14

The experience curve (BCG)

This tool will help you:

  • Confirm that experience effects are an economic fact of life
  • Pursue a strategic advantage if your firm has greater experience
  • Be alerted to the risk of your experience being shared by competitors

About this tool

Albert Einstein said that ‘the only source of knowledge is experience’. So, too, with cost competitiveness.

In the previous tool, a focus strategy was shown to combine elements of both the differentiation and low-cost strategies. This was due largely to the effects of the experience curve.

A ‘learning curve’ effect had long been recognised in industry before The Boston Consulting Group got in on the act. Managers understood that the more often a manufacturing task was performed, ...

Get 25 Need-to-Know Strategy Tools now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.