Core Topics Flashcards
Why do advocates of logical incrementalism think that is a better approach than more radical planning?
Bounded rationality: we do not know (and cannot know) everything that is important to future plans so what is the point in making ambitious plans that rest on guesswork?
Additionally, managers do not have time to carefully evaluate all possible combinations of events.
What is meant by logical incrementalism?
The idea that planning is best done as a series of relatively small adjustments to past strategies rather than trying to plan radical leaps forward.
What are the three main steps in the rational planning model?
Strategic position,
Strategic choice,
Implementation (or strategy into action)
What is the problem with a problem child product or division?
BCG suggests that only companies with large market shares can survive in the long term so the company has to decide whether to withdraw or to invest to achieve a large market share. Note that niche or focus companies can survive with what looks like a small market share.
What are the four quadrants of a BCG matrix and what market share and growth rates do they have?
Problem child (or question mark): high market growth rate, low market share.
Star: high market growth rate, high market share.
Cash cow: low market growth rate, high market share.
Dog: low market growth rate, low market share.
List five advantages of strategic planning
Any five of:
- It forces you to look ahead
- Better coordination
- Better use of resources
- Targets to which all can work
- An opportunity to influence the future
- Holds out the promise of better times in the future after initial hard work
What are the two axes on a Boston Consulting Grid?
Market growth rate and relative market share (market share/share of market leader)
What are the characteristics of the market that you would expect to see at the mature stage of a product life cycle?
Fierce competition because the market is not growing. This leads to price pressure and the need to improve specifications to sell to an experienced set of customers. Weaker competitors often drop out and many combine (consolidation) to achieve the economies of scale needed. High profits should be possible for efficient producers (great scale, efficiency and well down the learning curve).
What are the four stages of a typical product life cycle?
Development, growth, maturity, decline.
Why is stakeholder analysis important in strategic planning?
Key player stakeholders can prevent strategies of which they do not approve. The hope is that any strategic plan keeps most of the people happy most of the time (and the key players happy all the time!)
Into what three categories can stakeholders be divided (not Mendelow’s classification)
- Internal (such as employees),
- Connected (such as customers,)
- External (such as local people).
What is a stakeholder?
Any person or other organisation affected by an organisation.
What is a mission statement and what are its main elements?
The prime purpose of a mission statement is to set out the reason for the organisation’s existence.
The main sections are often taken to be: purpose, position (in the market), culture, ethics and values.
‘M words’ are often used to describe resources. List nine.
Any nine of: material, machinery/manufacturing, money, markets, marketing, management, men and women, MIS (IT), methods (knowhow), make (bran
What is an SBU?
An SBU is a strategic business unit. Each SBU has to have its own strategy.
For example, one division might sell to the public and another division to companies. Pricing, marketing, competition etc will be different for the two divisions so this implies different strategies will probably be needed.
What is meant by the terms ‘position-based’ and ‘resource-based’ strategic planning?
Position-based: alter your position to match the environment.
Resource-based: look at your resources and competences and see if they can be redeployed in ways that will give competitive advantage.
What is needed for capabilities that give sustained competitive advantage?
Unique resources and/or core competences. These allow you to continually out-perform your rivals.
What is a threshold capability?
The capability that just allows you to survive. It implies threshold resources and threshold competences.
An organisation’s capabilities arise from two sources. What are these?
Resources and competences (how resources are used).
Should Porter’s five forces theory be applied to all companies in the country, an industry, an individual company?
Porter’s five forces should be applied to an industry to judge industry attractiveness.
What are Porter’s five forces?
- Rivalry/competition,
- Threat of new entrants,
- Supplier pressure,
- Buyer pressure,
- Threat of substitutes.
What is a PESTEL analysis?
An environmental analysis considering the influences of: politics, economics, social trends, technological changes, ecological (environmental) concerns, laws.
What are the three strategic ‘lenses’?
- Strategy as ideas,
- Strategy as experience,
- Strategy as design.
What is meant by logical incrementalism?
The idea that planning is best done as a series of relatively small adjustments to past strategies rather than trying to plan radical leaps forward.
What are the four descriptions of change in terms of scope of change and nature of change?
Adaptation (nature = incremental and scope = realignment)
Evolution (nature = incremental and scope = transformation)
Reconstruction (nature = big bang and scope = realignment)
Revolution (nature = big bang and scope = transformation)
What are the three levels or categories of business process change?
- Automation,
- Rationalisation
- Business process engineering.
Describe what is meant by the term ‘matrix structure’?
In a matrix structure, each employee has responsibilities to more than one superior. Eg, in project management an engineer could be responsible to the project manager and to the engineering manager.
