1. A blue-ocean strategy:
A. is an offensive strike employed by a market leader that is directed at pilfering customers away from unsuspecting rivals to boost profitability.
B. involves an unexpected (out-of- the-blue) pre-emptive strike to secure an advantageous position in a fast-growing market segment.
C. works best when a company is the industry's low-cost leader.
D. involves abandoning efforts to beat out competitors in existing markets and instead invent a new industry or new market segment that renders existing competitors largely irrelevant and allows a company to create and capture altogether new demand.
E. involves the use of highly creative, never-used-before strategic moves to attack the competitive weaknesses of rivals.
2. All firms are subject to offensive challenges from rivals. The intent of the best defensive move is to:
A. lowers the risk of being attacked.
B. weakens the impact of any attack that occurs.
C. pressure challengers to aim their efforts at other rivals.
D. helps protect a competitive advantage.
E. All of these.
3. What does the scope of the firm refer to?
A. The range of activities the firm performs externally and its social responsibility activities
B. To gain competitive advantage based on where it locates its various value chain activities
C. The firm's capability to employ vertical integration strategies
D. The range of activities the firm performs internally and the breadth of its product offerings, the extent of its geographic market, and its mix of businesses
E. To prevent foreign competition from affecting the market
4. The difference between a merger and an acquisition relates to:
A. strategy and competitive advantage.
B. the presence of available resources and competitive capabilities.
C. whether the end result is related to horizontal or vertical scope.
D. creating a more cost-efficient operation out of the combined companies.
E. the details of ownership, management control, and the financial arrangements.
5. Mergers and acquisitions are often driven by such strategic objectives as:
A. expanding a company's geographic coverage or extending its business into new product categories.
B. reducing the number of industry key success factors.
C. reducing the number of strategic groups in the industry.
D. facilitating a company's shift from a low-cost leadership strategy to a focused low-cost strategy.
E. lengthening a company's value chain and thereby putting it in a better position to deliver superior value to buyers.
6. What outcomes do horizontal merger and acquisition strategies intend?
A. Expanding a company's geographic coverage.
B. Gaining quick access to new technologies or complementary resources and capabilities.
C. Leading the convergence of industries whose boundaries are being blurred by changing technologies and new market opportunities.
D. Extending the company's business into new product categories.
E. All of these.
7. Vertical integration strategies:
A. Extend a company's competitive scope within the same industry by expanding its operations across multiple segments or stages of the industry value chain.
B. Are one of the best strategic options for helping companies win the race for global market leadership.
C. Offer good potential to expand a company's lineup of products and services.
D. Are particularly effective in boosting a company's ability to expand into additional geographic markets, particularly the markets of foreign countries.
E. Is a good strategy option for helping a company revamp its value chain and bypass low value-added activities.
8. The strategic impetus for forward vertical integration is to:
A. gain better access to end users and better market visibility.
B. achieve the same scale economies as wholesale distributors and/or retail dealers.
C. control price at the retail level.
D. bypass distributors and dealers and sell direct to consumers at the company's website.
E. build a core competence in mass merchandising.
9. The two big drivers of outsourcing are:
A. an increased ability to cut R&D expenses and an increased ability to avoid the problems of strategic alliances.
B. that outsiders can often perform certain activities better or more cheaply, and outsourcing allows a firm to focus its entire energies on those activities that are at the center of its expertise (its core competencies).
C. a desire to reduce the company's investment in fixed assets and the need to narrow the scope of the company's in-house competencies and competitive capabilities.
D. the ability to avoid capital investments that accompany vertical integration and a desire to reduce the company's risk exposure to changing technology and/or changing buyer preferences.
E. that a smaller in-house workforce and a low investment in intellectual capital will produce cost savings.
10. The big risk of employing an outsourcing strategy is:
A. causing the company to become partially integrated instead of being fully integrated.
B. hollowing out a firm's own capabilities and losing touch with activities and expertise that contribute fundamentally to the firm's competitiveness and market success.
C. hurting a company's R&D capability.
D. putting the company in the position of being a late mover instead of an early mover.
E. increasing the firm's risk exposure to both supply chain management failures and shifts in the composition of the industry value chain.
11. The formation of a new corporation, jointly owned by two or more companies agreeing to share in the revenues, expenses, and control, is known as:
A. a joint venture.
B. a limited liability company.
C. a partnership.
D. sole proprietorship.
E. an S corporation.
12. The best strategic alliances:
A. are highly selective, focusing on particular value chain activities and on obtaining a particular competitive benefit, thereby enabling the firm to build on its strengths and to learn.
B. are those whose purpose is to create an industry key success factor.
C. are those which help a company move quickly from one strategic group to another.
D. involve joining forces in R&D to develop new technologies cheaper than a company could develop the technology on its own.
E. aim at raising an industry's barriers to entry.