Strategic Management Ch 10 - GSW

What 2 questions should each manager ask themselves when devising and action plan?

(1) What needs to be done in my area to implement our part of the strategy? (2)What should I do to get things done timely?

The three components of building an organization capable of good strategy execution are

(1) staffing the organization (2) acquiring, developing, and strengthening the resources and capabilities important to good strategy execution (3) structuring the organization and work effort

Two best signs if good strategy execution are

(1) whether the company has attained real proficiency in performing strategy-critical value chain activities (2) is meeting or beating its performance targets.

Which one of the following statements about the process of developing and strengthening execution-critical resources and capabilities is FALSE? - Developing and strengthening the company's portfolio of resources and capabilities is high among the organization-building priorities when a company considers what needs to be done to execute its strategy with a high degree of proficiency. - The experiences of many companies indicates that the best way to develop and strengthen the needed resources and capabilities is to establish a new department with primary responsibility for assembling and developing the desired resources and capabilities, give this department ample funds to hire talented employees with the right kinds if expertise and intellectual capital, and then charge the department with the responsibility for gradually polishing and sharpening the ability of these personnel to perform execution-critical value chain activities consistently well and at an acceptable cost. - If the strategy being implemented has important new elements, company managers may have to acquire new resources, significantly broaden or deepen certain capabilities, or even develop entirely new capabilities in order to put the new strategic initiatives in place and achieve real proficiency in performing execution-critical value chain activities. - Even when a company's strategy has not changed materially, good strategy execution still involves ongoing efforts to polish and upgrade the firm's resources and capabilities, thereby moving the company's performance of value chain activities ever closer to a standard of operating excellence. - The most common approaches to capability building include (1) developing and strengthening capabilities internally, (2) acquiring needed capabilities through mergers and acquisitions, and (3) developing new capabilities via collaborative partnerships.

- Developing and strengthening the company's portfolio of resources and capabilities is high among the organization-building priorities when a company considers what needs to be done to execute its strategy with a high degree of proficiency.

Which one of the following is NOT a chief advantage of a decentralized organizational structure? - Spurring new ideas and creative thinking. - Encouraging company employees to exercise initiative and act responsibly. - Allowing faster response times and fewer layers or management. - Reduced risk of "bad" decisions, owing to holding empowered employees accountable for the actions they take. - Promoting greater motivation and involvement in the business on the part of more company personnel.

- Reduced risk of "bad" decisions, owing to holding empowered employees accountable for the actions they take.

Which one of the following is NOT an execution-related benefit of outsourcing? - Capitalizing on the partnerships with outsiders to enhance its arsenal of capabilities and this contribute to better strategy execution. - Speeding internal decision making and shortening the time it takes to respond to changing market conditions. - Improving a company's chances for outclassing rivals in the performance of strategy-critical activities and turning a core competence into a distinctive competence. - Helping decrease internal bureaucracies and flatten the organizational structure. - Reducing the risk of being stuck with stale or obsolete competencies and capabilities.

- Reducing the risk of being stuck with stale or obsolete competencies and capabilities.

Organizing a company's work effort in ways that promote successful strategy execution does NOT include which one of the following? - Determining how much authority to centralize at the top and how much to delegate to down-the-line managers and employees. - Providing for cross-unit coordination. - Making internally performed strategy-critical value chain activities the main building blocks in the organization structure. - Providing for the necessary collaboration with suppliers and strategic allies. - Revamping and streamlining the performance of value chain activities in ways that lower operating costs.

- Revamping and streamlining the performance of value chain activities in ways that lower operating costs.

Which of the following is NOT among the principal managerial components of the strategy execution process? - Installing information and operating systems that enable company personnel to carry out their strategic roles proficiently. - Selecting energetic and motivated employees, training employees properly, and doing an effective job if empowering employees. -Exercising strong leadership to drive the execution process forward and attain companywide operating excellence as rapidly as feasible. -Instilling a corporate culture that promotes good strategy execution. - Steering the needed financial and organizational resources to execution-critical value chain activities.

- Selecting energetic and motivated employees, training employees properly, and doing an effective job if empowering employees.

Which of the following statements about dynamically-manages competencies and capabilities that are fresh and on the cutting-edge is FALSE? - The managerial challenge s building a dynamic set of competencies and capabilities that delivers good results in the marketplace is one of deciding when and how to recalibrate existing competencies and capabilities, and either having the foresight or spotting opportunities to develop altogether new kinds of competencies and capabilities. - A company's competencies and competitive capabilities must be continually refreshed, modified, or even phased out and replaced in order to stay abreast of ongoing changes in customer needs and expectations, to successfully combat competitors newly launched offensives, to keep the company's resources/capability portfolio in step with changes in the company's own strategy, and to try to secure a competitive edge over rivals based on having a competitively superior collection of resources and capabilities. - The quickest, cheapest, and most reliable way to refresh and strengthen a company's portfolio of competencies and capabilities is by either acquiring another company with attractive and dynamically-evolving resource capabilities or by entering into collaborative partnerships with suppliers or other companies having cutting-edge expertise. - It takes freshly honed, cutting edge competencies and competitive capabilities to stay abreast of ongoing changes in customer needs and expectations, to successfully combat competitors' newly launched offensives to win bigger sales and market shares, to keep the company's resource portfolio in step with changes in the company's own strategy, and to build a more durable resource based competitive edge over rivals. - The organizational momentum that comes from astute and timely managerial efforts to develop a formidable portfolio of dynamic capabilities is often sufficient to keep a company's sales and profit performance humming.

- The quickest, cheapest, and most reliable way to refresh and strengthen a company's portfolio of competencies and capabilities is by either acquiring another company with attractive and dynamically-evolving resource capabilities or by entering into collaborative partnerships with suppliers or other companies having cutting-edge expertise.

Which of the following statements about putting together a capable top management team is FALSE? - It helps enormously when a company' top management team has several people who are particularly good change agents true believers who champion change, know h ow to trigger change and keep change initiatives moving along, and love every second of the process. - The task of implementing challenging strategic initiatives must be assigned to executives who have the skills and talents to handle them and who can be counted on to turn their decisions and actions into results that meet or beat the established performance targets. - Weak executives are serious impediments to getting optimal results because they are unable to differentiate between ideas and approaches that have merit and those that are misguided --the caliber of work done under their supervision suffers. - Putting together a talented management team with the right mix of experiences, skills, and abilities to get things done is of the first steps to take in launching the strategy execution process. - When a company's existing management team is not up the task of figuring out what needs to be done and speeding the implementation process to a successful conclusion, the company's management team should always be revamped and strengthened by convincing weak executives to take early retirement ans then promoting qualified people from within to take their place.

- When a company's existing management team is not up the task of figuring out what needs to be done and speeding the implementation process to a successful conclusion, the company's management team should always be revamped and strengthened by convincing weak executives to take early retirement ans then promoting qualified people from within to take their place.

Which one of the following statements is incorrect as concerns the managerial task of executing strategy? - The managerial tasks of implementing and executing strategy are primarily operations-driven activities revolving around the management if people, business processes, and organization structure. - What really makes executing strategy a tougher, more time-consuming management challenge than crafting strategy is the wide array of managerial activities that must be attended to, the many ways to put new strategic initiatives in place and keep things moving, and the number of bedeviling issues that always crop up and have to be resolved. -Executing strategy is primarily the function of a company's chief executive officer and other senior-level managers. It is there responsibility to see that strategy is executed successfully and their job to decide how to proceed and to personally supervise the details of the strategy execution process. - Just because senior managers announce a new strategy doesn't mean that organizational members will agree with it or enthusiastically move forward to implement it. -The strategy execution process typically affects every part of the firm--all value chain activities and all work groups.

-Executing strategy is primarily the function of a company's chief executive officer and other senior-level managers. It is there responsibility to see that strategy is executed successfully and their job to decide how to proceed and to personally supervise the details of the strategy execution process

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Steering the needed _____ and ______ resources to execution-critical value chain activities.

Financial, Organizational

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: ______ the organization and ______ the resources, capabilities, competencies, and organizational structure to execute strategy successfully.

Staffing, developing

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Adopting _____ ______ and employing _______ ______ tools to drive continuous improvement in how value chain activities are performed.

best practices, process management

Are these advantages of a centralized or decentralized organization structure: -reduced potential for conflicting actions and decisions on the part of lower-level managers -facilitation of strong top management leadership in crisis situations -tight control by the manager in charge --it is easy to know who is accountable when things do not go well

centralized

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Instilling a _____ _____ that promotes good strategy execution.

corporate culture

One of the disadvantages of (decentralized or centralized?) structure featuring employee empowerment is how to exercise enough control over the actions and decisions of empowered employees so that the business is not put at risk in the event that empowered employees happen to make some unwise decisions.

decentralized

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Ensuring that policies and procedures _____ rather than ____ strategy execution.

facilitate, impede

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Installing ______ and ________ systems that enable company personnel to carry out their strategic roles proficiently.

information, operating systems

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Exercising strong _____ to drive the execution process forward and attain companywide _______ excellence as rapidly as feasible.

leadership, operating

In situations where it is relatively easy for rivals to readily duplicate the successful features of a company's strategy (making it difficult or impossible to outstrategize rivals and beat them in the marketplace with a superior strategy), the chief way for a company to achieve a durable competitive advantage over its rivals is to

out execute them by building a competitively powerful portfolio of competencies and capabilities that (1) allows the company to perform certain value chain activities in a superior fashion and (2) is time-consuming and expensive for rivals to match or trump.

When strategies fail, often because of _______ execution - needed actions are overlooked, lax oversight allows for important details to slip through the cracks, key implementation approaches turn out to be ill chosen or mismanaged, or there is deficient motivation or slack effort on the part of company personnel to achieve the desired results.

poor

Building organizational bridges with strategic partners and external allies is aided by appointing ________ manager's with responsibility for getting the right people together, promoting good rapport and information-sharing, nurturing interpersonal cooperation and communication and ensuring effective coordination.

relationship

Making those organizational units performing strategy-critical value chain activities the main building blocks in the enterprise's organizational scheme has the advantages of giving these organizational units the _______, _______- _______ ______, and __________ ______they need to execute their piece of the strategy capably.

resources, decision-making influence, and organizational visibility

Fill in the blank regarding one of the 8 Principal Managerial Components of the Strategy Execution Process: Tying rewards and incentives directly to the achievement of _____ and _____ performance targets.

strategic, financial