 2004), the Ridge waterproof shell (launched 2017) and Loop, a range of jackets made from recycled fishing nets (launched 2024).

[2] The Polar fleece was once TO’s best seller, but its sales have fallen by about 12 % a year since 2021 as customers switch to lighter synthetic jackets. It still makes a small profit because its design and machinery were paid for long ago, and some older customers remain very loyal to it. The Ridge shell is now TO’s main source of profit and cash, with steady sales in a market that has stopped growing.

[3] Loop has received excellent reviews and won a design prize for sustainability. Its sales are growing fast, but it is not yet profitable because TO is spending heavily on promotion and on new machinery to process the recycled nets.

[4] Chief executive Silje Haugen wants to withdraw the Polar fleece in 2026 and move its production staff and factory space to Loop. The marketing director, Anders Lie, disagrees. He wants to keep Polar with a modified design and a lower price, arguing that it is part of TO’s heritage and that its loyal customers might switch to rivals if it disappears.

Mjelde Skincare is a Norwegian company that sells four products made from Arctic plant extracts. Table 1 shows data for each product.

Table 1: Mjelde Skincare product portfolio, 2025

Relative market share = Mjelde’s share ÷ the share of the largest competitor. A value above 1.0 is treated as high; market growth above 10 % is treated as high.

Yeniden Tech (YT)

Read the resources and answer the questions that follow.

Yeniden Tech (YT) is a social enterprise in İzmir, Turkey, founded in 2018 by Selin Aktaş, a computer engineer. Yeniden means “again”. YT trains and employs 55 young people who left school without qualifications as technicians. It collects old laptops from companies, wipes their data securely, repairs and upgrades them, and sells them cheaply to students; it also runs a repair shop and sells parts that cannot be reused to licensed metal recyclers. YT’s mission is “no student without a computer, no computer in landfill”.

Image: a stack of refurbished laptops with green “Yeniden” stickers on a workbench; a young technician with a screwdriver replaces a battery while a university student opens a laptop box. Slogan: “Yeniden – second life for laptops, first chance for people”.

Resource 1 – News article from *Ege Ekonomi*

Students without screens, mountains of e-waste

Turkey produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of electronic waste each year, much of it never properly recycled. At the same time, many students from low-income families have no computer of their own, and new laptops have become much more expensive as the lira has lost value. Large companies replace laptops every three to four years and must, by law, dispose of them safely and protect the data on them.

Table 1: University students with their own computer, by family income

Resource 2 – Social media posts from Zeynep, a university student in İzmir

Bought my laptop from Yeniden for less than a third of the price of a new one. It has a one-year guarantee and works perfectly. I finally don’t have to queue for library computers at midnight! [1/2]

Only problem: they sold out in September, when everyone needs one. Half my friends ended up on a waiting list. [2/2]

Resource 3 – Internal email from Selin Aktaş to YT’s board

From: Selin Aktaş, Founder and CEO

To: Board of directors

Subject: Where to invest the TRY 10 million

Our impact investor will provide TRY 10 million next year. I attach the figures for our four activities. Some board members say we should close the e-waste parts business because it loses money and has a tiny share of its market. Others say we should spend most of the money on refurbished laptops for students, which is our mission but earns very little. Our corporate clients are growing fast, but I worry that we will become just a business services company.

I suggest we use the BCG matrix to think about our portfolio as a whole.

CONFIDENTIAL: this email and any attachments are intended only for the named recipients.

Resource 4 – YT’s portfolio data, 2025

Market shares are for the İzmir region.

Resource 5 – Survey of YT’s corporate clients (32 replies)

Resource 6 – Interview with Burak, a YT technician

“I was 19 and doing nothing when YT took me on. Now I can fix almost any laptop. The repair shop is steady – the same customers come back every year. The student laptops are what make us proud, but in September we cannot refurbish them fast enough; we need more space and testing equipment. And honestly, if we stopped recycling properly, the companies would stop trusting us.”

Salsas Tlaquepaque S.A. de C.V. (ST)

[1] ST is a family-owned private limited company in Guadalajara, Mexico, founded in 1978 by Rosa Elena Pulido. It employs 85 people in a single factory. Rosa Elena’s grandson, Emiliano Pulido, became chief executive in 2024 after working for a large food multinational in Monterrey.

[2] ST’s best-known product is Salsa Clásica, a bottled hot sauce sold in almost every shop in western Mexico. It is the market leader in the region, with nearly twice the sales of its nearest rival, but sales in the bottled hot sauce market have hardly changed for a decade. Salsa Clásica needs little advertising and earns most of ST’s profit.

[3] In 2023 ST launched Salsa Macha, a crunchy chilli oil with peanuts and sesame. Chilli oils have become very popular with young people in Mexico and the United States, partly because of cooking videos on social media, and the market is growing by more than 30 % a year. However, at least six other brands sell similar products and ST’s share is small. ST also sells Chamoy Dulce, a sweet-and-sour sauce for fruit. Its sales are falling slowly in a market that is not growing, and two much larger brands dominate it.

[4] Emiliano used the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix to review ST’s products. He wants to spend most of the 2026 promotion budget of MXN 6 million on social media influencers who make cooking videos, to build Salsa Macha’s brand. ST has never used influencers. Rosa Elena, who is still chair of the board, is worried. ST has always promoted its products through radio advertising, point-of-sale displays and sponsorship of local charreada (rodeo) events, and she thinks that cutting this support would put Salsa Clásica’s loyal, mostly older customers at risk.

[5] A marketing agency told Emiliano that influencer posts can reach millions of viewers cheaply, but warned that results are hard to predict and that some food influencers have recently been criticized for not saying when posts were paid for.

Tokachi Noodle Co.

Tokachi Noodle Co. (Tokachi) is a Japanese public limited company that makes instant noodles. It has been the market leader in Japan for 15 years. Its large factories run 24 hours a day, and it buys wheat flour and packaging in such quantities that suppliers give it substantial discounts. Tokachi’s flagship brand appears on almost every convenience-store shelf in the country.

In 2026 the second-largest producer, Midori Foods, cut the prices of its main brands by 15 %. Analysts believe Midori wants to become market leader before the market stops growing. Tokachi’s sales director, Yuki Tanaka, wants Tokachi to match the price cut immediately. The finance director, Kenji Mori, disagrees: he believes Tokachi’s brand is strong enough to keep most of its customers, and warns that a price war would reduce profit for every firm in the industry.

Table 1: The Japanese instant noodle market, 2025

Viña Pirque (VP) is a Chilean winery in the Maipo Valley. Its Gran Reserva Carmenère is the best-selling Chilean red wine in Chinese hotels and restaurants, a market segment growing by about 15 % a year. VP is opening sales offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen to keep up with demand. Its Pirque Tinto, a low-priced red sold in cartons, has been the leading brand in Chilean supermarkets for 20 years, but sales in this segment rise by only 1 % a year.

With reference to VP, distinguish between a star and a cash cow in the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix.