 |
| 1 | |
Which one of the following is not a strategic choice that a company must make to complement and supplement its choice of one of the five generic competitive strategies? |
| | A) | What type of Web site strategy to employ and whether and when to employ offensive and defensive moves |
| | B) | Whether to bolster the company's market position and competitiveness via acquisition or merger |
| | C) | Whether to employ a low-end strategy or a middle-of-the-road strategy or a high-end strategy |
| | D) | Whether to integrate forward or backward into more stages of the industry value chain |
| | E) | Whether to enter into strategic alliances or collaborative partnerships |
|
|
|
| 2 | |
Which one of the following is not a factor that makes an alliance "strategic" as opposed to just a convenient business arrangement? |
| | A) | The alliance involves joint contribution of resources and is mutually beneficial. |
| | B) | The alliance helps block a competitive threat or open up new market opportunities. |
| | C) | The alliance helps mitigate a significant risk to a company's business. |
| | D) | The alliance helps build, enhance, or sustain a core competence or competitive advantage. |
| | E) | The alliance is critical to the company's achievement of an important objective. |
|
|
|
| 3 | |
Companies are motivated to enter into strategic alliances or cooperative arrangements: |
| | A) | to expedite the development of promising new technologies or products. |
| | B) | to bring together the personnel and expertise needed to create desirable new skill sets and capabilities to improve supply chain efficiency, and/or gain economies of scale in production and/or marketing. |
| | C) | to acquire or improve market access through joint marketing agreements. |
| | D) | to help win the race against rivals for global market leadership or to seize opportunities on the frontiers of advancing technology and build the resource strengths and business capabilities to compete successfully in the industries and product markets of the future. |
| | E) | All of these. |
|
|
|
| 4 | |
The best strategic alliances: |
| | A) | aim at teaming up with world-class suppliers or else companies with world-class know-how in product innovation. |
| | B) | are those whose purpose is helping a company master a new technology. |
| | C) | are those formed to enable the partners to be consistent first movers or fast followers. |
| | D) | are highly selective, focusing on particular value chain activities and on obtaining a particular competitive benefit. |
| | E) | aim at insulating the partners against the impacts of the five competitive forces and industry driving forces. |
|
|
|
| 5 | |
Companies racing against rivals for global market leadership often utilize strategic alliances and collaborative partnerships with companies in foreign countries in order to: |
| | A) | better master new technologies, combat the bargaining power of foreign suppliers and foreign buyers, and facilitate global vertical integration. |
| | B) | build a bigger customer base quickly and better differentiate their proiduct offerings. |
| | C) | win stronger brand name recognition among foreign buyers. |
| | D) | get into critical country markets quickly and accelerate the process of building a potent global market presence, gain inside knowledge about unfamiliar markets and cultures, and access valuable skills and competencies that are concentrated in particular geographic locations. |
| | E) | gain better control over their foreign-related transportation and logistics costs. |
|
|
|
| 6 | |
Which of the following is not a typical reason that many alliances prove unstable or break apart? |
| | A) | Inability to work well together |
| | B) | Mounting competition between one or more allies in the marketplace |
| | C) | Changing conditions that render the purpose of the alliance obsolete and the emergence of more attractive technological paths |
| | D) | Disagreement over how to divide the added market share and profits gained from joint collaboration |
| | E) | Diverging objectives and strategic priorities |
|
|
|
| 7 | |
Mergers and acquisitions are a much used strategy because they are an effective means of: |
| | A) | revamping a company's value chain. |
| | B) | facilitating the employment of both offensive and defensive strategies. |
| | C) | creating a more cost-efficient operation, expanding a company's geographic coverage, and extending a company's business into new product categories. |
| | D) | gaining quick access to new technologies or other resources and competitive capabilities and trying to invent a new industry and lead the convergence of industries whose boundaries are being blurred by changing technologies and new market opportunities. |
| | E) | Both C and D. |
|
|
|
| 8 | |
Which one of the following statements about merger and acquisition strategies is true? |
| | A) | Merger and acquisition strategies are nearly always a superior strategic alternative to forming alliances or partnerships with these same companies. |
| | B) | Merger and acquisition strategies tend to be far more successful that forming strategic alliances and cooperative partnerships with other companies. |
| | C) | Merger and acquisition strategies often do not produce the hoped-for outcomes—examples of mergers/acquisitions where the results have been disappointing include the merger of AOL and Time Warner, the merger of Daimler Benz and Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of Compaq Computer, Ford's acquisition of Jaguar, and Best Buy's acquisition of Musicland. |
| | D) | Mergers and acquisition strategies are a very high-risk strategy because of the financial drain of using the company's cash resources to accomplish the merger or acquisition. |
| | E) | Merger and acquisition strategies are one of the best ways for helping a company strengthen its brand image. |
|
|
|
| 9 | |
Which of the following is not a potential advantage of backward vertical integration? |
| | A) | Adding to a company's differentiation capabilities and perhaps achieving a differentiation-based competitive advantage |
| | B) | Reduced risk of disruptions in the supply and delivery of crucial materials and components |
| | C) | Reduced costs for items purchased from suppliers (if internal manufacture is more economical than buying from powerful suppliers who have big profit margins and provided entry barriers into a supplier's business are low or can be hurdled) |
| | D) | Enhanced R&D capability, better opportunity to establish a core competence in supply chain management, more flexibility in incorporating state-of-the-art parts and components, and better overall product quality |
| | E) | Reduced vulnerability to powerful suppliers (who may be inclined to raise prices at every opportunity) |
|
|
|
| 10 | |
Which of the following is typically the strategic impetus for forward vertical integration? |
| | A) | To charge lower retail prices and thereby attract a bigger, more loyal clientele of customers |
| | B) | To make it easier to expand the company's product line |
| | C) | To gain better access to end users and better market visibility |
| | D) | To achieve greater control over advertising and in-store retail merchandising |
| | E) | To gain better access to greater economies of scale |
|
|
|
| 11 | |
Which of the following is not a strategic disadvantage of vertical integration? |
| | A) | It greatly reduces the opportunity for capturing maximum scale economies and achieving the lowest possible operating costs. |
| | B) | Vertical integration poses all kinds of capacity-matching problems. |
| | C) | It boosts a firm's capital investment in the industry and thus increases business risk if the industry becomes unattractive later. |
| | D) | Integrating forward or backward can entail taking on the performance of value chain activities that require radically different skills and business capabilities than the firm possesses. |
| | E) | Vertical integration backward into parts and components manufacture can impair a company's operating flexibility when it comes to changing out the use of certain parts and components (it is easier to change out parts and components made by outside suppliers than those made in-house). |
|
|
|
| 12 | |
Which of the following is not an advantage of outsourcing the performance of certain value chain activities to outsiders? |
| | A) | Being able to reduce distribution costs by eliminating the use of wholesale distributors and retail dealers and, instead, selling direct to end-users at the company's Web site. |
| | B) | Allowing a company to concentrate on its core business, leverage its key resources, and do even better what it already does best |
| | C) | Improving the company's ability to innovate by allying with "world-class" suppliers who have cutting edge intellectual capital and are first-to-market with next-generation parts and components |
| | D) | Being able to speedily and efficiently assemble diverse kinds of competitively valuable expertise |
| | E) | Obtaining higher quality and/or cheaper components or services |
|
|
|
| 13 | |
Which of the following is not one of the principal offensive strategy options? |
| | A) | Pursuing continuous product innovation to draw sales and market share away from less innovative rivals |
| | B) | Trying to take market share away from the industry leaders by significantly undercutting the prices they are charging |
| | C) | Offering an equally good or better product at a lower price |
| | D) | Leapfrogging competitors by being the first adopter of next-generation technologies or being first to market with next generation products Attacking the competitive weakness of rivals |
| | E) | Adopting and improving on the good ideas of other companies (rivals or otherwise) |
|
|
|
| 14 | |
A blue ocean type of offensive strategy: |
| | A) | is a pre-emptive strike type of price-cutting offensive used by a market leader to steal customers away from higher-priced rivals. |
| | B) | involves abandoning efforts to beat out competitors in existing markets and, instead, inventing a new industry or new market segment that renders existing competitors largely irrelevant and allows a company to create and capture altogether new demand. |
| | C) | involves deliberately attacking those market segments where a key rival makes big profits. |
| | D) | involves using innovative advertising and deep price discounts to grab sales and market share from complacent or distracted rivals. |
| | E) | employs highly creative, never-used-before strategic moves to attack the competitive weaknesses of rivals. |
|
|
|
| 15 | |
A preemptive strike type of offensive strategy entails: |
| | A) | attacking an industry leader's most profitable market segment via deep price discounts and heavy advertising. |
| | B) | moving first to secure an advantageous position that rivals are foreclosed or discouraged from duplicating. |
| | C) | using a distinctive competence that rivals can't match to take sales and market share away from competitively weak rivals. |
| | D) | surprise introductions of new and very innovative products to secure market share leadership and then informing shocked rivals that the attacker will use deep price cuts, if necessary, to defend its newly-won market-leading position. |
| | E) | leading the industry in introducing next-generation products and putting rivals in the position of being market followers and having to scramble to imitate the leader's innovations. |
|
|
|
| 16 | |
Which one of the following is not a good type of rival for an offensive-minded company to target? |
| | A) | Market leaders that are vulnerable |
| | B) | Runner-up firms with weaknesses in areas where the challenger is strong. |
| | C) | Small local and regional companies with limited capabilities |
| | D) | Other offensive-minded companies with a sizable war chest of cash and marketable securities |
| | E) | Struggling enterprises that are on the verge of going under |
|
|
|
| 17 | |
Defensive strategies: |
| | A) | serve the purpose of helping protect competitive advantage, lowering the risk of being attacked, weakening the impact of any attack that occurs, and influencing would-be challengers to aim their attacks elsewhere; they often entail actions that signal would-be challengers that retaliation is likely. |
| | B) | are the best ways to counter the efforts of firms trying to make market inroads with substitute products. |
| | C) | tend to work more frequently than offensive strategies because they are usually less risky and are more likely to succeed if they are predicated on actions to capture first-mover advantages via preemptive strikes that foreclose imitation by rivals. |
| | D) | employ efforts to block challengers from using end-run offensives and pre-emptive strike strategies and they are most likely to succeed when the defensive actions to thwart challengers stress vigorous price-cutting and added advertising. |
| | E) | work best when they involve a combination of vertical integration, acquisition of other firms, outsourcing certain value chain activities, and strategic alliances with suppliers. |
|
|
|
| 18 | |
One very important advantage of a product-information-only Web site strategy is: |
| | A) | lower advertising costs. |
| | B) | avoiding the extra costs associated with operating Web site e-stores. |
| | C) | avoiding channel conflict—trying to sell online in direct competition with retail dealers signals both a weak strategic commitment to dealers and a willingness to cannibalize dealers' sales and growth potential. |
| | D) | added ability to create a positive image of the company. |
| | E) | lower sales force costs. |
|
|
|
| 19 | |
Two big appeals of a brick-and-click strategy are: |
| | A) | lower customer service costs and more ability to achieve strong product differentiation. |
| | B) | economically expanding a company's geographic reach and giving existing and potential customers another choice of how to communicate with the company, shop for company products, make purchases, and/or resolve customer service problems. |
| | C) | the low-cost economics of establishing a Web site and the ability to use existing company store locations as "distribution centers" for filling customer orders and then scheduling them for same-day delivery. |
| | D) | an ability to use a well-known brand name to draw buyer traffic to the company's Web site and then use the company's local store locations as pickup points for the items customers order on the Web site. |
| | E) | the low-cost economics of establishing a Web site and low order-filling and delivery costs. |
|
|
|
| 20 | |
In which of the following situations is being first to initiate a particular move not likely to result in a positive payoff? |
| | A) | When pioneering helps build up a firm's image and reputation with buyers |
| | B) | When first-time buyers remain strongly loyal to a pioneering firm in making repeat purchases |
| | C) | When late movers can copy a successful pioneer's moves quickly and at lower cost |
| | D) | When moving first can constitute a preemptive strike, making imitation extra hard or unlikely |
| | E) | When moving first can result in a cost advantage over rivals |
|
|
.