Question 1

Which of the following is NOT part of organizing the work effort in ways that promote successful strategy execution?

Accepted Answer

A)  Facilitating collaboration with external partners and strategic allies 
B)  Providing for cross-unit coordination and deciding which value chain activities to perform in-house and which ones to outsource 
C)  Determining how much authority to centralize at the top and how much to delegate to down-the-line managers and employees 
D)  Determining which functions and organizational units require superior intellectual capital 
E)  Maintaining expertise and resource depth in performing those internally strategy-critical value chain activities that underpin its long-term competitive success and provide for the main building blocks in the organization structure

Question 2

The classic way to coordinate the work efforts of internal organization units is to:

Accepted Answer

A)  establish a corporate culture where teamwork is a core value and decisions are made by general consensus among team leaders in the affected work units. 
B)  have closely related activities report to a single executive who has the authority and organizational clout to coordinate,integrate,and arrange for the cooperation of units under their supervision. 
C)  have the heads of support activities report to the heads of primary,strategy-critical activities. 
D)  establish monetary incentives that reward people for being cooperative team players. 
E)  have frequent meetings among the heads of closely related activities and work units to establish mutually agreeable deadlines.

Question 3

Identify and briefly discuss/explain three components of structuring a company's work effort to promote successful strategy execution.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Identify and briefly discuss/explain three components of...

Question 4

Identify and discuss the basic tenets,the chief advantages,and the chief disadvantages of centralized organizational structures.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Identify and discuss the basic tenets,the chief...

Question 5

Diversified companies striving to capture the benefits of synergy between separate businesses have to be aware of all of the following challenges EXCEPT:

Accepted Answer

A)  giving business-unit heads full rein to operate independently. 
B)  having pieces of strategically relevant activities and capabilities scattered across many departments,with each pursuing its own priorities,projects,and agendas. 
C)  centralizing performance of functions requiring close coordination at the functional level. 
D)  serving the interests of individual businesses and not the company as a whole. 
E)  forming cross-business strategic fit by enforcing close collaboration.

Question 6

In formulating an action agenda to implement and execute a new or different strategy,the place for managers to begin is with:

Accepted Answer

A)  the task of revising and enhancing the company's core competencies. 
B)  choosing which leadership style to employ in trying to carry out the strategy successfully. 
C)  evaluating whether existing policies and procedures are adequately strategy-supportive. 
D)  allocating more resources to strategy-critical parts of the business. 
E)  a probing assessment of what the organization must do differently and better to carry out the strategy successfully.

Question 7

Which of the following statements about developing organizational competencies and capabilities is FALSE?

Accepted Answer

A)  Core competencies or capabilities are most often bundles of skills and know-how that grow out of the combined efforts of cross-functional work groups and departments performing complementary activities at different locations in a firm's value chain. 
B)  Evolving changes in customer needs and competitive conditions often require tweaking and adjusting a company's portfolio of competencies and intellectual capital to keep its capabilities freshly honed and on the cutting edge. 
C)  Normally,core competencies and competitive capabilities emerge incrementally as a company (1)acts to bolster skills that contributed to earlier successes,or (2)acts to respond to customer problems,new technological or market opportunities,and the competitive maneuvers of rivals. 
D)  Building organizational capabilities is best and most cost-effectively accomplished by hiring a cadre of people with the right talent and expertise,putting them together in a single work group,and then teaming the work group with key strategic allies/partners to mesh the skills,expertise,and competencies needed to perform the desired capabilities with some proficiency. 
E)  The key to leveraging a core competence into a distinctive competence (or transforming a capability into a competitively superior capability)is concentrating more effort and talent than rivals on deepening and strengthening the competence or capability so as to achieve the dominance needed for competitive advantage.

Question 8

Implementing and executing a company's strategy:

Accepted Answer

A)  is primarily the job of the company's board of directors since they direct the actions and policies of the top senior executives in executing the strategy. 
B)  is a task for every manager and the whole management team,but ultimate responsibility for success or failure falls upon the top senior executives,especially the chief executive officer of the company. 
C)  is primarily a responsibility of all company personnel because all personnel are active participants in the strategy execution process and their actions have a huge impact on the ultimate outcome. 
D)  should be delegated to a chief strategy implementer appointed by the chief executive officer. 
E)  is primarily a task for middle and lower-level managers because it is they who have responsibility for pushing the needed changes all the way down to the lowest levels of the organization.

Question 9

What does a good strategy execution require?

Accepted Answer

A)  A team effort with all managers having strategy executing responsibility in their areas of authority,and making all employees active participants in the strategy execution process 
B)  Incremental changes to current operating practices be implemented to ensure existing resource capabilities are not impacted too severely 
C)  Little consensus building,despite the magnitude of the proposed changes,because employees know the benefits gained from the planning process 
D)  The strategy-critical value chain activities to be simplified so that all company personnel can be cognizant of the benefits of the execution parameters 
E)  Additional investments in capital projects rather than adding to a company's talent base and building intellectual capital

Question 10

In order to coordinate and control the complex set of activities,managers must ensure:

Accepted Answer

A)  the organizational structure enables bureaucratic waste and strives for eliminating imposed capacity limitations of the strategy. 
B)  the various parts of the organizational structure are aligned with one another and also matched to the requirements of the strategy. 
C)  they have enough employees dedicated to the various functions to attain economies of scale benefits. 
D)  they can orchestrate the process with forceful administration and political maneuvering. 
E)  they accommodate situational idiosyncrasies to build a competitively capable organization.

Question 11

A company must do all of the following to match structure to strategy EXCEPT:

Accepted Answer

A)  choose a basic organizational design and modify it to fit the company's particular business. 
B)  supplement the design structure with coordinating mechanisms. 
C)  institute networking and communication arrangements to support strategy execution. 
D)  set up "ideal" organizational arrangements despite having to disturb existing relationships. 
E)  knit the efforts of outsourced groups together.

Question 12

Outsourcing critics contend that shifting responsibility for performing value chain activities to outside specialists:

Accepted Answer

A)  has the disadvantage of raising fixed costs and reducing variable costs and makes it harder to develop distinctive competencies. 
B)  can hollow out a company's knowledge base and capabilities,leaving it at the mercy of outsider suppliers,and short of the resource strengths to be a master of its own destiny. 
C)  results in less organizational flexibility and leads to sometimes exorbitant costs in collaborating with outside suppliers and strategic partners. 
D)  slows down decision making on key strategic issues because outside suppliers have to be consulted first. 
E)  lowers the morale of company employees,dampens a company's ability to implement best practices,and results in greater bureaucracy and slower decision making.

Question 13

Which of the following statements falsely characterizes the managerial task of executing strategy?

Accepted Answer

A)  Executing strategy is an action-oriented,make-things-happen task. 
B)  Executing strategy tests a manager's ability to direct organizational change,achieve continuous improvement in operations and business processes,create and nurture a strategy-supportive culture,and consistently meet or beat performance targets. 
C)  Implementing new strategic initiatives principally involves employing managerial techniques to overcome resistance to change. 
D)  Executing strategy requires a team effort which entails that every manager think through the answer to "What does my area have to do to implement its part of the strategic plan,and what should I do to get these things accomplished effectively and efficiently?" 
E)  Implementing and executing strategy is primarily an operations-driven activity revolving around the management of people and business processes.

Question 14

Explain what is involved in building capabilities internally.What steps are required? How much time does it take? How hard is it? Support your answer.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Explain what is involved in building capabilities...

Question 15

In which of the following steps does updating the company's capabilities to match changing market conditions and customer expectations take place?

Accepted Answer

A)  Staffing the organization 
B)  Recruiting and retaining talented employees 
C)  Acquiring,developing,and strengthening key resources and capabilities 
D)  Organizing value chain activities and business processes 
E)  Structuring the organization and work effort

Question 16

Who has strategy execution responsibility and who is ultimately responsible for making sure that the task of implementing and executing the strategy goes well?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Who has strategy execution responsibility and who...

Question 17

Which of the following is unlikely to be a primary building block in a company's organizational structure?

Accepted Answer

A)  Functional departments 
B)  Process and operations departments 
C)  Empowered employee departments 
D)  Divisional units performing major processing steps 
E)  Geographic organizational units

Question 18

Superior strategy execution capabilities are:

Accepted Answer

A)  easy for rivals to copy. 
B)  socially simple.. 
C)  develop quickly. 
D)  easy to achieve. 
E)  hard to imitate.

Question 19

Putting together a capable top management team with the right mix of experiences,skills,and abilities:

Accepted Answer

A)  should take top priority in building competitively valuable core competencies. 
B)  is particularly important when the firm is pursuing unrelated diversification or making a number of new acquisitions in related businesses. 
C)  is important in building an organization capable of proficient strategy execution,but is nearly always less crucial than doing a superior job of training and retraining employees. 
D)  entails filling key managerial slots with smart people who are clear thinkers,good at figuring out what needs to be done,and who are skilled in "making it happen" and delivering good results. 
E)  is particularly essential for executing a strategy to keep a company's costs lower than rivals and become the industry's low-cost leader.

Question 20

It is ideal for key management slots to be filled from outside:

Accepted Answer

A)  in turnaround and rapid-growth situations. 
B)  when problems with the old strategy are obvious. 
C)  in a worst-case scenario. 
D)  when the managerial whole is greater than the sum of individual efforts. 
E)  in a centralized structure.

Exam 10: Building an Organization Capable of Good Strategy Execution