Early life
Henderson was born on a farm inPersonal life
Henderson married twice. With his first wife, Frances, he fathered four children. He had two daughters—Asta Werme and Ceacy Griffin—and two sons—Bruce Alexander Henderson and Bruce Balfour Henderson. His second wife was Bess, with whom he had no children. Henderson had seven grandchildren at the time of his death.Career
Henderson began his career as a salesman in theBoston Consulting Group
Upon leaving Arthur D. Little, Henderson accepted a challenge from the CEO of Boston Company to create a consulting arm for the bank, operating as a subsidiary under the name Management and Consulting Division of the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company. This consulting arm began its operations in 1963. Initially, it advised clients of the bank. Billings for the first month were only US$500. Nevertheless, Henderson hired his second consultant, Arthur P. Contas, in December 1963. Henderson provided a very specific imprint to the firm, that of ''strategy consultants''. Robert Mainer gave an account of how that choice was made:endersonasked what we thought CG'sspecialty should be. Many suggestions were offered, but in each case, we were able to identify several other firms that already had strong credentials in that particular area. The discussion began to stall. Then Bruce asked a momentous question: 'What about business strategy?' I objected: 'That's too vague. Most executives won't know what we're talking about.' Bruce replied, 'That's the beauty of it. We'll define it'.—Robert E. Mainer, Boston 1964-1967Bruce created the publication entitled ''Perspectives'' as a new form of marketing and in response to the '' McKinsey Quarterly'' and Arthur D. Little's ''Prism''. He wrote extensively for the publication until 1980. In 1974 Henderson made BCG an independent business and was one of the first to take advantage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 that allowed the establishment of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The ESOP began the process of buying BCG from The Boston Company, the parent corporation of Boston Safe Deposit. The buyout was completed in 1979, five years ahead of schedule. Between 1974 and 1980, Henderson focused on growing the firm and expanding its international presence. By the end of 1977, revenues were split evenly among business originating in the United States and overseas.
Retirement
Henderson stepped down from his role as the president and CEO of Boston Consulting Group in 1980. He was succeeded by Alan Zakon. By that time, he had grown BCG from a one-man-shop to a global firm with seven offices and 249 consultants. He continued as the chairman until 1985. He retired and went to Nashville, Tennessee, to teach at theDeath
Henderson died at the age of 77, ten days after suffering a heart stroke at his home in Nashville in 1992. He was survived by his second wife, four children with his first wife, and seven grandchildren. A memorial service was held with an overflow of attendees at the Memorial Church atIdeas and concepts
The experience curve
"''The strategic implications of the experience curve came closer to shattering earth.''"—The Economist, 2009 The Experience Curve is a managerial tool primarily used to predict cost behaviour. It states that "costs characteristically decline by 20-30% in real terms each time accumulated experience doubles. This means that when inflation is factored out, costs should always decline. The decline is fast if growth is fast and slow if growth is slow." The Experience Curve partially relies upon the concept of theThe growth-share matrix
The growth-share matrix—or BCG Matrix, as it came to be known—is a managerial tool used to visually represent a company's portfolio. It is a two-by-two matrix, which divides the dimensions of relative market share (x-axis) and market growth (y-axis) into four quadrants. Individual business are represented with circles having an area proportional to the size of the business itself. The growth-share matrix evolved as a collaborative effort of BCG employees in the period between 1968 and 1970. The theory underpinning it was laid out in the BCG perspective ''The Product Portfolio'' in 1970. One unusual characteristic of this visualization is that the x-axis is generally represented on an inverted scale (greater values are on the left), and on a logarithmic scale. The logarithmic scale may have been carried over from the work done on the Experience Curve (which uses a log-log scale), and is not always consistently used as such. In many cases, the scale used is linear, not logarithmic. According to Aldershof, the inverted scale is merely accidental. During an early development session, Dr. Zakon sketched the two-by-two matrix on a chalkboard, and labeled the sections as High and Low from top to bottom, and High and Low from left to right, simply for convenience. The format persisted through later development sessions, without anyone considering that in the future the axis might become calibrated— where a low-to-high scale from left to right would be more typical and easier to produce.Brinkmanship in business
"''The goal of the hottest economic war, is an agreement for coexistence, not annihilation''"—Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 Henderson said the article could equally be titled "How to Succeed in Business by Being Unreasonable". He wrote that to compete effectively, it was necessary to appear to be co-operating while in fact ensuring to get one's own way. He compared business to international relations during peacetime, when countries compete ferociously but exercise restraint to avoid war.Business and biology
"''Competition existed long before strategy. It began with life itself.''"—Bruce D. Henderson, 1989 By the early 1980s, the lessons of the experience curve led Henderson to shift his thinking beyond the bankruptcy of mainstream economics. He began to imagine a new and far more powerful kind of economics. The realization that organizations are not static machines but complex, dynamic systems that learn from experience led him to begin seeing companies as living, growing organisms. Following this logic, Henderson began to argue that the competition in the economy's market niches was remarkably like competition in nature's ecologic niches. The article "The Origin of Strategy" (1989) in this area was the last article he published.Personality and style
Favorite quotes
An engineer by training, Henderson never tired of quoting Archimedes to aspiring staff: "''Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I will move the world''".—Carl W. Stern, 2006 He was fond of quoting Jay Forrester: "''While most people understand first-order effects, few deal well with second-and third-order effects. Unfortunately, virtually everything interesting in business lies in fourth-order effects and beyond''"—Carl W. Stern, 2006Awards and recognition
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Henderson to a team of five analysts who evaluated foreign aid programs in Germany under thePublications
Books: *''Henderson on Corporate Strategy''. 1979. Harper Collins. . *''Logic of Business Strategy''. 1984. Harper Collins. . Monographs: *''Perspectives'' *''Perspectives on Experience''. 1972. The Boston Consulting Group. *''The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy: Classic Concepts and New Perspectives (2nd edition)''. 2006. Wiley.External links
References and sources
;Notes ;Sources *"The Lords Of Strategy: the secret intellectual history of the new corporate world". 2010. Harvard Business School Publishing. . * *"International Directory of Company Histories", Volume 58, St. James Press, December 2003, {{DEFAULTSORT:Henderson, Bruce D. 1915 births 1992 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople American chief executives American consultants Boston Consulting Group people Harvard Business School alumni Vanderbilt University alumni