Exam 1 BUS 4750

The most significant signs of a well-managed company are

good strategy-making combined with good strategy execution.

Characteristics of an effectively worded strategic vision statement are most likely to include

graphic, directional, and focused.

In analyzing driving forces, the strategist's role is to

identify the driving forces and evaluate their impact on demand for the industry's product, the intensity of competition, and industry profitability

A drink manufacturer finds setting up a plant to make its own bottle caps expensive and technically difficult. Which of the following will be most helpful in solving the manufacturer's problem?

outsourcing

Which two factors inhibit the ability of rivals to imitate a firm's most valuable resources and capabilities?

social complexity and causal ambiguity

Mad Magazine pivoted unsuccessfully in 2019 to eliminate future newsstand sales and publish only one issue per year, to republish recycled content from 67 years of publication, and also to reassign the space formerly occupied by new content to high-priced advertisements. Subscriptions to Mad Magazine as a result have fallen precipitously and are now available for deep discounts. What do we learn from this example about strategies that yield sustainable competitive advantage?

Mad Magazine's poor planning and execution of a strategy that changed or evolved the customer value proposition led to its failure.

A company achieves sustainable competitive advantage when

a sufficiently large number of buyers have a lasting preference for its products or services as compared to the offerings of competitors.

TOMS Shoes' company values are

an integral part of this company's DNA, but only if executives decide to ingrain designated core values into corporate culture.

Square attained a solid foothold in small retail and service businesses in the United States, such as hair salons, massage therapists, and food trucks. Currently, Square gets a large percentage of its revenue (greater than 20 percent) from the restaurant business."Square for restaurants" allows restaurant owners to manage their entire Point of Sale (POS) system, including credit card and mobile wallet payments, menu updates, floor layouts, employee scheduling, tip splitting, payroll processing, and employee performance tracking using a single platform, as well as tools such as customer relationship management, inventory management, and employee management. Square's blueprint for how and why the company's business approaches will generate revenues sufficient to cover costs and produce attractive profits and returns on investment

best describes what is meant by a company's business model.

The chief duties/responsibilities of a company's board of directors, with respect to strategy-making and strategy execution, are not concerned with

hiring and firing senior-level executives and working with the company's chief strategic planning officer to improve the company's strategy when performance comes up short of expectations.

The heart and soul of a company's strategy-making effort is determining how to

come up with moves and actions that produce a durable competitive edge over rivals.

Crafting a deliberate strategy involves developing strategy elements that

consist of a blend of proactive new planned initiatives plus ongoing strategy elements continued from prior periods.

What a company's top executives are saying about where the company is headed long term with respect to its future product-market-customer-technology mix

constitutes the strategic vision for the company.

Approaches to enhancing differentiation through changes in the value chain include

coordinating with channel allies to enhance customer value.

When a company has become proficient in modifying, upgrading, or deepening the company's resources and capabilities in response to its changing environment and market opportunities, it is called the company's

core competence

Competitive pressures associated with the threat of entry are greater in all of the following situations except when

customers have low brand preferences and low degrees of loyalty to seller

The primary role of a functional strategy is to

determine how to support particular activities in ways that support the overall business strategy and competitive approach.

When companies engage in value-creating activities, they do so by

drawing on specific company resources and capabilities that underlie and enable the activity.

The production emphasis of a company pursuing a broad differentiation strategy usually involves

emphasis on building differentiating features that buyers are willing to pay for and includes wide selection and many product variations.

A winning strategy is one that

fits the company's internal and external situation, builds sustainable competitive advantage, and improves company performance.

To profitably employ a best-cost provider strategy, a company must have the resources and capabilities to

incorporate attractive or upscale attributes into its product offering at a lower cost than rivals.

Which of the following is not a common type of driving force?

increasing efforts to collaborate closely with suppliers

Potential entrants are more likely to be deterred from actually entering an industry when

incumbent firms are willing and able to be aggressive in defending their market positions against entry.

A competitive strategy to be the low-cost provider in an industry works well when

industry newcomers use introductory low prices to attract buyers and build a customer base.

The managerial task of developing a strategic vision for a company

involves deciding upon what strategic course a company should pursue in preparing for the future and why this directional path makes good business sense.

A strategic group

is a cluster of industry members with similar competitive approaches and market positions in the market.

A creative and distinctive strategy that sets a company apart from rivals and that gives it a sustainable competitive advantage

is a company's most reliable ticket to above-average profitability.

Calculating competitive strength ratings for a company and its rivals using the industry's most telling measures of competitive strength or weakness

is a way of determining which competitor has the highest overall competitive advantage in the marketplace and which competitor is faced with the lowest overall competitive disadvantage.

A company that pursues and achieves strategic objectives

is frequently in a better position to improve its future financial performance because of the increased competitiveness that flows from the achievement of strategic objectives.

A company's strategy stands a better chance of succeeding when

it is predicated on competitive moves aimed at appealing to buyers in ways that set company apart from rivals

Starwood Hotels' company resource strengths consist of

its core competencies in site selection, construction, reservations systems, and operations.

A strategic vision constitutes management's view and conclusions about the company's

long-term direction and what product-market-customer mix seems optimal.

The generic types of competitive strategies include

low-cost provider, broad differentiation, best-cost provider, focused low-cost, and focused differentiation strategies.

The external market opportunities which are most relevant to a company are the ones that

match up well with the firm's competitive assets, offer the best prospects for growth and profitability, and present the most potential for competitive advantage.

Driving-forces analysis has

practical value and is basic to the task of thinking strategically about where the industry is headed and how to prepare for the changes ahead.

The options for remedying a supplier-related cost disadvantage include

pressuring suppliers for more favorable prices, switching to lower-priced substitute inputs, and collaborating closely to identify mutual cost-saving opportunities.

Which of the following can aid company strategists in identifying key success factors in their industry?

product attributes and service characteristics that buyers consider to be crucial

The objective of a competitive strategy is to

provide buyers superior value relative to the offerings of rival sellers in order to attain a competitive advantage.

Achieving a sure-cost advantage over rivals entails

selling a mostly standard product and increasing the scale of operation.

You have been hired as a consultant by SandCloud, a venture-backed established company in the beachwear and toweling markets. SandCloud's owners are weighing a decision to donate a part of its profits to a children's charity to improve its market image. Your advice to SandCloud regarding strategy is that it will consist of the action plan management takes to

stake out a unique market position in beachwear and toweling markets and achieve superior profitability.

Managers can deliberately set challenging performance targets at levels high enough to promote outstanding company performance by establishing

stretch objectives that challenge the organization to deliver stretch gains in performance.

One of the things that can be gleaned from a strategic group map of industry rivals is

that some strategic groups are more favorably positioned than others because they confront weaker competitive forces and/or because they are more favorably impacted by industry driving forces.

An external threat to a company's future profitability does not include

the lack of a distinctive competence.

The five forces of competitive pressures do not include

the power and influence of social/demographic trends.

The competitive pressures on companies within an industry come from all of the following except

those associated with environmental factors such as water shortages.

Perhaps the most important benefit of a vivid, engaging, and convincing strategic vision is

uniting company personnel behind managerial efforts to get the company moving in the intended direction.

What is the primary target market for a best-cost provider?

value-conscious buyers

The spotlight in analyzing a company's resources, internal circumstances, and competitiveness includes such questions/concerns as

what the company's resource strengths and weaknesses are in relation to the market opportunities and external threats.

How valuable a low-cost leader's cost advantage is depends on

whether it is easy or inexpensive for rivals to copy the low-cost leader's methods or otherwise match its low costs.

When strategic managers assess the competitive power of company resources, what matters is

whether the resource is really competitively valuable, if it is rare and something competitors lack, how hard it is to copy or imitate, and how easily it can be trumped by the substitute resource strengths and competitive capabilities of rivals.