Direction: Discuss briefly and concisely

1. Why are competitive advantages based on brands, as in the consumer goods industry, often more important for long-term value creation than advantages based on product quality or innovation?

2. Discuss the three generic sources of a company's growth, their relative importance for its growth, and what this means for a company's strategy

3. The gradual decline in ROIC of the top-performing companies can be explained by gradual erosion of competitive advantages. What could be the explanation for the gradual increase in ROIC of the bottom performing companies?

4. Discuss why the ranking of industries by growth varies more over time than their ranking by RO