Critical Note on Business Portfolio - Case Study Example

Hedley gets the wrong end of a chicken/egg argument. He seems to imply that a properly managed portfolio would not have allowed British motorcycle share to have fallen so significantly, and that, if only someone had valued market share, the demise of the industry would not have occurred. This argument, however, discounts the overriding market forces that would have debilitated the motorcycle industry in any event. It was not a lack of market share that caused British costs to remain stubbornly high, but wages, lack of natural resources, and the overall decline of British manufacturing (Turnbull et. al, 1992). Not a single motorcycle or automotive company has effectively navigated the murky waters of British cost and regulation without being bought out or constructed off-shore (Turnbull et. al, 1992), so arguing that clever portfolio management could have stopped this disaster is untrue. Portfolio management is surely important, but this example describes it more as a panacea, which is a bad way to think about it.