Exam questions managing the business Flashcards
For a large manufacturing firm, describe how technology roadmapping and technology intelligence techniques could be used to help the firm respond to the emergence of a new production technology.
Technology roadmapping:
Three stages on the horizontal axis:
- Where the company is
- Where the company wants to be
- And how it is going to get there
Along the vertical axis:
- Why? (commercial perspective)
- Market and Business
- The drivers, the strategy, and the needs
- What? (design and production perspective)
- Product, Service and System
- The form, the function and performance
- How? (technology and research perspective)
- Technology, Science and Resources
- The solutions, capabilities and resources
Technology Intelligence
Is the capture and delivery about information to help the organisation develop an awareness of threats and opportunities.
Usually done by setting up an intelligence team to capture information, develop insight and deliver that to decision makers.
Decision makers have to make:
- strategic, tactical and operational decisions.
To do this they need to know:
- PESTLE
- Who, what, where, when, why, how?
Must ultimately develop:
- Assessment of opportunities, threats, art and trends
By building an understanding of:
- Market, competitive and technological intelligence
Technology Intelligence is found from sources that are:
- white/black, secondary/primary, internal/external/ explicit/tacit
TI system needs people, processes and infrastructures.
TI systems work through 4 modes:
- Mine (aware and known)
- Trawl (unaware and known)
- Target (aware and unknown)
- Scan (unaware and unknown)
Must understand the link between the two (roadmap vs TI):
-
what info do we need to collect:
- where are we now vs what do we know
- where do we want to be vs what do we not know
-
what info do we need to deliver
- how do we get there vs what do we need to know
- market vs market intelligence
- product vs competitive intelligence
- technology vs technology intelligence
Understand the company. Big therefore potentially:
- path dependency
- need to generate returns from existing resources
- more resources
- etc.
Illustrating your answers with examples, sketch and describe what is meant by a technology ‘S-curve’;
The S curve is a curve with technology performance over time with four phases:
- Emerging: early research, emerging in other industries, competitive impact unclear but positive
- Pacing: potential gamechanger, not yet in product, competitive impact likely to be high
- Key: in use in product, basis of competitive differentiation, high competitive impact
- Base: essential to business, widespread, little competitive impact
The S curve usually includes and depicts a technology generation shift depicted by a second s curve, sometimes illustrated as a discontinuity.
Examples of S curves:
- photographic technologies, film vs pixel. Performance factor is image quality.
Illustrating your answers with examples, sketch and describe what is meant by a consumer adoption curve.
A curve with either the rate of adoption out of 100% or the market share over time with five adopter types:
- innovators/techies
- early adopters/visionaries
- early majority/pragmatists
- late majority/conservatives
- laggards/sceptics
Evolution of adoption curve and markets is unpredictable as supply and demand do not move in synch.
- Supply:
- improvement of competing technology is unpredictable
- new business models reach users in unexpected ways
- technology standard wars can be engaged in unpreditable ways
- supply needs investment which may not come in times of uncertainty
- Demand:
- Feedback loops between users influencing each other`s choices are unpredictable
- Demand for interactive products are especially unpredictable because of network effects
- Users may face switching and learning costs
- Demographics lead to surprises
Illustrating your answers with examples, sketch and describe what is meant by a product life cycle curve.
A curve with sales or revenues over time and four phases usually :
- introduction
- growth
- maturity
- decline
If profit over time is depicted an additional phase is usually included upfront, which is the development phase where profits are negative.
Also important to mention evolution of industries:
- Era of ferment/Disruption
- Dominant design/Standards
- Incremental innovaiton
- Maturity
Explain what is meant by brand?
- A brand is an intangible asset linked to the outside world’s perception of a company and its products and services.
- The brand is often a subjective view of a product and/or service.
- Brands exist of different levels, such as product or product line e.g. Daimler E Class
- Brands need to be build, nurtured and managed as customers perceptions change over time.
Old view of brands:
- name/symbol that identifies a product and differentiates it from competitors
- brand is sum of parts surrounding the product: 4Ps, basic, tangible, augmented and potential brand
- Old view failed: blind tests, brand model was not delivering results, M&A showed value of brand
Explain what is meant by trademark?
A trademark is an intellectual property right to protect brands that needs to be registered in multiple countries.
It can often last forever but needs to be kept enforced and prevented from becoming generic, which happens with iconic products.
Different trademarks exist such as names, icons, symbols and combinations.
Explain what is meant by a product?
The embodiment of components assembled by a company, which do not need to be physical (e.g. software is often perceived as a product), often transacted to customers.
2017
1ai)
Describe how you could identify some of the major changes within your organisation that would have to be implemented to enable a novel technology such as Additive Manufacturing to be deployed in your firm.
A basic answer should cover (50%-60%, 10-12 marks):
- Students should be able to describe a number of simple activities, such as talking to manufacturing personnel, thinking about equipment that needs to replaced, skills needs, etc.
A better answer should cover (60%-70%, 12-14 marks):
- The above plus one or more of the following tools: Technology roadmapping
ISAEP
Foresight tools
Change management
A ‘best’ answer should cover (70%-100%, 14-20 marks):
- Comparing the introduction to the introduction of other, similar technologies or firms. Students have an example from the lectures of the labour changes involved in the introduction of computer- numerically-controlled equipment and robotics in manufacturing plants, which they could draw on.
- They might also choose to use scenario planning as a method for identifying the key uncertainties related to the technology through the use of scenarios exploring how the technology might evolve.
2017
1aii)
Discuss how you could identify the technical and non-technical challenges related to the development of Additive Manufacturing technologies and suggest how these challenges might be overcome.
A basic answer should cover (50%-60%, 20-24 marks):
- The maturity of the technology either in Technology Readiness Levels (a), in terms of demonstrators and the focus of development attention (b), foresight (c), or technology intelligence (d – from MET IIB-7 - Technology Intelligence lecture by Letizia Mortara). Students should not be confused that while they are asked about a new manufacturing technology, the technology readiness levels apply and not confound them with manufacturing readiness levels.
- In this instance, students would cover challenges related to functioning in various environments (in line with the Technology Readiness Levels) or with the necessity for demonstrators needing to demonstrate different aspects of feasibility.
A better answer should cover (60%-75%, 25-30 marks):
- Adding to the above with an exploration of one of the others (a, b, c, or d) or an exploration of the categories of technology using (e), missing parts of the value chain (f), or missing actors (g).
- A better answer will also identify, depending on which of the frameworks are deployed, potential challenges in terms of missing enabling technologies, a lack of basic scientific knowledge, high risk, or a lack of commercialisation activities; gaps in the value chain; or gaps in innovation system actors.
The best answer should cover (75%-100%, 30-40 marks):
- Combinations of two or more that reflect both technical and non-technical aspects. They should also identify the limitations of these frameworks and give some indication of where to target attention.
- The best answers will begin to draw on the lectures content about the changing nature of firms and government activities and how they might be used to address the gaps.
2017
1b)
Why and how are governments reacting to production technologies such as Additive Manufacturing?
A basic answer should cover (50%-69%, 20-27 marks):
- That governments are concerned with the resilience of the economy, productivity, or the creation of jobs (at least two of these). They should also describe the motivations behind some of general government activities such as apprenticeships, R&D funding, innovation tax credits, etc.
A better answer should cover (70%-85%, 20-27 marks):
- All three government concerns: national income, resilience of the economy, productivity, and the creation of jobs. They should also provide some example programmes in a country and a good understanding of what these are doing and trying to achieve.
- How governments might be examining their innovation systems to understand how they might ensure the varieties of technology are in place to (e), industrial sectors and the location of wealth creation (f), the configuration of actors within their country (g), the contexts and links to general actors types (h), location of value in the value chain (i) or the valley of death (j)
- They should also be able to point to some national policies and programmes, like the UK Industrial Strategy and the Catapult programme. They may mention specific initiatives and policies such as those mentioned in, for example, (k), (l) or (m).
A ‘best’ answer should cover (86%-100%, 20-27 marks):
- All of the above, plus programmes in more than one country. They should also demonstrate a good understanding of them. In each of these cases should discuss the limitations and biases of the frameworks applied.
2017
3 (a)
Explain what is meant by open innovation and its associated practices.
a) Good students will provide:
- An explanation of open innovation mentioning that organizations and particularly their innovation process has open boundaries allowing collaboration with external partners – not only firms, such as start-ups, but also universities, technical consultants, joint ventures, etc.
- Contrast the open innovation model with the closed innovation model explaining that firms in the past have often innovated internally, but this is becoming increasingly difficult due to technological complexity and other trends, such as globalization and the internet.
- May provide an illustration, such as the innovation funnel model for both the closed and open innovation approaches.
- Mention that open innovation distinguishes two types of activities: inbound (internalizing external ideas and technologies), such as in-licensing and outbound (externalization) activities, such as technology out-licensing, selling, donations.
Excellent answers will:
- Provide a definition or attempt to specifically define open innovation.
- Introduce and describe the three OI approaches, possibly provide illustrations and
- examples for each approach (see below).
- Provide specific examples of open innovation strategies, e.g. in- and out-licensing
- May critically reflect on the concept mentioning some problems associated with open innovation, such as the different company cultures between large and small firms and how these can be overcome.
- Discuss companies, such as Qualcomm that employ licensing business models and non practicing entities - NPE (e.g. patent trolls)
- May discuss that also in the past firms have innovated openly before the concept was
- named as such.
2017
3b)
Discuss how simulations, such as the City Car game, may be useful in understanding the challenges to innovation projects, and in particular the role of collaboration.
- A challenge for this question was for students to abstract from the city car game they have attended or other similar experiences during the MET course and present their arguments in a sensible structure to avoid the answer being merely descriptive of the different game elements, nor speculative about possible advantages of simulations. Good answers thus presented a framework upfront to structure their answer. Good answers also use examples of real world cases to illustrate how simulations can help.
- Good student answers discuss the difference between experiencing a certain situation (e.g. innovation project) in comparison to a lecture and the benefits from a simulation of a real life situation (e.g. possibility to experience a difficult situation in a no-risk environment). It was hardly sufficient to obtain a good mark if the different elements of the city car game are only described and linked to the elements of innovation processes.
- When answering this question, excellent students would have concluded that the game rather resembles a closed than an open innovation model. While students collaborate internally, within their teams during the game facing different communication and coordination challenges the game hardly emphasizes collaboration between teams, i.e. external collaboration (open innovation).
- Excellent students will further provide a more detailed account and line of argument, for instance, explaining how a simulation model may look like that also resembles external collaborative activities. Excellent answers will also conclude their argument by summarizing their main points.
2017
3c)
Discuss why some manufacturing businesses choose to innovate more openly than others, using specific examples.
- This question requires students to show they have understood that open innovation is not a dichotomous concept (open vs. closed), but rather needs to be interpreted as a continuum ranging from closed to open (degree of openness).
- Good answers will find that different firms operate in different environments and different industry life cycle stages wherefore they may choose to open or close their innovation processes. It is not sufficient to state factors, such as size or industry and claim these are important ones, without however providing evidence or referring to a framework. Instead, good answers at least refer to different types of firms, such as the two-by-two matrix for firm types presented in the lecture with the two dimensions technology intensive vs. contingent and small vs. large (see below).
- Instead of just providing a list of factors that potentially impact the choice of openness, excellent answers may bettwer structure their answers, e.g. refer to the five management challenges in open innovation as introduced in the lecture and choose these as a framework to discuss why firms employ open innovation to a different degree (see below).
Another approach for an excellent answer would be to start with providing examples from both ends of the spectrum, e.g. very open (e.g. TESLA) and very closed (e.g. defence companies) example. Such answers then discuss and compare other cases that sit somewhere between the two extremes and highlight specific aspects of openness. Excellent answer may also provide examples of companies that use both open and closed strategies at the same time, i.e. close against certain actors, but free licensing to others.
2017
4a)
For each company (Riversimple and Vitsoe), describe what a sustainable business model would look like
- Basic answers will describe a sustainable business model as one that
- creates, delivers and captures economic value
- while maintaining or regenerating economic, natural and social resources beyond its organisational boundaries.
- Principles that place sustainability at the core of the business, and define a sustainable business model include:
- Re-thinking the purpose of the business.
- Adopting a broader meaning of value to integrate economic, environmental and social value.
- Considering a broader set of stakeholders beyond shareholders, customers and suppliers.
- Including Natural Environment and Society as stakeholders of the firm.
- Aligning interests and encouraging responsible actions from all stakeholders.
- Adopting a long-term and systems view of the business.
Good answers will interpret and relate these principles to Riversimple and Vitsoe respectively, and propose company-specific principles. In both cases, the sustainable business models would deviate from the traditional car-manufacturing and furniture-making models.
In the case of Riversimple,
- this might include rethinking the purpose of the business to pursue the elimination of the environmental impact of personal transport;
- open source design of the vehicle;
- retaining ownership of the cars and selling mobility as a service where the service includes the car and all associated running costs, including fuel.
In the case of Vitsoe,
- this might include rethinking the purpose of the business to allow more people to live with less, that lasts longer;
- encouraging more customers to buy less;
- encouraging reuse of furniture and modular upgrade over time;
- considering repair, reuse, exchange, leasing and re-manufacture of furniture.
2017
4b)
For each sustainable business model (Riversimple and Vitsoe), describe what forms of sustainable value are created, delivered and captured.
Basic answers will describe sustainable value as the integration of economic, environmental and social value into the business model, and identify generic forms of sustainable value such as:
- Sustainable economic value - profit, growth, return on investment, financial resilience, long- term viability and stability.
- Sustainable environmental value - use of renewable resources, low emissions and low waste levels within the ability of the environment to metabolise safely, pollution prevention (air, water, land), protection of bio-diversity, positive benefits to the environment.
- Sustainable social value - secure and meaningful livelihoods, fair labour standards and practices, well-being, health, community development, poverty alleviation, social justice, equality, diversity.
Good answers will interpret and relate these forms of value to Riversimple and Vitsoe respectively, and identify company-specific forms of sustainable value.
In the case of Riversimple,
- this might include seeking long-term financial resilience;
- building a lightweight zero emissions vehicle;
- open source design;
- creating local jobs.
In the case of Vitsoei,
- this might include prioritising long-term viability and stability over short-term growth;
- a new eco-building to reduce energy use and emissions;
- reusing all packaging;
- trust between company and customers;
- secure livelihoods of employees.
Good answers will also apply the concepts of value captured and value uncaptured (missed/destroyed/surplus/absence) to categorise different forms of sustainable value for the various stakeholders of company A and company B.
2017
4c)
Explain the novel features of each business model in comparison to the traditional business models of a car manufacturer and a furniture manufacturer.
Good answers will highlight innovations in the proposed sustainable business in comparison to the traditional business models of a car manufacturer and a furniture manufacturer. The answer to this question would build upon and reflect on the analysis performed in the previous two answers, as well as draw upon wider material from the module.
In the case of Riversimple, novel characteristics that highlight the differences to the traditional mainstream car manufacturing business model might include elements such as
- selling service rather than selling the car;
- a custodian company governance model;
- and raising financial capital through crowdfunding.
In the case of Vitsoe, novel characteristics that highlight the differences to the traditional mainstream furniture manufacturing business model might include elements such as
- avoiding built-in obsolescence in the products;
- building long lasting relationships with customers by under-selling to them;
- employee ownership of the company;
- selling quietly with no marketing campaigns;
- and raising investment from long-term customers.
2016
5a) (i)
Explain what is meant by product management.
- Product management is the organisational structure and activities within the business that manage the
- development,
- marketing and
- sale of a product or set of products throughout the product life cycle.
- It encompasses the broad set of activities required to get the product to market and support it thereafter.
- The product life cycle curve (explained in lectures) illustrates this, and better students might be expected to sketch this to support their answer.
2018
2 You are the Chief Operations Officer in a large multinational manufacturing firm of construction and mining equipment. The firm’s strategy focuses on delivering industry-leading products and services to customers, and achieving profitable growth for the shareholders.
(a) Describe how the five operations performance objectives could be structured for your firm’s operations.
Basic answer should describe the five common operation performance metrics presented below, and be able to expand upon each one of these as shown in the example for ‘quality’ below:
Stronger answers would present a summary table or description of how these factors and dimensions from the specific context for the company given in the question. E.g. a version of the example given in the lectures for a Steel Mill as shown below:
2018
(b) Describe an example of a digitally-enabled solution that could expand your firm’s offerings and increase customer loyalty.
Basic answer will draw upon some of the new digital service solution examples that have been presented in the servitisation lectures, e.g. Rolls-Royce Total Care, CAT fleet services, etc. that illustrate how data captured from clients can be used to improve service (e.g. reliability) and offer additional services:
Stronger answers should describe the value proposition and value capture (revenue streams) of these new models, and specifically how these lead to both an expanded offering and increased loyalty. E.g. CAT demonstrates its value proposition – by clients providing access to data from use of their assets leads to increased value capture, i.e. clients are willing to pay for the benefits gained (preventative maintenance, improved asset utilisation, and assigning jobs).
2018
2(c)
Your firm realises that it is losing revenues from the sale of parts and servicing to independent maintenance firms often using replacement parts from third-party suppliers. Discuss how you can use the phases of service design thinking to introduce a service to solve this problem.
Basic answers introduce a solution for the firm structured around the phases of service design thinking:
An example solution could be the company can contact the garage and offer them a service to help fix the vehicle including:
- a. Information about the equipment and the problem including diagnostics data
- b. Shipment of spare parts to fix the problem
- c. Installation instructions”
This will lead to win-win results:
- The company secures the parts sale
- Garages more likely to recommend Finning for large, complex jobs because of their closer relationship
- Independent garages can reduce stock levels
- Diagnostic information helps garages to fix the vehicle quickly and provide a better service to the customer
- Vehicle fixed with certified parts, improving the quality of maintenance for Caterpillar equipment owners
Stronger answers would describe not just the possible solution but show how these could be developed step-by-step for each phase of the service design process, and to link this explicitly to the challenges being faced by the firm due to the changing commercial context.
