DISCUSSION QUESTIONS $1.$ Domino's Pizza has been in business more than $50$ years and claims to be $$#$1$ Worldwide in Pizza Delivery$$ with over $13,000$ locations. Visit the company's business$-$related website $($www$.$biz. dominos.com$)$ and read the $$our strengths$$ sec$-$ tion under the $$Investors$/$Profile$"$ tab. Does the firm focus on the accounting, shareholder, or eco$-$ nomic perspective in describing its competitive advantage? $2.$ How do the perspectives on competitive advan$-$ tage differ when comparing brick$-$and$-$mortar stores to online businesses $($e$.$g$.,$ Best Buy ver$-$ sus Amazon, Barnes & Noble versus Amazon, Old Navy versus Threadless $($noted in Strategy Highlight $5\mathrm{.}2],$ Nordstrom versus Zappos, and so on$)?$ Make recommendations to brick$-$and$-$mortar stores as to how they can compete more effec$-$ tively with online firms. What conclusions do you draw? one fabrication line for semiconductors typically costs more than $$1\mathrm{.}5$ billion to build. Yet the industry also has high human costs for research and development $($R&D$)$ departments. Semicon$-$ ductor firms spend an average of $17$ percent of revenues on R&D$.$ For comparison the automo$-$ bile industry spends a mere $3$ percent of sales on R&D$."$ Thus Intel's management must be con$-$ cerned with both scale of production and learn$-$ ing curves. When do you think managers should be more concerned with large$-$scale production runs, and when do you think they should be most concerned with practices that would foster or hinder the hiring, training, and retention of key employees? $3.$ The chapter notes there are key differences between economies of scale and learning effects. Let us put that into practice with a brief example. A company such as Intel has a complex design and manufacturing process. For instance, $1.$ Suppose Procter & Gamble $($P&G$)$ learns that the relatively new start$-$up company Method $($www$.$methodhome.com$)$ is gaining market share with a new laundry detergent in West Coast markets. In response, P&G lowers the price of its Tide detergent from $$18$ to $$9$ for a $150-$ounce bottle only in markets where Method's product is for sale. The goal of this loss leader" price drop is to encourage Method $3.$ Describe a firm you think has been highly innova$-$ tive. Which of the four types of innovation$-$radical, incremental, disruptive, or architectural$$did it use? Did the firm use different types over time?