Boston Matrix Chart

Version

Application Scenario

The clustering scatter chart is officially known as the Boston Matrix Chart, and called the Four Quadrant Chart in plain words. You may be familiar with the Importance-Urgency Chart used for determining the priority of tasks. The four quadrants are respectively Important and Urgent, Important but Not Urgent, Not Important but Urgent, and Not Important and Not Urgent. Based on specific dividing lines (such as the mean value, target value, and actual value), the clustering scatter chart (for the scatter chart with two dimensions) divides data into four categories, making the data clear. The chart is often used to analyze the changes of two dimensions. For example, you can use the chart to compare the inventory days and the inventory turnover rate of commodities, the number of recharge users and the ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User) of recharges, and the shopping basket coefficient and the number of shopping baskets, as shown in the following figure.

Chart Feature

Advantage: The chart can enhance the analytical and strategic decision-making abilities of managers. Meanwhile, it also helps managers view issues with a forward-looking perspective, understand the connections among various business activities of the enterprise more profoundly, strengthen the communication between business units and enterprise managers, and enable the timely adjustment of the business investment portfolio of the enterprise.

Disadvantage:This method makes it difficult to balance two or more businesses simultaneously.

Data Preparation

Choose File > New General Report in the upper left corner of the designer, and create a built-in dataset ds1, as shown in the following figure.

Chart Insertion

Merge required cells, click the Insert Chart icon on the upper toolbar, select Scatter Chart, and click OK, as shown in the following figure. 

Scatter Chart Design

Select the chart, click the Cell Element icon on the right property panel, and set the attributes (Type, Data, Style, and Special Effect) for the chart.

Data Binding

Click Data and bind required data to the chart, as shown in the following figure.

Style Setting

1. Choose Style > Title, enter Growth Rate of Mobile Phones Per Brand in 2022, and set the font type to Microsoft YaHei, font size to 14, and font color to blue.

2. Choose Style > Legend and deselect Show Legend.

3. Choose Style > Axis, select Hide in Axis Label, set Type to None and Main Tick to Off for X Axis in Axis Line Style, and select Hide in Axis Label for Y Axis.

4. Choose Style > Background > Drawing Area > Gridline, set Horizontal to None, add two alert lines. Alert Line 1: Set Position to X Axis, set Value corresponding to the alert line, and set Position, Content, Font, Size and Color of Alert Text as needed.

Alert Line 2: Set Position to Y Axis, set Value corresponding to the alert line, and set Position, Content, Font, Size and Color of Alert Text as needed.

Choose Style > Background > Drawing Area, and set Horizontal to None in Gridline.

Set the items for Alert Line 1, as shown in the following figure.

Set the items for Alert Line 2, as shown in the following figure.

5. Choose Special Effect > Condition Display, click xxx to add a condition, set Attribute to Mark Point, Point Style to Custom, and add a condition for Series Name as needed in Common Condition to display different images.

Note: In the fifth step, if an image is vague, you can modify the width and height of the image as needed.

Set other conditions in the same way. Just select different images according to different series names.

Effect Display

PC

Save the report and click Pagination Preview.

Mobile Terminal

The report can be previewed on both the DataAnalyst app and the HTML5 terminal. The following figure shows the preview effect.

For details, you can download the template Boston Matrix Chart.cpt.