Best of Breed
Categories: Company Management, Metrics
It's kind of a reductive term when you think about it. Like saying "best 200-meter butterflyer on the chess team." Like...they were 'best,' but within pretty finite limits. In this case, anyway.
The term generally grew up as a business reference, around increased granularity in the tech industry when there were like 30 competitors building modems in the late '90s. 50 internet service providers. 20 search engines. Best in a category was like...not best tech company. That was for The Nerdys, the Oscars for the technology industry.
And yes, the term probably originally came from dogs. Like...there was, in fact, a race around a track. And the Greyhounds won the whole thing, but that was unfair in evaluating a Shitzu's fast-lap. Or that of a Wiener Dog. Maybe as it applied to track speed, they should have renamed this one Least Bad Of Breed?