Drucker defines eleven product categories including “Today’s breadwinners”, “Tomorrow’s breadwinners”, and “Yesterday’s breadwinners.” Today’s breadwinners are at peak performance. Resources should not be added, if anything, they should be slowly removed from the product. Tomorrow’s breadwinners are profitable and profit will increase as resources are added. Yesterday’s breadwinners are no longer profitable. Resources should be transitioned to other products.
How can one tell when a product has changed categories? If expectations for a product are not met, then it has likely changed from one to another.
When executives understand where products are in their lifecycle they can quickly determine where resources belong. For example, if an executive spots a low-input high-output product that could be tomorrow’s breadwinner, resources should be transitioned from higher-input, lower-output products, certainly away from yesterday’s products or from what Drucker called “Investments in managerial ego.”
This analysis provides a snapshot of how a business is doing.
(Managing for Results, chapter 4)