-Unit 4 STrategizing

Question 1

What is the difference between strategy formulation and strategy implementation?

What is synergy?

Answer 1

Formulation = business planning, or strategic planning, have much in common, since formulation helps
determine what the firm should do

Implementation: = Strategy implementation tells managers how they should go about putting the
desired strategy into action.

synergy exists when the interaction of two or more activities (such as those in a
business) create a combined effect greater than the sum of their individual effects

Question 2

• What is the difference between business strategy and corporate strategy?

Answer 2

Business strategy= how do we compete

Corporate strategy= what business are we in? Should we have one business or multiple? (Mcdonalds vs YAM )

Question 3

• What are some of the forms of diversification and what do they mean?

Answer 3

Diversification in contrast, is where an organization participates in multiple businesses that are in some way
distinct from each other, as Taco Bell is from Pizza Hut, for instance.

Just as with a portfolio of stock, the
purpose of diversification is to spread out risk and opportunities over a larger set of businesse

1: concentric diversification: new products are similar to current products but appeal to a new consumer group
2. horizontal diversification: new products different from currenct ones but appeal to same consumers
3. conglomerate diversification: unrelated new products and new consumer group

Question 4

• What do you learn from a SWOT analysis?

•

Answer 4

SW = internal
OT = external 

Strategy should leverage strengths to take advantage of opportunities and mitigate threats whie the weaknesses are minimized.

Question 5

Basic SWOT

Answer 5

Concept : 4 basic questions
1 what can we do 
2. what do we want to do 
3. what might we do 
4. what do others expect us to do

Strategy alternatives: 
SO - how use S to take Advantage of O
ST how S to avoid T
WO how use O to overcome W
WT how minimize W to avoid T

Question 6

In SWOT analysis, what are some of the tools you might use to understand the internal
environment (identify strengths and weaknesses)?

In SWOT analysis, what are some of the tools you might use to understand the external
environment (identify opportunities and threats)?
•

Answer 6

Internal analysis tools: value chani , VRIO Tools
Value chain functions are capabilities. Take the org apart and analyse singluarly

VRIO valuable rare inimitable origanization
VRIO helps you understand whether thos strengths will give you competitive advantage.

External: PESTEL 
Politial
Economic
Sociocultural
Technologica
Envinronmental
Legal

collect info and analyze each environmental dimension to identify the braod range of threads and opportunities.

Question 7

What is an intended strategy?
• What is a realized strategy?
• Why is it important to understand the difference between intended and realized strategies?

Answer 7

Intended strategy is strategy as conceived by the top management
team.

realized
strategy—the actual strategy that is implemented—is only partly related to that which was intended

its important to understand you need adaption.

Question 8

• What might interfere with the realization of an intended strategy?

Answer 8

Problems and issues that occur and stand in the way or bad stuff in the strategy itself so it has to change

Question 9

• What is strategic focus and why is it important?

Answer 9

Strategic focus is seen when an
organization is very clear about its mission and vision and has a coherent, well-articulated strategy for achieving
those.

Question 10

• What are Porter’s three generic strategies?

Answer 10

1. overall cost leadership: develop manufacture and distribute more efficiently than competition
2. differentiation: competitive advantage due to surpoerior products/svcs
3. focus on a particular market niche: competitive scope (small market vs broad market)

Question 11

• Can a firm simultaneously pursue a low-cost and a differentiation strategy?

Answer 11

no: Differentiation does not allow a firm to ignore costs; it makes a firm’s products less susceptible to cost pressures
from competitors because customers see the product as unique and are willing to pay extra to have the product
with the desirable features

if you do straddeling strategies then you come out lower than others.

Question 12

• What are the three value disciplines?

Answer 12

operational excellence, product leadership, and

customer intimacy.

Question 13

• What four rules underlie the three value disciplines?

Answer 13

Provide the best offer in the marketplace by excelling in one specific dimension of value

2. maintain threshold standsards on other dimensions of value
3. dominate your market by improving the value year after year
4. build a well tunes operating model dedicated to delivering unmatched value.

Question 14

• What is the objective of internal analysis?

Answer 14

Resources and Capabilities

Question 15

• What is the difference between a resource and a capability?

Answer 15

resources cover a spectrum of individual, social, and organizational phenomena

Capabilities are the firm’s capacity to deploy resources that have been purposely integrated to achieve a desired end state

Question 16

• What is the difference between a tangible and an intangible resource or capability?

Answer 16

Tangible resources are assets that can be
seen and quantified. Production equipment, manufacturing plants, and formal reporting structures are examples
of tangible resources. Intangible resources typically include assets that are rooted deeply in the firm’s history and
have accumulated over time. Because they are embedded in unique patterns of routines, intangible resources are
relatively difficult for competitors to analyze and imitate. Knowledge, trust between managers and employees,
ideas, the capacity for innovation, managerial capabilities, organizational routines (the unique ways people work
together), scientific capabilities, and the firm’s reputation for its goods or services and how it interacts with people

The four types of tangible resources are financial, organizational, physical, and technological.
The three types of intangible resources are human, innovation, and reputational.

Question 17

• What framework helps you identify those resources, capabilities, or core competencies that
provide competitive advantage?

Answer 17

VRIO, Value Chain of Porter

Question 18

• What are the six dimensions of the environment that are of broad concern when you conduct
a PESTLE analysis?

Answer 18

political
economic
sociocultural
technical 
leval
environmental

(s243)

Question 19

• What are the key dimensions of a firm’s micro-environment?

Answer 19

barries to entry and new nentry threats
buyer power
supplier power
threat from s ubstitutes
rivalry

Question 20

• What are the five facets of the Hambrick & Fredrickson strategy diamond?
•

Answer 20

Arenas:; where will we be active –> product categoreies, channles, market segments, geographic areas, core technology, value creation stages
Staging: aka. what will be our speed and sequence of moves ? –> expansion, initiatives
Vehicles: aka. how will we get there ? –> internal development, joint ventures, licensing, franchising, alliances, acquisitions
Differntiators: aka. How will we win? –> image, custmoization, price, styling, reliability, speed to market
Economic Logic. how will returns be obtained?

Question 21

• Why is it important to consider vehicles as part of an organization’s strategy?

Answer 21

what can you do and where do you need others / help of others ?