Exam 3: Foundations of Planning

In which step of the strategic management process does an organization find out what its competition is doing, what legislation is pending, and what customers desire?

When uncertainty is high and management must maintain flexibility, which of the following types of plans are preferable?

Which type of plan is used to meet a particular or unique situation?

After analyzing and learning about the environment, management needs to evaluate opportunities and threats. Opportunities are

Susan's Ceramics is expanding the size of its unfinished products while decreasing the amount of firing and finishing of products it does. This is known as which of the following strategies?

Identifying the scope of an organization's products or services will force it to define its mission.

A strong culture may act as a significant barrier to acceptance of change.

Planning minimizes waste and redundancy.

Feedback favorably affects performance.

Which of the following is not included in the definition of planning?

Planning can completely replace the need for intuition and creativity.

Which of the following is not a component of the MBO process?

Describe these characteristics of planning: breadth, time frame, specificity, and frequency of use.

Which of the following is not one of the grand strategies?

Describe Porter's Model and explain how a manager would use it to develop a strategy to achieve competitive advantage.

Describe SWOT analysis and explain how it is used.

Application of Porter's Competitive Strategy Stacie sighed. Her general manager had just left after giving her the latest assignment- readdress the competitive advantage of their company. By Friday's meeting, Stacie was to have developed three differing strategies the business could use in order to maintain its competitive advantage. Its computer business was slowly losing market share to its competitors, and everyone realized something needed to be done. Stacie glanced through the article by Michael Porter that her manager had left with her. According to Porter, there were three differing types of strategies they could choose from. Stacie began wondering if there was a way they could make their computers cheaper, which would allow them to then sell at a lower price. If they could reduce price by $100 a machine, they would be the industry leaders in price. Stacie wondered if they could find any lower- priced suppliers for the more expensive parts of their computers. She knew that their computers appealed particularly to small business owners due in part to price. They were able to offer the lower price because their computers were not as powerful or fast as some machines, but did contain the necessary word processing, database, and spreadsheet capabilities necessary for a typical small business owner. The lack of frills with the solid three program capabilities, plus their known reputation for quality had worked for them in the past. Stacie wondered if perhaps they needed to look at a smaller segment of the market, maybe small businesses with large accounts receivables that would fully utilize their specific database. She knew that would cut their market by 1/8 but maybe achieving a definite market niche would help. Stacie began compiling her report for Friday's meeting. -The competitive advantage focusing on a lower price would be a

Peter Drucker, a well- known management author, believes that entrepreneurs can find opportunities in___________ .

Compare and contrast the following: strategic plans, tactical plans, specific plans and directional plans.

Long term plans describe what an organization plans to do within the next two to three years.