The Cash Cow

The last 6 years of my life were spent in professional colleges, which is not a complaint because it was a lot of fun and I learnt how to beat the system and graduate without learning much. I can’t claim that it was a unique achievement, as most of my friends did the same as well.

There was a stark difference between Engineering and an MBA, which I realized fairly early and which was a wonderful surprise. Engineering was a purely technical course and every term that was used had a particular meaning and purpose. It was very well defined and there was no scope of interpreting it using ones imagination, something that I found out the hard way every time I got my answer sheets.

MBA on the other hand was not very theoretical. I know that I have sat through exams not knowing a thing but walked out with decent marks. An MBA programme is more about common sense then about theories and concepts. I am talking more about Marketing because I know Finance and Operations do have a logical foundation. Marketing allows one to use their imagination and for lazy people like me, string together some long words into a seemingly meaningful sentence and scrape through the exam. I believe marketing exams were very practical. If you could fool the examiner, then you should eventually be able to fool the customers.

Indians are not very well known to be Management Gurus, sure we have our own celebrated personalities, who have their own distinct styles and practices which are reflected in several case studies, but we are not known to publish too many theories and concepts that are studied across the world and adopted as a household name. One thing the Westerners are very good at, which has actually worked for them, is the knack of stating something obvious, and then giving it a good title, and making a simple chart to accompany it. This, I believe is the gist of most theories that I learnt in Marketing or Strategy during my two years.

I am not going to delve into details and give too many examples or charts here. But, there are two things that I must confess at this juncture. 
One, I have a fairly wild imagination so I normally jump to several conclusions when I interpret a title literally. 
Two, I never really bothered to read the definitions or concepts that were taught so I never tried to get into the crux of what was being taught.

One particular term that sort of stuck to me was “Cash Cow”. I was able to interpret several different meanings of the same, and I thought I should write it down.

1. The actual meaning of Cash Cow is a product or a business unit that generates unusually high profit margins: so high that it is responsible for a large amount of a company's operating profit. This profit far exceeds the amount necessary to maintain the cash cow business, and the excess is used by the business for other purposes. This is also an indicator that the product or business is a safe bet for the company and does not have high potential for growth. This is actually what the theory states and forms on part of the BCG Matrix, which is shown.

2. So, the first one was the boring definition that is given in text books. When I first heard of this term, I thought it would be a miniature model of a Cow that has been made entirely of currency bills, perhaps by some crazy East Asian artist to generate instant fame. This would eventually be auctioned off in UK to some crazy collector for an obscene amount of money.

3. Another interpretation that I had was that a Cash Cow was something that ate cash and grew fat. Something like a stupid investment, this would go on consuming your funds but never really generate any decent returns. It reminded me of those stupid scams which would surface from time to time where people would be invited to invest money and then the firm would just vanish.

4. The most obvious one that I am sure most people would think of is that a Cash Cow would be a cow that would produce cash instead of Milk. Similar to the hen that lay a golden egg. Now, wouldn’t those be good things to have. This comes closest to the theoretical definition as well and does leave some scope for thoughts of corruption and exploitation.

5. Another thought that came to my mind was that a Cash Cow might be something like an oversized piggy bank where instead of storing coins, people would store thick wads of Cash. This would be something that would not be out of place in a Richie Rich cartoon. Maybe one of these Cash Cows could be stashed away behind in a secret room behind a wall in the offices of the Top Bosses of Large Organisations.

6. I won’t bore people too much, so this is going to be my last take on the term. Cash Cow or rather Cash Cows could also be one of the evil villain(s) in one of the western cartoons. Similar to the Beagle Boys, these would be Cows that would be notorious bank robbers and would keep stocking up on cash whenever they could. Cows being considered kind and gentle creatures, these would be robbers that no one would suspect, hence be very successful. They could also be anti-heroes in the sense they would rob from the rich and give to the poor, which could actually be a better fit.

There can be many more interpretations, but I didn’t want to make this post too long. It’s just that Indians aren’t that adept at creating terms and jargons which can be sold as theories, which is a good and a bad thing, as it means we aren’t as dumb as the people who actually buy into these things, but we miss out on the huge market that comprises of these idiots.

There was no real point to this post, it may just be a waste of time to all those who actually read it. Images that have been added are solely to create the illusion that this is interesting and meaningful. In case you are reading this, you may have wasted a precious few minutes of your life, and the fact that you continue to do so means that you are a true friend and just as jobless as me. 

in·ter·pre·ta·tion [in-tur-pri-tey-shuhn]/ɪnˌtɜrprɪˈteɪʃən/

–noun

1. the act of interpreting; elucidation; explication

2. an explanation of the meaning of another's artistic or creative work

3. a conception of another's behavior

4. a way of interpreting.

5. the rendering of a dramatic part, music, etc., so as to bring out the meaning, or to indicate one's particular conception of it.

6. oral translation.