CH 5

Which of the following organizations are most directly in competition with each other?

FedEx and UPS

____ are the targets that managers use to measure whether their firm has developed the core competencies that it needs to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Strategic Reference Points

When Clorox Corporation, the manufacturer of bleach and bleach-based cleaning products, acquired Kingsford Charcoal and Prime Choice brand steak sauce; it was an example of ____.

external growth

The two major approaches to corporate-level strategy are ____.

grand strategies and the portfolio strategy

When making travel plans, many tourists have selected Thomas Cook, a British tour operation, because they perceive that no other tour company can duplicate the customer service and satisfaction that Thomas Cook has provided over its years of operation. Thomas Cook has apparently created a sustainable competitive advantage by using ____ resources.

nonsubstitutable

Cost leadership, differentiation, and focus are the three types of ____ strategies discussed in the text.

positioning

An organization is experiencing ____ when there is a discrepancy between upper management's intended strategy and the strategy actually implemented by the lower levels of management.

strategic dissonance

For companies whose main products will not be seen by consumers and whose skills lie in productivity anonymity, a ____ could be to create a brand image to create a distinctive competence.

strategic reference point

Starbucks, the operator of Starbucks coffeehouses, also markets a line of compilation CDs and other non-coffee items. The making and marketing of the CDs and other non-coffee products would be an example of ____.

unrelated diversification

Which of the following is a mechanism used to examine external threats and opportunities facing a firm as well as its internal strengths and weaknesses?

a situational analysis

Among companies who use the adaptive strategies, ____ blend the strategies used by ____.

analyzers; defenders and prospectors

The highly fragmented chemical industry in Europe has experienced decreasing profits in an industry reluctance to change the way it conducts business, especially in how it competes against lower-priced U.S. imports. This is an example of ____.

competitive inertia

Imagine Dow Chemical is conducting a situational analysis. According to its sales, Dow is the second largest chemical company in the world. BASF is the largest. Both companies use a similar strategy. Within Dow's situational analysis, BASF would be classified as a ____.

core firm

When The Home Depot opened stores in Canada, it ran a series of ads featuring an animated hammer that showed that the U.S.-based home improvement store had the lowest prices. According to Michael Porter, which of the following positioning strategies did The Home Depot adopt to deal with existing Canadian stores that sold similar products?

cost leadership

While ____ is a problem strongly associated with top managers, ____ is a problem more likely to be associated with middle and lower-level managers.

competitive inertia; strategic dissonance

A sustainable competitive advantage exists for an organization when other companies have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the advantage and ____.

those companies have, for the moment, stopped trying to duplicate the advantage

Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. introduced the first major production mountain bike in 1980. Two-thirds of its profits come from the sale of mountain bikes. It is recognized worldwide for its ability to design and produce superior mountain bikes. This ability is its ____.

distinctive competence

While ____ are tangible, ____ are not.

distinctive competencies; core capabilities

An organization which is a ____ in terms of its adaptive strategy would NOT follow a consistent strategy.

reactor

In an attempt to stop declining profitability, ICI, a British chemical company, deleted petrochemical products from its production and concentrated on specialty chemicals, a less capital-intensive, less cyclical business. If ICI is successful in making the needed changes, it will more than likely implement a ____ strategy.

recovery

_______ are the assets, capabilities, processes, information, and knowledge that an organization uses to improve its effectiveness and efficiency, to create and sustain competitive advantage, and to fulfill a need or solve a problem.

resources

If successful, which strategy is often followed by a growth strategy?

retrenchment

The purpose of a ____ strategy is to turn around very poor company performance by shrinking the size or scope of the business.

retrenchment

A ____, also called a SWOT analysis for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in an organization's internal environment and the opportunities and threats in its external environment.

situational analysis

Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. introduced the first major production mountain bike in 1980. Two-thirds of its profits come from the sale of mountain bikes. Specialized bikes have a large share of a fast-growing market. According to the BCG matrix, specialized mountain bikes would be classified as ____.

stars