Strategy Overview
AFI Framework and Strategy Proces
External Analysis
Industry Overview
Miscellaneous
100
Jill is interested in the concept of strategy and decides to create her own. As a result, Jill says that her strategy is to focus on growth and marketing to achieve competitive advantage. How would you evaluate Jill’s statement?
Jill should reevaluate her statement because it fails to meet the principles of what a strategy should be.
100
List the three levels of strategy and the key question firms answer for each level.
Corporate Strategy
•Where to compete?
•Industry, markets, and geography.
Business Strategy
•How to compete?
•Cost leadership, differentiation, or value innovation.
Functional Strategy
•How to implement a chosen business strategy?
•Different strategies require different activities.
100
Managers have little control over the _________ environment but do have the ability to influence the __________ environment
General; task
100
Explain industry convergence as a concept and explain briefly how it is happening within media industries
Unrelated industries begin to satisfy the same customer need
•Media Industries: Content going online; Newspapers, magazines, TV, movies, radio, music.
A wide variety of mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and e-readers, provide a new form of content delivery that has the potential to make print media obsolete.
100
Explain the concept of the "strategy canvas"
a line graph that plots a business's key factors (such as price, customer service, convenience, etc.) against the level to which those factors meet customer needs. The key factors are set on the horizontal axis (x), and the level of value offered is set on the vertical axis (y).
200
Explain briefly why "best practices" alone or high operational effectiveness alone is not a good strategy
May not be sustainable; How to measure operational eff.; competitors can easily imitate best practices
200
Deep Earth Gardening has a vision of helping every American learn how to grow their own food. Its management team recently unveiled the mission statement “A garden at every home.” What is wrong with this mission statement?
It does not indicate how the company will accomplish its goals.
200
List the 6 dimensions you should consider regarding the external environment (not including industry analysis)
1.Political.
2.Economic.
3.Sociocultural.
4.Technological.
5.Ecological.
6.Legal.
200
The soft drink industry is a great example of
oligopoly
200
He is considered by most as the founding thinker of the Resource Based View
Jay Barney
300
According to Porter, strategy involves the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities. What are the three types of positioning?
Variety based positioning
Need based positioning
Access based positioning
300
On average, which type of vision statements typically yield higher levels of performance and why?
Customer oriented; allow the firm to adapt to changes in the environment
300
List two industry trends Best Buy was able to address with its Renew Blue plan.
Move from brick & mortar to E-commerce
Showrooming
Deep discounts
300
List the stages of the industry life cycle and give on characteristic of each in regards to INNOVATION
Start-up; growth; shakeout; maturity; decline
300
Describe Peloton's core competency
Create community and belonging
Great content with celebrity trainers
High quality hardware + software
400
ECO Jeans, Inc. had a mission to become the leading producer of environmentally friendly blue jeans, an emerging and in-demand category in the apparel industry. Its strategy involved leveraging a network of organic cotton farmers and suppliers of environmentally responsible synthetic materials to create a product that is durable, attractive, affordable, and 100% recyclable. However, because it did not upgrade its outdated production facilities, ECO Jeans could not assemble its products at a low-enough cost to offer the jeans at a price that was attractive to customers. ECO Jeans’ strategy failed because
it was not backed up with strategic investments.
400
Explain a stretch goal and indicate three reasons why it is important for a firm to set good stretch goals.
Actions based on vision will:
•Build necessary resources.
•Build capabilities.
•Ensure continuous organizational learning.
•Ensure learning from failure.
400
Explain which of the PESTEL factors is most important.
Trick question! They are all equally important and they interact!
400
List and define the four types of industry competitive structures (in regards to fragmentation and consolidation)
400
Marriott is able to create greater economic value than its competitors due to their ability to take advantage of ________, which describe the savings that come from producing two (or more) outputs at less cost than producing one output individually, while utilizing the same amount of resources and technology.
ECONOMIES OF SCOPE
500
Give two reasons why Best Buy' strategy failed to address the competitive challenge in its industry (before the Renew Blue)?
Best Buy was late in responding to e-commerce and Amazon's threat; show rooming; decline in sales in foreign operations...
500
List at least two of the four shortcomings of the top-down approach of strategic planning.
1.May not adapt well to change.
2.Formulation is separate from implementation.
3.Information flows one-way.
4.Leaders’ future vision can be wrong.
500
Explain why the legal and political elements of the PESTEL framework have been particularly important for US tech companies in the EU?
Europe’s policy makers seek to retain control over important industries ranging from transportation to the internet to ensure that profits earned in Europe by Silicon Valley firms are taxed locally. The EU parliament even proposed legislation to break up “digital monopolies” such as Google. This proposal would require Google to offer search services independently as a standalone company from its other online services.
500
Many Internet entrepreneurs learned the hard way that it is difficult to beat the forces of perfect competition. Fueled by eager venture capitalists, about 100 online pet supply stores such as pets.com, petopia.com, and pet-store.com had sprung up by 1999, at the height of the Internet bubble. Cut-throat competition ensued, with online retailers selling products below cost. When there are many small firms offering a commodity product in an industry that is easy to enter, no one is able to increase prices and generate profits. Online pet stores represent which industry competitive structure:
PERFECT COMPETITION
500
This scholar is perhaps one of the most prolific within the field of Strategic Management (they are at Harvard Business School!)
Michael Porter