Questions and Answers of Essentials Of Strategic Management

Peruse the business group listings for Ingersoll Rand shown as follows and listed at its website (company.ingersollrand.com). How would you characterize the company’s corporate strategy? Related
Concepts & Connections 10.2 discusses Charleston Area Medical Center’s use of Six Sigma practices. List three tangible benefits provided by the program. Explain why a commitment to quality
Concepts & Connections 10.4 discusses Epic’s strategy-supportive corporate culture. What are the standout features of Epic’s corporate culture? How does Epic’s culture contribute to its
Understand what is meant by a company’s strategy.
Explain why a company needs a creative, distinctive strategy that sets it apart from rivals.
Explain why it is important for a company to have a viable business model that outlines the company’s customer value proposition and its profit formula.
Identify the five most dependable strategic approaches for setting a company apart from rivals and winning a sustainable competitive advantage.
Understand that a company’s strategy tends to evolve over time because of changing circumstances and ongoing management efforts to improve the company’s strategy.
Identify the three tests of a winning strategy.
Based on your experiences as a computer, tablet, or smartphone user, does Apple, Inc.’s strategy as described in Concepts & Connections 1.2 seem to set it apart from rivals? Does the strategy seem
Go to investor.siriusxm.com and check whether SiriusXM’s recent financial reports indicate that its business model is working. Are its subscription fees increasing or declining?Is its revenue
Elements of Amazon’s strategy have evolved in meaningful ways since the company’s founding in 1994. After reviewing the company’s history of innovations at www.aboutamazon.com/innovation and
Your company’s strategy in the business simulation for this course should include choices about what types of issues?After you have read the Participant’s Guide or Player’s Manual for the
What is your company’s current situation? A substantive answer to this question should cover the following issues:• Does your company appear to be in sound financial condition?• What problems
Why will your company matter to customers? A complete answer to this question should say something about each of the following:• How will you create customer value?• What will be distinctive
What are the primary elements of your company’s business model?• Describe your customer value proposition.• Discuss the profit formula tied to your business model.• What level of revenues is
How will you build and sustain competitive advantage?• Which of the basic strategic and competitive approaches discussed in this chapter do you think makes the most sense to pursue?• What kind of
Why will strategy execution be important to your company’s success?After you have read the Participant’s Guide or Player’s Manual for the strategy simulation exercise that you will participate
Understand why it is critical for company managers to have a clear strategic vision of where a company needs to head and why.
Explain the importance of setting both strategic and financial objectives.
Explain why the strategic initiatives taken at various organizational levels must be tightly coordinated to achieve companywide performance targets.
Recognize what a company must do to achieve operating excellence and to execute its strategy proficiently.
Identify the role and responsibility of a company’s board of directors in overseeing the strategic management process.
Using the information in Tables 2.2 and 2.3, critique the adequacy and merit of the following vision statements, listing effective elements and shortcomings. Rank the vision statements from best to
Go to the company investor relations websites for Starbucks (investor.starbucks.com), Pfizer (www.pfizer.com/investors), and Salesforce (investor.salesforce.com) to find examples of strategic and
Boeing has been recognized by Forbes and other business publications as one of the world’s best managed companies. The company discusses how its people and organizational units bring to bear the
Based on the information provided in Concepts & Connections 2.4, describe the ways in which Volkswagen did not fulfill the requirements of effective corporate governance. In what ways did the board
Which of the four stages of the strategy formulation, strategy execution process apply to your company in the business simulation? Explain
Meet with your co-managers and prepare a strategic vision statement for your company. It should be at least one sentence long and no longer than a brief paragraph. When you are finished, check to see
What are your company’s financial objectives? What are your company’s strategic objectives?
What are the three or four key elements of your company’s strategy?
The strategy execution process for your company in the business simulation includes which principal aspects?
Identify factors in a company’s broad macro-environment that may have strategic significance.
Recognize the factors that cause competition in an industry to be fierce, more or less normal, or relatively weak.
Map the market positions of key groups of industry rivals.
Determine whether an industry’s outlook presents a company with sufficiently attractive opportunities for growth and profitability.
Prepare a brief analysis of the organic food industry using the information provided by the Organic Trade Association (www.ota.com). Based upon information provided in Organic Report magazine
Based on the strategic group map in Concepts & Connections 3.1, which pizza chains are Hungry Howie’s closest competitors? With which strategic group does California Pizza Kitchen compete the
The National Restaurant Association publishes an annual industry fact book that can be found at www.restaurant.org. Based on information in the latest report, does it appear that macro-environmental
Which of the five competitive forces is creating the strongest competitive pressures for your company?
What are the “weapons of competition” that rival companies in your industry can use to gain sales and market share? See Figure 3.7 to help you identify the various competitive factors.Figure 3.7
What are the factors affecting the intensity of rivalry in the industry in which your company is competing? Use Figure 3.7 and the accompanying discussion to help you in pinpointing the specific
Are there any driving forces in the industry in which your company is competing? What impact will these driving forces have? Will they cause competition to be more or less intense? Will they act to
Draw a strategic group map showing the market positions of the companies in your industry. Which companies do you believe are in the most attractive position on the map?Which companies are the most
What do you see as the key factors for being a successful competitor in your industry? List at least three.
Does your overall assessment of the industry suggest that industry rivals have sufficiently attractive opportunities for growth and profitability? Explain.
Assess how well a company’s strategy is working.
Understand why a company’s resources and capabilities are centrally important in giving the company a competitive edge over rivals.
Grasp how a company’s value chain activities can affect the company’s cost structure and customer value proposition.
Evaluate a company’s competitive strength relative to key rivals.
Understand how a comprehensive evaluation of a company’s external and internal situations can assist managers in making critical decisions about their next strategic moves.
Using the financial ratios provided in the Appendix and the following financial statement information for Macy’s, Inc., calculate the following ratios for Macy’s for both 2017 and 2018.i. Gross
REI operates more than 140 sporting goods and outdoor recreation stores in 36 states.How many of the four tests of the competitive power of a resource does the retail store network pass? Explain your
Review the information in Concepts & Connections 4.1 concerning Boll & Branch’s average costs of producing and selling a king-sized sheet set, and compare this with the representative value
Using the formulas in the Appendix and the data in your company’s latest financial statements, calculate the following measures of financial performance for your company:i. Operating profit margin
Based on your company’s latest financial statements and all of the other available data regarding your company’s performance that appear in the Industry Report, list the three measures of
What hard evidence can you cite that indicates your company’s strategy is working fairly well (or perhaps not working so well, if your company’s performance is lagging that of rival companies)?
What internal strengths and weaknesses does your company have? What external market opportunities for growth and increased profitability exist for your company? What external threats to your
Does your company have any core competencies? If so, what are they?
What are the key elements of your company’s value chain? Refer to Figure 4.1 in developing your answer.Figure 4.1 A Representative Company Value Chain Primary Activities and Costs Support
Using the methodology illustrated in Table 4.3, do a weighted competitive strength assessment for your company and two other companies that you and your co-managers consider to be very close
Understand what distinguishes each of the five generic strategies and why some of these strategies work better in certain kinds of industry and competitive conditions than in others.
Explain the major avenues for achieving a competitive advantage based on lower costs.
Explain the major avenues for developing a competitive advantage based on differentiating a company’s product or service offering from the offerings of rivals.
Recognize the attributes of a best-cost provider strategy—a hybrid of low-cost provider and differentiation strategies.
Best Buy is the largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States with fiscal 2019 sales of nearly $43 billion. The company competes aggressively on price with rivals such as Costco
Concepts & Connections 5.1 discusses Vanguard’s low-cost position in the investment management industry. Based on information provided in the capsule, explain how Vanguard has built its low-cost
USAA is a Fortune 500 insurance and financial services company with 2018 annual revenues exceeding $30 billion. The company was founded in 1922 by 25 Army officers who decided to insure each
Explore Kendra Scott’s website at www.kendrascott.com and see if you can identify at least three ways in which the company seeks to differentiate itself from rival jewelry firms. Is there reason to
Which one of the five generic competitive strategies can be utilized to compete successfully in the business simulation?
Which rival companies appear to be employing a low-cost provider strategy?
Which rival companies appear to be employing a broad differentiation strategy?
Which rival companies appear to be employing a best-cost provider strategy?
Which cost drivers and value drivers are important in creating superior customer value in the business simulation?
What is your company’s action plan to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies? List at least three (preferably, more than three) specific kinds of decision entries on
Understand whether and when to pursue offensive or defensive strategic moves to improve a company’s market position.
Recognize when being a first mover or a fast follower or a late mover can lead to competitive advantage.
Identify the strategic benefits and risks of expanding a company’s horizontal scope through mergers and acquisitions.
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of extending a company’s scope of operations via vertical integration.
Describe the conditions that favor farming out certain value chain activities to outside parties.
Explain how strategic alliances and collaborative partnerships can bolster a company’s collection of resources and capabilities.
Live Nation operates music venues, provides management services to music artists, and promotes more than 35,000 shows and 100 festivals in 40 countries annually. The company acquired House of Blues,
Tesla, Inc., has rapidly become a stand-out among American car companies. Concepts &Connections 6.3 describes how Tesla has made vertical integration a central part of its strategy.What value chain
Using your university library’s business research resources, find two examples of how companies have relied on strategic alliances or joint ventures to substitute for horizontal or vertical
Has your company relied more on offensive or defensive strategies to achieve your rank in the industry? What options for being a first mover does your company have? Do any of these first-mover
What would be an advantage of a horizontal merger within the industry?
What are the pros and cons of vertical integration in the industry?
What do you see as pros and cons of outsourcing in the business simulation?
Identify the primary reasons companies choose to compete in international markets.
Understand why and how differing market conditions across countries influence a company’s strategy choices in international markets.
Identify the five general modes of entry into foreign markets.
Identify the three main options for tailoring a company’s international strategy to crosscountry differences in market conditions and buyer preferences.
Explain how multinational companies are able to use international operations to improve overall competitiveness.
Recognize the unique characteristics of competing in developing-country markets.
L’Oréal markets 34 brands of cosmetics, fragrances, and hair care products in 130 countries.The company’s international strategy involves manufacturing these products in 42 plants located around
Alliances, joint ventures, and mergers with foreign companies are widely used as a means of entering foreign markets. Such arrangements have many purposes, including learning about unfamiliar
Assume you are in charge of developing the strategy for a multinational company selling products in some 50 countries around the world. One of the issues you face is whether to employ a multi
Using your university library’s business research resources and Internet sources, identify and discuss three key strategies that Volkswagen is using to compete in China.
To what extent, if any, have you and your co-managers adapted your company’s strategy to take shifting exchange rates into account? In other words, have you undertaken any actions to try to
To what extent, if any, have you and your co-managers adapted your company’s strategy to consider geographic differences in import tariffs or import duties?For simulation participants whose

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