1. A firm is said to have created a competitive advantage over its rivals if it has what?
a) The favorable position an organization seeks in order to be more profitable than its competitors.
b) A superiority gained by an organization when it can provide the same value as its competitors but at a lower price
c) Driven a wider wedge between willingness to pay and costs than its competitors have achieved
d) An advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices.
2. Competitive advantage cannot be understood by looking at a firm as a whole because...
a) Each of the firm's activities interact and are inter related to form a competitive fit and it is this fit that determines competitive advantage
b) Each of the firm's activities can contribute to the firm's relative cost position and create a basis for differentiation
c) Sustainable competitive advantage no longer arises exclusively from position, scale, and first-order capabilities in producing or delivering an offering, but being really good at learning how to do new things
d) It stems from the many discrete activates a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, delivering, and supporting its product or service
3. Mapping the business landscape and pursuing a comparative advantage on it are necessary but not sufficient for business success over time. Why?
a) Because competitors are engaged in competitive dynamics
b) Competitions are interacting with buyers, suppliers, and other players striving to improve their own competitive positions which can impact us
c) Because in today's competitive world we must anticipate our interactions with our competitors
d) It is imperative to anticipate how our competitors may react to counter our competitive moves
e) All are correct and discussed in chapter 4.
4. Competitor profiling is important because not all competitors view the business landscape the same way we do, such as maximizing profits, competitive advantage (economically), maximizing net present values, or maximizing shareholder value. Therefore competitor profiling must ask and answer which of the following questions?
a) What do competitors really want?
b) How do competitors see themselves as pursuing their goals?
c) What have competitors actually tended to do historically?
d) What policies are essential for rapid deployment for competitive change?
5. To analyze competitive dynamics managers need to put themselves in the shoes of other players instead of viewing competitive situations solely from the egocentric perspectives of their own businesses what are two methods of doing this?
a) Game theory
b) Competitor extraction
c) Strategic involvement
d) Competitor profiling