Exam 13: Implementing Corporate Strategy: Managing the Multibusiness Firm

The principal mechanisms through which the corporate headquarters seeks to improve the strategic and operational management of its businesses are:

What are the two dimensions of the Ashridge portfolio display?

.The GE/McKinsey portfolio planning matrix is less sophisticated than the BCG growth-share matrix,but is easier to apply.

If corporate management focuses heavily upon enforcing financial performance targets on its individual businesses,this increases the need for corporate management to guide the strategic plans of the individual businesses.

Which of the following is not a key difference between a multidivisional company and a holding company?

4,In a holding company,such as Berkshire Hathaway,the corporate headquarters is closely involved in strategic decision making in the individual subsidiaries.

The strategic planning systems of multibusiness corporations have been criticized for the fact that they do not make strategy.

A key challenge for the strategic planning systems of large corporations is reconciling top-down strategic leadership with bottom-up strategy initiatives.

A strategic inflection point is a point where major changes in a firm's competitive environment require a complete change of strategy

Sharing resources and activities between business units can often impose costs which exceed the value of the synergies gained.

Increasingly,the corporate headquarters of multibusiness companies are being divided into two parts: that which exerts financial and strategic control over the businesses and that which provided common services to the businesses.

A major limitation of the BCG matrix in guiding corporate strategy is:

Portfolio planning techniques, (also called portfolio matrixes),contribute to the following corporate management function:

The Ashridge portfolio display is distinguished by the fact that it takes account of fit between each business and the corporate owner.

The type of corporate strategy through which most leading private equity groups such as Carlyle Group,Kohlberg Kravis Roberts,and Blackstone add value to the businesses they acquire is best described as:

"Restructuring" is a corporate strategy that involves acquiring companies then intervening to cut costs,divest assets,revise competitive strategies,and adjust financial structure.

The mechanisms through which the corporate headquarters exercises control over individual businesses can be classified into "input control" and "output control." Performance management systems represent a form of "input control."

Mintzberg identified a key rigidity of the multidivisional firm is its tendency to impose standardized management systems across all of its divisions.

Corporate governance is:

Corporate management can enhance the performance of its individual businesses through imposing corporate systems for performance management and resource allocation,however,the main downside of such corporate intervention is: