Principles of MGMT Final Flashcards
Resources
The assets, capabilities, processes, employee time, information, and knowledge used by an organization to:
− Improve its effectiveness and efficiency
− 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
Resources that contribute to competitive advantage
− Valuable resource: improve efficiency and effectiveness
− Rare resource: not possessed by many competing firms
− Imperfectly imitable resource: impossible for
other firms to duplicate
− Nonsubstitutable resource: produces value or competitive advantage and has no equivalent substitutes or replacements
Competitive innertia
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
Business that suffered from strategic drift
Kodak: Failed to respond to rapid development
Nokia: Failed to respond to smartphone technology
SWOT
An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in an organization’s internal environment and the opportunities and threats in its external environment
Distinctive competence
What a company can make, do, or perform better than its competitors
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
Six Sigma
A set of quality-control tools that businesses can use to eliminate effects and improve processes to help boost their profits
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
Core capabilities of an esports company
▪ Establishing a presence in the esports world
▪ Determining gaming platforms to support
▪ Enlisting various individual players and coaches
▪ Arranging competitions and sponsorships
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
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
Strategy approaches
Classical
Is based on achieving sustainable competitive advantage by positioning a firm optimally in an attractive market.
Strategy approaches
Visionary
Empowers a firm to create an industry with some degree of predictability by seeing an opportunity and pursuing it single-mindedly
Strategy approaches
Adaptive
Rests on the idea of serial temporary advantage.
Strategy approaches
Shaping
Mold or reshape an industry by influencing the development of a market in its favor through coordination with other players
Strategy approaches
Renewal
Refreshes the viability and competitiveness of a firm when it is operating in a harsh environment
BCG Matrix
Cash Cow
(high market share/low growth rate) - Studio Entertainment and consumer products are both mature segments but still earn high revenues
BCG Matrix
Star
(high market share/high growth rate) - media networks and theme parks (although COVID-19 may present a shift for theme parks)
BCG Matrix
Question mark
(low market share/high growth rate) - Internet marketing has potential when looking at streaming considerations for future growth
BCG Matrix
Dog
(low market share/low growth rate): interactive/digital games are a segment the company either needs to retrench or invest to turn into cash cows
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
− Grow externally through merger or acquisition
− Grow internally through expanding exiting business or creating and growing new businesses
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
− by making significant cost reductions by laying off employees; closing poorly performing stores, offices, or manufacturing plants
− by closing or selling entire lines of products or services
Recovery
The strategic actions taken after retrenchment to return to a growth strategy
Cost leadership
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
Defenders
Companies using an adaptive strategy aimed at defending strategic positions by
− seeking moderate, steady growth
− offering a limited range of high-quality products and services to a well-defined set of customers