Questions and Answers of Exploring Strategy

2 How readily do you think executives of Pharmcare identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitors?
1 What does the SWOT analysis tell us about the competitive position of Pharmcare within the industry as a whole?
3 If you were the new Groupon CEO what resources and capabilities would you build on to give the company a sustainable competitive advantage? Chicago-based Groupon was launched in 2008 by Andrew
2 Andrew Mason admits that Groupon has thousands of copycats, yet his assessment is that imitating Groupon is difficult. Why do you think that investors disagreed? Chicago-based Groupon was launched
1 Assess the bases of Groupon’s resources and capabilities using the VRIO criteria (Figure 4.2 and Table 4.2). Chicago-based Groupon was launched in 2008 by Andrew Mason with the idea to email
3 Imagine you are the general manager of an organisation of your choice and undertake the same exercise as in questions 1 and 2 above. The Australian Red Cross To achieve the vision of improving the
2 To what extent and why might these resources and capabilities be the basis of sustained competitive advantage? The Australian Red Cross To achieve the vision of improving the lives of vulnerable
1 Categorise the range of resources and capabilities highlighted by the executives above in terms of Section 4.2 and Table 4.1. The Australian Red Cross To achieve the vision of improving the lives
2 Referring to Section 5.3.1, analyse Uber’s culture under Travis Kalanick in terms of values, beliefs, behaviours and taken-for-granted assumptions (the‘paradigm’). How much has this culture
1 If you were a large shareholder in Uber contemplating buying more stock in the Initial Public Offering of 2019, how satisfied would you be with Uber’s governance and what changes would you seek,
2 In what respects did the University of Bath’s culture under Breakwell appear to diverge from that outlined in the 2016–21 strategic plan and what could be done to reduce this apparent
1 Identify key elements in the university’s traditional organisational culture either in terms of Schein’s four layers (Figure 5.5) or the cultural web (Figure 5.6). In 2018, Glynis Breakwell
2 Explain the relevance of the principal–agent model(Section 5.3) to Oliver’s trust in CEO Paul Hunt? Cheery chef Jamie Oliver left school at 16 with barely any qualifications at all. A quarter
1 In which respects does the Jamie Oliver Group exemplify issues relevant to entrepreneurial businesses(see Section 5.2.3)? Cheery chef Jamie Oliver left school at 16 with barely any qualifications
2 Adapt the corporate governance chain described in Figure 5.4 to Oxfam GB. What were the weaknesses in this chain? Oxfam International is a confederation of 19 national charities– stretching from
1 Identify Oxfam GB’s various stakeholders along the lines of Figure 5.1 and assess their engagement in terms of the power/attention matrix in Figure 5.2. Oxfam International is a confederation of
3 Which PESTEL factors are driving changes in the industry? Which factors are becoming more negative or positive for the major advertising agencies?This case is centred on the global advertising
2 What strategic group dimensions and strategic groups can you identify? What are the differences between them? This case is centred on the global advertising industry which faces significant
1 Carry out a five forces analysis of the advertising industry. What are the strengths of the five forces and what underlying factors drive them? What is the industry attractiveness? This case is
2 Based on your analysis: How should Emily handle the different forces? What strategic options should she consider? Emily wants to start a coffee shop and perhaps even try to grow the business into
1 Help Emily and go through each step above. Answer the questions and make a complete analysis. What is your assessment of the industry? Emily wants to start a coffee shop and perhaps even try to
6. Determine how to position your business in relation to the five forces.Can you:• exploit any of the weak forces?• neutralise any of the strong forces?• exploit industry change in any way?•
5. Assess recent and expected future changes for each force.• What are the potential positive/negative changes?How likely are they?• Are new entrants and/or competitors changing the industry
4. Assess the overall industry structure and attractiveness.• How attractive is the industry? Why?• Which are the most important competitive forces?Which control profitability?• Are more
3. Determine the underlying factors of and total strength of each force.• Which are the main underlying factors for each force?Why?• Which competitive forces are strong? Which are weak?Why?Not
2. Identify the actors of each of the five forces and, if relevant, define different groups within them and the basis for this.Which are the. . .• competitors that face the same competitive
1. Define the industry clearly. Do the actors in the industry face the same buyers, suppliers, entry barriers and substitutes?• Vertical scope: What stages of the industry value chain/system?•
2 What other social media networks and apps do you use that you think could beat Facebook? Why? With over 1.75bn users Facebook is not only the largest social network globally, but they control the
1 Why is Facebook so powerful? Would you switch to another social network if it had better features even if it was considerably smaller? With over 1.75bn users Facebook is not only the largest social
2 How would you evaluate the behaviour of banks trying to keep competition out from an ethical point of view? The high barriers to entry in financial services include structural barriers due to basic
1 Evaluate the strengths of the banking industry’s entry barriers according to Porter’s criteria. The high barriers to entry in financial services include structural barriers due to basic
Define industries and use Porter’s competitive five forces framework to analyse industries or sectors: rivalry, threat of entrants, substitute threats, customer’s power and supplier power
What will the book do for you? LO1
What is entailed in reading it? LO1
What is strategy and why is this important? LO1
How do we discover the strategy guru hidden inside us? LO1
What is going on in the environment around your industry/market: the economy, technology, social trends, regulation etc? LO1
How much competitive pressure is there, and is it changing within your market and its dynamics? LO1
How do customers see your business, what value does it add relative to the competition, and what are the strengths of your customer base? LO1
What is the relative strength of, and threat of, competitors? LO1
What are your distinctive skills and other strategic assets (and weaknesses, too)? LO1
What do you really-really want to achieve out of it? LO1
Working backwards from the future, what steps might you have taken to get there? LO1
How has that exploited not just one but several interrelated and real competitive advantages? LO1
Where these are customer facing, to what extent do they appear irresistible? LO1
How easily and quickly and well can that be imitated by competitors, and how can you discourage that process? LO1
What’s the ‘one big thing’ that you have missed to take the strategy up a final level(the stunning plan)? LO1
Are we in too many businesses? LO1
How do we turn weaknesses into strengths and threats into opportunities? LO1
If we were a new entrant to our industry or a competitor, what would we do here? LO1
How can we attack competitors where they are weak and would find it difficult to respond? LO1
How can we achieve a truly dominant competitive position in this particular market? LO1
What would we do if we had no position in this market at all and were a fresh entrant? LO1
What are our strategic assets and how might we exploit them in new ways, and where? LO1
If we hadn’t got into this market, would we not regret it, and if we were to want to get out of it, how could we do this? LO1
Who are the stakeholders? lop4
Who is the ‘one big stakeholder’ that you have still forgotten? lop4
What is their level of influence? High, medium or low? lop4
What is their attitude? For, neutral, against? lop4
What, given these ratings, is their likely position on the grid? lop4
What pattern emerges? lop4
What influencing strategies can you come up with? lop4
What new positions are likely to emerge? lop4
How might their positions shift over time as the options move through the decisionmaking and implementation processes? lop4
How will you manage these issues and the stakeholders’ agendas through further influencing strategies? lop4
Where is the issue currently, within the buying cycle? lop4
What influencing has been done to date? lop4
Has this been effective or not, and if not, why? lop4
What could now be done to move it forward? lop4
Where are the strategies on that cycle? lop4
What has their trajectory been to date? lop4
Where do you think they might be going in future? lop4
What, if anything, should be done to influence that? lop4
To what extent is it top-down and what are the pros and cons of this? lop4
To what extent is it bottom-up and what are the pros and cons of this? lop4
To what extent is it horizontal and what are the pros and cons of this? lop4
What improvements can you see out of this for your planning process? lop4
How attractive/difficult to implement are these improvements? lop4
What are your KPIs re the customers? lop4
What are the key performance drivers re efficiency? lop4
What are the key performance drivers re financial performance? lop4
What are your key performance drivers re capability development? lop4
To what extent have these shifted over the last year (up or down) and what is this telling you? lop4
How did it go through the seven phases of change that we saw earlier? lop4
Which phases went well and how was this brought about? lop4
Which phases had the most difficulties and why? lop4
What was the overall result and to what extent was this affected by the way in which the process was managed? lop4
What are the most promising lines of enquiry, looking at it as if you were an alien entering this market for the first time? lo1
How attractive are these? lo1
Can a strong competitive position be built? lo1
Are you well placed to occupy that space with the strategic assets that you have/would this positioning and set of strategic assets be easy or hard to copy? lo1
If you did do this, how would or could this fit with the structure? lo1
For each of these markets, which is the most important force, and why? lo1
For each of these business areas, what are the CSFs for the players as a whole? lo1
How well does your own company stack up on these? lo1
What options does this suggest for strengthening your resilience? lo1
Does your business have a sweet spot?
Why and how does it exist?
Is it changing over time, and why?
What might be done to sustain it or refresh and extend it?

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