Deck 5: Developing Competitive Advantage and Strategic Focus

Question 1

To successfully utilize SWOT analysis as a catalyst for strategic planning, the marketing manager must focus on several important issues. Which of the following IS NOT one of these issues?

A) The manager must look beyond the firm's current product offerings.
B) The manager must find ways to connect the firm's strengths to its opportunities.
C) The manager must strive to convert weaknesses into strengths.
D) The manager must attempt to minimize the firm's limitations.
E) The manager must find ways to transform key threats into strengths.

Answer 1

E

Question 2

With respect to the text's advice in conducting a SWOT analysis, which of the following best describes "Look for Causes, Not Characteristics"?

A) Break down clichés into meaningful customer-oriented issues
B) Refrain from conducting a single generic analysis for the entire organization
C) Gauge the actual perceptions of customers that give rise to the firm's strengths and weaknesses
D) Focus on the resources possessed by the firm and/or its competitors that are the true causes for the firm's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
E) Clearly differentiate internal issues from external issues

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The failure to understand the difference between internal and external issues is one of the major reasons for a poorly conducted SWOT analysis. This happens because managers:

A) see opportunities and threats as being the same thing.
B) confuse weaknesses with threats.
C) see strengths as the only meaningful issue in a SWOT analysis.
D) confuse strengths with opportunities.
E) list their marketing options or strategies as opportunities.

Answer 3

E

Question 4

As a tool of Blue Ocean Strategy, the strategy canvas provides a way to visualize the firm's strategy relative to other firms in the industry. The central portion of the strategy canvas is the _____, or the graphic representation of the firm's relative performance across its industry's factors.

A) value curve
B) strategy line
C) strategic focus
D) divergence curve
E) action diagram

Question 5

The overall concept or model that guides the firm as it weaves various marketing elements together into a coherent strategy is called its:

A) marketing strategy
B) operational focus
C) strategic posture
D) marketing thrust
E) strategic focus

Question 6

In the marketing strategy for Amazon, the following statement appears: Our strategy is designed to increase the percentage of repeat customers from 80 percent to 85 percent in the next 12 months. This statement is an example of a:

A) quantitative goal
B) continuous objective
C) procedural objective
D) qualitative objective
E) discontinuous objective

Question 7

By focusing on efficiency of operations and processes, lower costs, and delivering good value, Southwest Airlines attempts to build a competitive advantage based on:

A) production orientation
B) customer intimacy
C) process improvement
D) operational excellence
E) strategic efficiency

Question 8

Microsoft's Windows platform dominates the market for personal computer operating systems. By continuously upgrading and stretching the technology underlying its Windows system, Microsoft is pursuing a strategy of:

A) customer intimacy
B) product leadership
C) operational excellence
D) total quality management
E) technological leadership

Question 9

Identify and explain the directives for the productive use of SWOT analysis. Which directive do you think is the most important? Why?

Question 10

In terms of SWOT analysis, when does a strength become a capability of the firm?

A) when the strength can be tied to satisfying a customer need
B) when the strength cannot be copied by competitors
C) when the strength stands alone without any corresponding weaknesses
D) when the strength can be connected to a second strength
E) when the strength can be supported by sufficient resources

Question 11

Your supervisor repeatedly informs you that "Goals without objectives are essentially meaningless." What is the rationale for such a philosophy?

A) Goals are necessary to provide specific benchmarks that are used to gauge performance.
B) Objectives provide a theoretical benchmark rather than a practical benchmark.
C) A goal is not a goal unless it contains one or more objectives.
D) Progress is impossible to track without measurable performance targets.
E) Objectives are necessary to provide qualitative benchmarks that are used to gauge performance.

Question 12

Why is it important that marketing goals involve some degree of intangibility?

A) It makes it more difficult for competitors to determine the firm's marketing strategy.
B) It makes goals more consistent with the objectives that follow.
C) It makes goals easier to achieve.
D) It promotes learning by forcing employees to ask questions about the strategy.
E) It makes the goal more motivational and promotes continuous improvement

Question 13

Firms possessing certain core competencies are more likely to create competitive advantages based on these competencies. However, before a competitive advantage can be translated into specific customer benefits, the firm's _____ must recognize that its competencies give it an advantage over the competition.

A) management
B) target markets
C) shareholders
D) employees
E) strategic partners

Question 14

_____ typically occur within the competitive, customer, economic, political/legal, technological, and/or sociocultural environments of the firm.

A) Strengths and weaknesses
B) Strengths and opportunities
C) Opportunities and threats
D) Weaknesses and threats
E) Opportunities and weaknesses

Question 15

Marketing goals can be defined as:

A) quantitative guidelines that help firms achieve desired results.
B) broad, qualitative statements of desired accomplishments.
C) performance process controls.
D) specifications by which performance will be assessed.
E) precise statements of desired accomplishments.

Question 16

All of the following are benefits of SWOT analysis EXCEPT:

A) It is simple to use.
B) Its structured nature ensures that data and information are correctly categorized.
C) It promotes managerial collaboration.
D) It can synthesize and integrate diverse information.
E) It can reduce costs.

Question 17

With regard to Blue Ocean Strategy, the Four-Actions Framework is designed to challenge traditional assumptions about marketing strategy by asking four key questions. Which of the following IS NOT one of these questions?

A) Which factors should be reduced well below the industry's standard?
B) Which factors should be raised well above the industry's standard?
C) Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?
D) Which factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated?
E) Which factors used throughout the industry should be copied?

Question 18

May firms, like the Altria Group, focus on diversification in their marketing strategies because they possess:

A) many internal strengths and many external opportunities.
B) many internal weaknesses and many external opportunities.
C) many internal strengths and few external opportunities.
D) many internal strengths and many external threats.
E) many internal weaknesses and many external threats.

Question 19

Expansion and growth, with new products and new markets, are the keys to Google's _____ approach to marketing strategy. Google uses this approach because it possesses many different strengths that coincide with key market opportunities.

A) defensive
B) focused
C) aggressive
D) proactive
E) diversified

Question 20

Strengths are typically based on the existence and nature of the _____ possessed by the firm. Weaknesses stem from a lack of these important factors.

A) patents and capital
B) resources and relationships
C) customers and partnerships
D) products and customers
E) customers and resources

Question 21

Discuss the role of the strategy canvas and the four-actions framework in establishing a strategic focus for the firm's marketing strategy. Why are these approaches invaluable in today's highly competitive environment?

Question 22

Discuss each of the three competitive advantage strategies (operational excellence, product leadership, customer intimacy) and explain why most firms pursue only one of these strategies.

Question 23

Identify and explain the major characteristics of marketing goals.

Question 24

Identify and explain the major characteristics of marketing objectives.