Google's initial competitive advantage over AltaVista and Yahoo was what?
The PageRank algorithm
What might Microsoft have used their 1998 purchase of LinkExchange to build a competitive advantage in?
Online search and advertising
Microsoft is building up its share of the search engine market by partnering with which firm?
Yahoo
Microsoft is partnering with Yahoo for what major purpose?
To build market share for its Bing search engine
Which of the following is NOT a major component of the overarching integrative management field of strategic management?
Financial investment strategy
The Oakland A's used new metrics to assess player potential. This gave them an ability to do what?
Field low-cost teams that were still competitive
It appears that Google has a sustained competitive advantage because _________.
They have outperformed rivals consistently over time
Duke basketball winning by two points over Butler in the 2010 NCAA championship game is an example of what?
A temporary competitive advantage
If Smith Pharmaceuticals has a 15% return on invested capital (RoIC), what do you need to know to determine if it has a competitive advantage?
It must be compared to the RoIC of the competitors and industry.
When competitors cooperate with one another to achieve strategic objectives, this is called?
Co-opetition
The ups and downs within industries and corporations suggest that competitive advantage __________.
Will likely be transitory
Strategy is primarily about ____________.
Creating superior value
Co-opetition seems to be on the increase. Which of the following would be a good definition of co- opetition?
Competitors cooperating with one another to achieve strategic objectives
Which of the following is not an aspect of the book's definition of strategy?
It is profit-seeking.
Strategic __________ is staking out a unique and valuable spot that allows the firm to meet customer demands.
Positioning
JCPenney and Neiman Marcus these firms have different business strategies. They both accomplish this by providing value to their customers while controlling costs. This is known as __________.
Co-opetition
Business managers test their theories in the marketplace. An accurate set of assumptions will yield enhanced strategic decisions. When the Apple Newton product failed in 1993, what feedback did Apple (and its alert competitors) collect from the experience
The price and bulkiness were not right for the PDA market then.
The never-ending cycle of analysis, formulation, implementation, and feedback is called what?
The strategic management process
The difference in managerial theories can have a large impact on the success or failure of businesses. In the automobile industry, what effect has the difference in assumptions between U.S. and Japanese manufacturers had on the market?
Higher gas prices in Japan drove the market toward more fuel-efficient products sooner than in the
U.S.
Determining firm performance is a complex interaction of firm effects and industry effects, with other factors also considered. Based on historical analysis, what do we know about firm and industry effects?
Firm effects have more impact on performance than industry effects.
The textbook divides the impacts explaining superior firm performance into three categories: Industries Effects, Firm Effects, and Other Effects. Which is the smallest of the effect
Industry Effects
The term "strategy" has grown in usage in a variety of fields today. Which of the following is the best use of the term for this course?
The firm's efforts to gain and sustain competitive advantage
Which of the following does not support the book's definition of strategy?
It is about raising prices while containing costs.
Strategy formulation and implementation affect the organization at every level. What is the top level of strategy within an organization?
Corporate
What is a standalone division of a larger conglomerate, with its own profit-and-loss responsibility?
A strategic business unit
The General Manager of a strategic business unit (SBU) would be mostly concerned with questions of ____________.
How to compete
Functional managers have the ability to come up with strategic initiatives that may influence the direction of the company. The reason for this is?
They are closer to products, services, and customers.
Who has the responsibility for implementing business strategy within a single area?
Functional managers
IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano has moved the firm more into global IT services and out of its traditional hardware focus. What level of strategic decisions do these moves represent?
Corporate strategy
According to the text, which part of the organization seeks superior performance by asking the question "how to compete"?
Business level strategy
The division director of marketing of a major consulting firm is most often making decisions at which level of strategy?
Functional strategy
Which of the following is a major decision that was generated from a change in corporate strategy?
Selling IBM's personal computer business to the Chinese firm Lenovo
A strategy is a manager's theory of how to compete; however, the theory is useless if it is NOT put into action. What is the translation of strategy that details the firm's competitive tactics and initiatives?
The business model
Gillette invented a "razor-razor-blade" model of business, whereby the razor handle is provided at a low cost and the replacement razor blades are sold relatively expensively. Which of the following is another example of this business model?
HP laser printers
A business model is the translation of strategy into action, which details the firm's competitive tactics and initiatives. Another way to say this is __________
It's how the firm intends to make money
The U.S. cell-phone industry uses a combination of the razor-razor-blade model with which other model when it offers a two-year contract in exchange for a heavily subsidized new phone?
A subscription-based model
Which of the following is not an example of the razor-razor-blade business model?
Digital cameras
Google and Microsoft have approached the market using quite different business models. Over time, they have engaged in multi-point competition. Which of the following best describes this competition today?
They compete for market share in several different product categories.
Web 2.0 relies on the idea that the value of a product or service increases as more people use it. This concept is called what?
Network effects
In recent years, China has invested a tremendous amount of money on increasing its infrastructure with high-speed rails, state-of-the-art airports, and modern roads. China also has the largest number of Internet users of any country in the world. How will
New innovations will diffuse more quickly throughout China than in the past.
People who grew up with the Internet and need no help in adapting to new technologies have been called digital natives. Those who have not grown up with such technologies but are adapting to them are called what?
Digital immigrants
BRIC countries have more than 40% of the world's population and occupy more than a quarter of the world's landmass. Which of these countries is not a part of BRIC?
Canada
BM is headquartered in Armonk, New York, but more than 70% of its employees work for the company outside of the U.S. What is given as a major reason for this in the text?
Two-thirds of its revenue and most of its growth are occurring outside the U.S.
The idea of firms creating significant business opportunities for some 4 billion people on the planet who live in poverty is called ______________.
Bottom of the pyramid
Grameen Telecom and the Nano car introduced by Tata are examples of what new business model?
Making a small revenue but across a large base of the world's poorest
Given current trends, several industries promise significant potential for value creation and thus career opportunities. Which of the following is not one of them described by the text?
Petroleum
While the favorable demographics of the U.S. and most developed economies would seem to provide significant business opportunities in health care, managers must balance this with the risk from what?
The reimbursement rates for specific procedures will likely go down.
Health care became the largest industry in the U.S. when it grew to 16% of the total economic activity. Projections are that the sector will grow to 20% of the economy by 2019. As compelling as the size and growth of the industry, what other reason does t
Much of the wealth in the U.S. is in the aging baby-boomer population.
One firm has announced a major initiative in the health care field called healthymagination. This initiative is geared to draw on existing expertise in other business units to find new emerging opportunities in health care. What firm has launched this ini
General Electric (GE)
The vast majority of today's economic activity around the globe is powered by carbon-based sources of energy. Which of the following is not considered a carbon-based source of energy?
Wind
In today's economic activity, carbon-based energy sources come with certain costs for business and consumers, some of which include, but are not limited to, CO2 emissions, air pollution, and global warming. These costs are described as ____________.
Externalities
Business opportunities in the clean-tech economy have much potential. Production of solar panels in China has brought the prices down by 50%, while many countries are providing incentives to invest in the field. However, in strategy we must always look at
The energy sector is rapidly growing worldwide.
The increasing interactivity and collective intelligence available on the Internet is called what?
Web 2.0
The idea to let consumers work for you and form a hybrid between producers and consumers is called ___________.
Prosumers
Threadless is an online apparel store. Its business model is quite different from most other apparel stores. Threadless leverages Web 2.0 capabilities by using crowdsourcing. How does this benefit Threadless in their T-shirt design process?
It both lowers the cost and ensures the popularity of selected designs.
Creating prosumers is the idea of allowing consumers to work for you, which forms a hybrid between consumer and producer. Which of the following companies exploits prosumers in their business model?
Threadless
One of the key aspects of the Threadless business strategy is the use of ____________.
Network effects
All of the following are external stakeholders except which of the following?
Competitors
How does Web 2.0 help improve Google's search engine results?
The PageRank algorithm relies on feedback from prior search results.
Individuals or groups that can affect or be affected by the actions of a firm are called _________.
Stakeholders
All of the following are considered an internal stakeholder within a firm except for which of the following?
Customers
All of the following are considered an external stakeholder within a firm except which of the following?
Employees
Stakeholder power and influence will vary by industry. In investment banking, skilled human capital is important. This means one of the key stakeholders for firms in this industry will be ________.
Employees
Stakeholder power and influence will vary by industry. In the ________, one of the most powerful external stakeholders has historically been unions.
Automotive industry
If some stakeholder groups are able to extract significant value, the firm's competitive advantage may not be realized when compared to its rivals. This situation can place the firm in a ________________.
Competitive disadvantage
The text provides an example of stakeholder power in the investment banking industry. In 2007, the net income of the top five U.S. investment banks was roughly $10 billion. This sounds pretty good until you find out that in this same year the salary and b
Strong internal stakeholders capturing the value that would otherwise go to others (such as stockholders).
A successful strategy details a set of goal-directed actions that managers intend to take to improve or maintain overall firm performance. To build this strategy, managers focus on three broad management tasks. Which of the following is NOT one of these m
Forecast technology
Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are three powerful companies in the emerging field of Web 2.0. How these firms choose to compete with each other and what business models they use to bring in revenues will, at least to some degree, shape the structure of t
Co-opetition