Strategic Positioning and Strategy Process

Week 1: Strategic Positioning and the Strategy Process

• PEST analysis is useful for describing the macro-environment of a business.
• Value chain analysis is helpful for understanding the value-creating activities within an organization.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) views firms as embedded in ecosystems, highlighting their dependence and adaptation needs.
• Strategy is crucial for firms, providing a coherent framework for decision-making.
• Product design can drive cost advantages by reducing production costs.
• Sustainable competitive advantage is often achieved by having a unique capability.
• Corporate strategy focuses on a company's growth.

Week 1 Continued

• A differentiation strategy succeeds by offering a unique product feature.

• Key Success Factors (KSFs) define what customers need and what a firm must do to survive competition in a given industry.

• Competitor analysis is critical for anticipating competitors' strategies and actions.

• Low-cost strategies thrive by having the lowest costs in the industry.

• Stakeholder approach recognizes businesses as representing interests of various stakeholders requiring balanced consideration by management.

• Strategic group analysis identifies groups of companies with similar strategies.

• High replicability of capabilities is beneficial for creating new resources.

Week 2: Organization Module Quiz

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs suggests that lower-level needs must be fulfilled before higher-level needs.
• Business strategy focuses on competing within a certain industry.
• Stuck-in-the-middle is a business problem resulting in a weak market position.
• Strategic fit aligns a firm's strategy with its organizational structure and the business environment.
• The five forces model illustrates how buyer power impacts profitability.
• Rivalry among established businesses impacts profitability via factors such as excess production capacity.

Week 2 Continued

• Organizational characteristics of complexity, surprise, deception, and ambiguity can challenge managers.
• Effective problem-solving by managers involves using varied lenses for analysis and developing strategies.
• Studies show that employee participation increases both productivity and morale.

Week 3: Accounting/Management Control

• Balance sheets are balanced when the value of assets equals the value of equity and liabilities.
• Responsibility centers are linked to financial performance.
• Corrective actions arising from deviations in actual results target improved organizational behavior rather than maintaining the status quo.
• Budgeting is a medium-term financial plan.
• Transfer pricing variants exclude only variable costs.
• Capital expenditure evaluation does not involve identifying the level of financial costs in the income statement.
• Cash flow is directly linked to payments from, or to, the company's bank account.

Week 3 Continued

• Stock analysts assist by providing oversight that holds managers accountable to shareholders' interests.
• Loose organizational structures support innovation.
• Symbolic views link structure with purpose.
• Political views highlight goal evolution through negotiations and bargaining.
• Simple structures have an operating core and strategic apex.

Week 4: Marketing

• Marketing activities include ranking products to prioritize demands, meeting customer needs, and lowering capital costs.
• Management accounting focuses on providing stakeholders with necessary information.
• Contribution is calculated by subtracting variable costs from the selling price.
• Wholesalers and retailers typically intermediate business and consumer channels.
• Marketing includes products, place, price, and promotion.
• Consumer behavior involves factors such as age, and psychological aspects.
• Demand reflects the amount of goods/services consumers will buy at different price points.

Week 4 Continued

• Cost-plus pricing generally results in prices higher than break-even or customer-value-based pricing.
• Establishing a company's image involves creating a perception distinct from competitors.
• Perishability and variability are unique attributes of services.
• Marketing activities are inclusive of value for clients, and the activity of creating, communicating, and delivering valuable products to stakeholders.
• Segmentation variables include demographics.