Management Quiz 10/12/26

resources

the assets, capabilities, processes, employee time, information, and knowledge that an organization uses to improve its effectiveness and efficiency and create and sustain competitive advantage

competitive advantage

providing greater value for customers than competitors can

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

a competitive advantage that other companies have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate and have, for the moment, stopped trying to duplicate

valuable resource

a resource that allows companies to improve efficiency and effectiveness

Rare Resource

a resource that is not controlled or possessed by many competing firms

imperfectly imitable resource

a resource that is impossible or extremely costly or difficult for other firms to duplicate

Nonsubstitutable resource

a resource that produces value or competitive advantage and has no equivalent substitutes or replacements

competitive inertia

a reluctance to change strategies or competitive practices that have been successful in the past

strategic dissonance

a discrepancy between a company's intended strategy and the strategic actions managers take when implementing that strategy

SWOT analysis

an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in an organizations internal environment and the opportunities and threats in its external environment

Shadow-strategy task force

a committee within a company that analyzes the company's own weaknesses to determine how competitors could exploit them for competitive advantage

distinctive competence

what a company can make, do, or perform better than its competitors

Core Capabilities

the internal decision-making routines, problem-solving processes, and organizational cultures that determine how efficiently inputs can be turned into outputs

strategic group

a group of companies within an industry against which top managers compare, evaluate, and benchmark strategic threats and opportunities

core firms

the central companies in a strategic group

secondary firms

the firms in a strategic group that follow strategies related to but somewhat different from those of the core firms

strategic reference points

the strategic targets managers use to measure whether a firm has developed the core competencies it needs to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage

corporate level strategy

the overall organizational strategy that addresses the question "What business or businesses are we in or should we be in?"

Diversification

a strategy for reducing risk by buying a variety of items so that the failure of one stock or one business does not doom the entire portfolio

portfolio strategy

a corporate-level strategy that minimizes risk by diversifying investment among various businesses or product lines

acquisition

the purchase of one company by another

Unrelated Diversification

creating or acquiring companies in completely unrelated businesses

BCG Matrix

a portfolio strategy developed by the Boston Consulting Group that categorizes a corporation's businesses by growth rate and relative market share and helps managers decide how to invest corporate funds

star

a company with a large share of a fast-growing market

question mark

a company with a small share of a fast-growing market

cash cow

a company with a large share of a slow-growing market

dog

a company with a small share of a slow-growing market

related diversification

creating or acquiring companies that share similar products, manufacturing, marketing, technology, or cultures

Grand Strategy

a broad corporate-level strategic plan used to achieve strategic goals and guide the strategic alternatives that managers of individual businesses or subunits may use

growth strategy

a strategy that focuses on increasing profits, revenues, market share, or the number of places in which the company does business

stability strategy

a strategy that focuses on improving the way in which the company sells the same products or services to the same customers

Retrenchment Strategy

a strategy that focuses on turning around very poor company performance by shrinking the size or scope of the business

recovery

the strategic actions taken after retrenchment to return to a growth strategy

Industry-level strategy

a corp strategy that addresses the question "how should we compete in this industry"

Character of the rivalry

a measure of the intensity of competitive behavior between companies in an industry

Threat of New Entrants

a measure of the degree to which barriers to entry make it easy or difficult for new companies to get started in an industry

Threat of substitute products or services

a measure of the ease with which customers can find substitutes for an industry's products or services

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

a measure of the influence that suppliers of parts, materials, and services to firms in an industry have on the prices of these inputs

Bargaining Power of Buyers

a measure of the influence that customers have on a firm's prices

Cost Leadership

the positioning strategy of producing a product or service of acceptable quality at consistently lower production costs than competitors can, so that the firm can offer the product or service at the lowest price in the industry

Differentiation

the positioning strategy of providing a product or service that is sufficiently different from competitors' offerings that customers are willing to pay a premium price for it

Focus Strategy

the positioning strategy of using cost leadership or differentiation to produce a specialized product or service for a limited, specially targeted group of customers in a particular geographic region or market segment

defenders

companies using an adaptive strategy aimed at defending strategic positions by seeking moderate, steady growth and by offering a limited range of high-quality products and services to a well-defined set of customers

prospectors

companies using an adaptive strategy that seeks fast growth by searching for new market opportunities, encouraging risk taking, and being the first to bring innovative new products to market

analyzers

companies using an adaptive strategy that seeks to minimize risk and maximize profits by following or imitating the proven successes of prospectors

reactors

companies that do not follow a consistent adaptive strategy but instead react to changes in the external environment after they occur

firm level strategy

a corporate strategy that addresses the question "How should we compete against a particular firm?"

direct competition

the rivalry between two companies that offer similar products and services, acknowledge each other as rivals, and act and react to each other's strategic actions

market commonality

the degree to which two companies have overlapping products, services, or customers in multiple markets

resource similarity

the extent to which a competitor has similar amounts and kinds of resources

attack

a competitive move designed to reduce a rival's market share or profits

response

a competitive countermove, prompted by a rival's attack, to defend or improve a company's market share or profit

How can the fear of failure effect businesses?

executives pass up on investments because they are afraid of losses but the investment would have benefitted their companies

What is the main idea of Martin Reeves's talk, and why does he say a single approach to strategy isn't enough?

Reeves argues that no single approach to strategy works everywhere. The classical approach of planning, then executing, only works in predictable environments, and in fast-changing ones the plans quickly become outdated. Companies should first assess their environment (how predictable, how changeable, how harsh) and then choose from five approaches: classical, adaptive, shaping, visionary, or renewal. In short, your strategy needs a strategy for choosing a strategy.

What is the main idea of Philip Evans's talk, and why does he say two long-standing strategy theories no longer hold up?

Evans argues that data and digital technology are undermining two classic ideas in business strategy. As I recall, these are the theory of the firm (companies exist because coordinating work internally is cheaper than using the market) and the economies-of-scale logic behind big, vertically integrated companies. Data cuts the cost of coordinating and sharing information. Work can then be split across networks and collaborators, and the advantage shifts from simply being large to combining and analyzing data in smart ways. Companies need to rethink how they are structured and where their advantage comes from.

What is the main idea of Bezos's 1999 interview, and what does it reveal about how he approached building Amazon?

Bezos explains an ambitious, long-term vision for Amazon built on two priorities: great customer service and scale. He is candid about the risk, saying there was no guarantee Amazon would succeed because what it was attempting was very complicated. He argues that scale matters and that Amazon intends to pursue it aggressively, including through its real estate strategy (the physical infrastructure needed to deliver at scale). The interview shows a leader who accepts uncertainty and invests for the long run instead of avoiding risk.

What is the main idea of the article, and what should a big-data plan include?

The authors argue that the payoff from big data and analytics is no longer in doubt, but many companies fail to capture it because they don't have a plan. A simple plan gives executives, technologists, data scientists, and managers a common language, so they can choose the two or three places to start. A good plan covers three core elements:

- data, analytic models, tools

strategy framework

goal- environment-capabilities-risk attitude

strategy is only as good as the _ ability to execute it

organizations

porters 5 forces

supplier power, buyer power, threat of substitutes, rivalry, barriers to entry

environmental factors

- political

-economic

-social

-technology

-legal

-environmental

population ecology theory

curve in growth style

(things come and go)

4 HR strategies

-bargain and labor

-loyal soldier (take care of employee and invest heavily in them)

-committed expert

-free agent (temporary job then you get rid of them)