Question<\/p>\n
QUESTION 1<\/p>\n
1. Which one of the following is not a reliable measure of how well a company’s current strategy is working?<\/p>\n
Trends in the company’s sales and earnings growth.<\/p>\n
The company’s development of human capital, organizational capital, and information capital.<\/p>\n
Changes in the firm’s image and reputation with its customers.<\/p>\n
The company’s overall financial strength.<\/p>\n
Evidence of improvement in internal processes such as defect rate, order fulfillment, and employee productivity.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 2<\/p>\n
1. Which of the following is not an option for improving supplier-related value chain activities?<\/p>\n
Integrate backward into the business of high-cost suppliers in an effort to reduce the costs of the items being purchased<\/p>\n
Negotiate more favorable prices with suppliers<\/p>\n
Collaborate closely with suppliers to identify mutual cost-saving opportunities<\/p>\n
Switch to lower priced substitute inputs<\/p>\n
Persuade forward channel allies to implement best practices<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 3<\/p>\n
1. A core competence<\/p>\n
makes a contribution to a company’s success in the marketplace.<\/p>\n
is typically knowledge-based, residing in a company’s intellectual capital and not in its tangible physical assets on the balance sheet.<\/p>\n
is often grounded in cross-department combinations of knowledge and expertise.<\/p>\n
is a competitively relevant activity that a firm performs especially well in comparison to the other activities it performs.<\/p>\n
All of these.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 4<\/p>\n
1. A company’s resource weaknesses can relate to<\/p>\n
inferior or unproven skills, lack of expertise, or intellectual capital shortfalls in competitively important parts of the business.<\/p>\n
something that it lacks or does poorly (in comparison to rivals).<\/p>\n
deficiencies in competitively important physical, organizational, or intangible assets.<\/p>\n
missing or competitively inferior capabilities in key areas.<\/p>\n
All of these<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 5<\/p>\n
1. Doing a competitive strength assessment entails<\/p>\n
determining whether a company has a cost-effective value chain.<\/p>\n
ranking the company against major rivals on each of the important factors that determine market success and ascertaining whether the company has a net competitive advantage or disadvantage versus major rivals.<\/p>\n
identifying a company’s core competencies and distinctive competencies (if any).<\/p>\n
analyzing whether a company is well positioned to gain market share and be the industry’s profit leader.<\/p>\n
developing quantitative measures of a company’s chances for future profitability.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 6<\/p>\n
1. One important indicator of how well a company’s present strategy is working is whether<\/p>\n
it has more core competencies than close rivals.<\/p>\n
its strategy is built around at least two of the industry’s key success factors.<\/p>\n
the company is achieving gains in financial strength.<\/p>\n
it has been able to create new industry demand through the use of a blue ocean strategy.<\/p>\n
it is subject to weaker competitive forces and pressures than close rivals (a good sign).<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 7<\/p>\n
1. Which of the following is not accurate as concerns the task of identifying the strategic issues and problems that merit front-burner managerial attention?<\/p>\n
It entails drawing upon the results and conclusions from analyzing the company’s external environment.<\/p>\n
It entails drawing on the results and conclusions from evaluating the company’s own resources and competitive position.<\/p>\n
It entails developing a “worry list” of problems and issues for managerial strategy making.<\/p>\n
Identifying the strategic issues and problems that the company faces is the first thing that company managers need to do before starting to analyze the company’s internal and external environment.<\/p>\n
Developing a list of what issues and problems that managements needs to address (and to resolve) should always precede deciding upon a strategy and what actions to take to improve the company’s position and prospects.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 8<\/p>\n
1. The primary activities included in the value chain include<\/p>\n
supply chain management, operations, distribution, sales and marketing, and customer service activities.<\/p>\n
product R&D, technology and systems development.<\/p>\n
human resource management.<\/p>\n
general administration.<\/p>\n
All of these.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 9<\/p>\n
1. Which of the following is not a component of evaluating a company’s competitive strength and cost structure?<\/p>\n
Evaluating how well the strategy is working<\/p>\n
Scanning the environment to determine a company’s best and most profitable customers<\/p>\n
Assessing whether the company’s costs and prices are competitive<\/p>\n
Evaluating whether the company is competitively stronger or weaker than key rivals<\/p>\n
Pinpointing what strategic issues and problems merit front-burner management attention<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 10<\/p>\n
1. Which of the following is not one of the five questions that comprise the task of evaluating a company’s competitive strength and cost structure?<\/p>\n
What are the company’s most profitable geographic market segments?<\/p>\n
How well is the company’s strategy working?<\/p>\n
Is the company’s cost structure and customer value proposition competitive?<\/p>\n
Is the company competitively stronger or weaker than key rivals?<\/p>\n
What strategic issues and problems merit front-burner management attention?<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 11<\/p>\n
1. A resource-based strategy<\/p>\n
focuses on exploiting a company’s best-executed operating strategy.<\/p>\n
is based upon efficient performance of the company’s primary value chain activities.<\/p>\n
concentrates on minimizing the costs associated with the design of a product or service.<\/p>\n
attempts to exploit resources in a manner that offers value to customers in ways rivals are unable to match.<\/p>\n
focuses on working with forward channel allies to develop capabilities to outmatch the capabilities of rivals.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 12<\/p>\n
1. When a company is good at performing a particular internal activity, it is said to have<\/p>\n
a competitive advantage over rivals.<\/p>\n
a competitive capability.<\/p>\n
a distinctive competence.<\/p>\n
a resource-based strategy.<\/p>\n
a competence.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 13<\/p>\n
1. A capability of the firm is not considered to be<\/p>\n
the capacity of a firm to competently perform some internal activity.<\/p>\n
referred to as a competence.<\/p>\n
developed and enabled through the deployment of a company’s resources or some combination of its resources.<\/p>\n
a competitively valuable resource.<\/p>\n
related to the level of resources available.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 14<\/p>\n
1. The aim of the best-cost provider strategy is to create a competitive advantage by<\/p>\n
incorporating attractive or upscale product attributes at a lower cost than rivals.<\/p>\n
offering buyers the industry’s best-performing product at the best cost and best (lowest) price in the industry.<\/p>\n
attracting buyers on the basis of having the industry’s overall best-performing product at a price that is slightly below the industry-average price.<\/p>\n
outcompeting rivals using low-cost provider strategies.<\/p>\n
translating its best-cost status into achieving the highest profit margins of any firm in the industry.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 15<\/p>\n
1. A broad differentiation strategy works best in situations where<\/p>\n
technological change is slow paced and new or improved products are infrequent.<\/p>\n
buyer needs and uses of the product are very similar.<\/p>\n
buyers incur low costs in switching their purchases to rival brands.<\/p>\n
buyers have a low degree of bargaining power and purchase the product frequently.<\/p>\n
technological change is fast paced and competition revolves around rapidly evolving product features.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 16<\/p>\n
1. Perceived value and signaling value are often an important part of a successful differentiation strategy when<\/p>\n
the nature of differentiation is hard to quantify.<\/p>\n
buyers are making a first-time purchase.<\/p>\n
repurchase of the product or service is infrequent.<\/p>\n
buyers are unsophisticated and unfamiliar with the capabilities of competing brands.<\/p>\n
All of these.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 17<\/p>\n
1. A focused differentiation strategy aims at securing competitive advantage<\/p>\n
by providing niche members with a top-of-the-line product at a premium price.<\/p>\n
by catering to buyers looking for an upscale product at an attractively low price.<\/p>\n
with a product or service offering carefully designed to appeal to the unique preferences and needs of a narrow, well-defined group of buyers.<\/p>\n
by developing product attributes that no other company in the industry has.<\/p>\n
by convincing affluent buyers that the company has a true world-class product.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 18<\/p>\n
1. Broad differentiation strategies are well suited for market circumstances where<\/p>\n
there are many ways to differentiate the product or service and many buyers perceive these differences as having value.<\/p>\n
most buyers have the same needs and use the product in the same ways.<\/p>\n
buyers are susceptible to clever advertising.<\/p>\n
barriers to entry are high and suppliers have a low degree of bargaining power.<\/p>\n
price competition is especially vigorous.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 19<\/p>\n
1. Examples of important cost drivers in a company’s value chain do not include:<\/p>\n
input costs.<\/p>\n
capacity utilization.<\/p>\n
learning and experience.<\/p>\n
production technology and design.<\/p>\n
customer service.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 20<\/p>\n
1. A focused low-cost strategy seeks to achieve competitive advantage by<\/p>\n
outmatching competitors in offering niche members an absolute rock-bottom price.<\/p>\n
delivering more value for the money than other competitors.<\/p>\n
performing the primary value chain activities at a lower cost per unit than can the industry’s low-cost leaders.<\/p>\n
dominating more market niches in the industry via a lower cost and a lower price than any other rival.<\/p>\n
serving buyers in the target market niche at a lower cost and lower price than rivals.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 21<\/p>\n
1. Companies can pursue differentiation from many angles including<\/p>\n
providing a unique competitive product taste.<\/p>\n
executing superior customer service.<\/p>\n
ensuring engineering design and performance benefits.<\/p>\n
providing products that ensue luxury and prestige.<\/p>\n
All of these.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 22<\/p>\n
1. A strategy to be the industry’s overall low-cost provider tends to be more appealing than a differentiation or focus strategy when<\/p>\n
there are many ways to achieve product differentiation that buyers find appealing.<\/p>\n
buyers use the product in a variety of different ways.<\/p>\n
the offerings of rival firms are essentially identical, standardized, commodity-like products.<\/p>\n
buyers have high switching costs in changing from one seller’s product to another.<\/p>\n
the market is composed of many buyer types, all with varying needs and expectations.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 23<\/p>\n
1. A company that succeeds in differentiating its product offering from those of its rivals can usually<\/p>\n
avoid having to compete on the basis of simply a low price.<\/p>\n
charge a price premium for its product (because buyers see its differentiating features as worth something extra).<\/p>\n
increase unit sales (because of the attraction of its differentiating product attributes).?<\/p>\n
gain buyer loyalty to its brand (because some customers will have a strong preference for the company’s differentiating features).<\/p>\n
All of these.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 24<\/p>\n
1. The generic types of competitive strategies include<\/p>\n
build market share, maintain market share, and slowly surrender market share.<\/p>\n
offensive strategies and defensive strategies.<\/p>\n
low-cost provider, broad differentiation, focused low-cost, focused differentiation, and best-cost provider strategies.<\/p>\n
low-cost\/low-price strategies, high-quality\/high-price strategies, medium-quality\/medium-price strategies, low-cost\/high-price strategies.<\/p>\n
price leader strategies, price follower strategies, technology leader strategies, first-mover strategies, offensive strategies, and defensive strategies.<\/p>\n
4 points<\/p>\n
QUESTION 25<\/p>\n
1. The major avenues for achieving a cost advantage over rivals include<\/p>\n
eliminating or curbing nonessential cost-producing activities and performing essential value chain activities more cost-effectively that rivals.<\/p>\n
having a management team that accepts below-market salaries.<\/p>\n
being a first mover in adopting the latest state-of-the-art technologies, especially those relating to low-cost manufacture.<\/p>\n
outsourcing high-cost activities to offshore vendors.<\/p>\n
paying lower wages to hourly workers than what rivals are paying workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question QUESTION 1 1. Which one of the following is not a reliable measure of how well a company’s current strategy is working? Trends in the company’s sales and earnings growth. The company’s development of human capital, organizational capital, and Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}