Exam 4: Business Level Strategy

Hyundai allows customers to return their cars if they lose their job within 12 months of purchase. Which of the following aspects of managing customer relationships is Hyundai engaged in?

Ever improving levels of efficiency enhance profit margins for a cost leader. This effects which of the five forces of industry structure most directly?

Define strategy and business-level strategy. What is the difference between these two concepts?

Flexible manufacturing systems, information networks, and total quality management are three techniques that make it possible for firms to implement the focused differentiation strategy.

A low-cost position in the industry is not a valuable defense against rivals when competing on the basis of price.

Case Scenario : International Cow Packers. International Cow Packers (ICP) is a $12 billion meat processor (slaughter, processing, and packing). Founded in 1943, ICP has grown to become the largest beef and pork processor in the United States (revenues come 90% from beef and 10% from pork) and also has a growing export market to Japan. The company follows a focused cost-leadership strategy, delivering USDA-graded meats primarily to the institutional (schools, prisons, hospitals) and supermarket channels. ICP's entire value chain is organized to deliver volume product at the industry's lowest per-unit cost. Its supplier industries, primarily cattle and swine feedlots, have relatively little power since prices for these raw materials are determined in the commodity markets. While entry barriers to the industry are high due to high minimum start-up costs, industry rivalry is extremely intense - primarily due to the fact that three large companies (including ICP) control 80% of the market for processed meats. The threat of substitutes is high with an increasing trend for consumers to favor poultry and other non-beef proteins. Buyers are also powerful since supermarkets are relatively concentrated at a regional level and end-consumers have ample choices. -(Refer to the above Case Scenario ) What can ICP do to decouple itself from the ups and downs of the pure commodity markets? What specific actions might ICP undertake?

A manufacturer of jewelry imitates the style of a popular and expensive brand using manufactured stones rather than real gemstones and lesser grade metals rather than silver and gold. The manufacturer packages the jewelry in boxes of the same color imprinted with an almost identical logo. About 85 percent of the company's sales are through Internet sales. This example illustrates the competitive risk of ____ that threatens companies that use the differentiation strategy.

The integration of a cost leadership and a differentiation strategy

Almost any identifiable human or organizational characteristic can be used to subdivide a market into segments that differ from one another on a given characteristic.

Support activities in the value chain are generic across business strategies.

Ford's decision to build the Fiesta as a world car was because

By examining the ____ of Southwest Airlines, one can identify the strategic themes around which it has developed its business strategy. These themes include limited passenger service, high aircraft utilization, highly productive ground and gate crews, and so forth.

Michael Porter points out that strategic fit among many activities is fundamental to

The effectiveness of any of the generic business-level strategies is contingent upon

Blind taste-tests have shown that the taste of premium-priced vodkas and inexpensive vodkas are indistinguishable even to regular drinkers of vodka. But the sales of premium vodkas are thriving. This is an example of

Research suggests that having a competitive advantage in ____ creates more value in the cost leadership strategy than it does in the differentiation strategy.

If Southwest Airlines employees lost their high enthusiasm and commitment to the company,

Which of the following are central to implementing value-creating strategies and thereby satisfying customers'needs?

Amazon has built capabilities around Internet technology and e-commerce to facilitate information exchanges with its customers in a cost effective manner. This represents which of the three service dimension?

Three sources of flexibility in completing primary and support activities are particularly useful for firms using the integrated strategy. These are