Strategic Management Exam_What are the differences between business level and corporate level strategies?
What are the differences between business level and corporate level strategies?
| Strategic Management Exam Exam Format: Listed below are eight (8) questions. Five (5) of these will make up your exam paper. Question 1. Use a case example of your choice to illustrate and apply three strategic management models. Explain why each model is useful, when you would use it and what it means for your example. (10 marks) Question 2. What are the differences between business level and corporate level strategies? What does each enable an organisation to do? Give clear organisational examples of the different types of strategy and the implications of the options they provide. (10 marks) Question 3. Choose an example of an organisation that has been successful. Analyse the company strategically linking theory clearly to practice to explain, not only what happened, but why it happened. (10 marks) Question 4. From your studies please determine the three issues that you think will be the most important in terms of successfully implementing a new strategic direction. Use theory and examples to explain why they will matter and how to manage them. (10 marks) Question 5. Choose an example of an organisation that has been unsuccessful. Analyse the company strategically linking theory clearly to practice to explain, not only what happened, but why it happened. (10 marks) Question 6 What is the difference between Strategic Management and either Marketing or Change Management? What does understanding the difference in both the theory and the practice matter? Use theory and examples to explain your answer. (10 marks) Case Study : BIG SHOES TO FILL Innostat was Jack Donally’s creation. He had transformed the company from a small of scalpels and other surgical equipment into the world’s best-known maker of prosthetic limbs and surgical implants. Sales had reached more than $2 billion, with the company employing more than 5,000 people at locations in the US and Ireland. Innostat also had sales and marketing country organizations around the world. Innostat built a reputation for technological innovation and manufacturing quality. That was, on the face of it, surprising, since Jack had majored in history at the University of Massachusetts and liked to say that he had no head for “science talk.” However, he merged an interest in science and technology with an understanding of what customers needed and wanted. He typically came back from his travels full of ideas for new products and would go straight to the head of R&D and get him started on a project, rarely engaging Innostat’s senior team in discussions of these ideas and how they would fit into the company’s broader strategy. Despite his primary focus on new product ideas, Jack was also conscious that health care products had to be error free, and had recruited Frank Timoshotsky, from Toyota, to apply many of the car company’s quality practices. However, Innostat’s performance had declined dramatically, and the company was facing strong competitive challenges in its key markets. The firm’s once generous margins had narrowed as other companies found ways to engineer around Innostat’s patents and develop competitive products of their own. Worse, the company seemed to have lost its innovating edge. After a string of new offerings in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which delivered annual growth in revenues and profits of more than 15% a year, Innostat had not launched any major new products for the past four years, yet they were essential for profitable growth. The new CEO Stephanie Fortas asked Frank “What would you do if you had my job?” He said, “we’ve got to take a look at why people are not thinking beyond their immediate functional departments. People around here are focused only on making their numbers within their own units, so they don’t have much reason to respond to product development initiatives from R&D. Besides, they don’t believe R&D’s estimates of market potential. So why invest time and money on a promise they don’t believe? When Jack pushed an idea, we all responded because Jack was the boss, and he was just that kind of guy. But with him gone, who’s going to stick their necks out now? But we did get a report from PK Henderson a year ago. The board got Jack to call them in for a consult. They came up with this reorg idea. Most of us thought that a massive reorganization was not the answer. Personally, I still believe that the problem is motivation, that the company needs more powerful incentives to get people thinking out of the box. Jack didn’t see it, though, and he buried the report. He said that really good ideas don’t need incentives, they need passion, and that he was the chief passion officer.” The report’s recommendations involved a fairly major change to the company’s management practices. Decision rights for new product development were to be taken out of R&D and given to cross-functional new product development teams headed by senior marketing people. The teams would be responsible for seeing the development from its early stages through to introduction of the product. The teams would be made up of those most closely related to the new development: bench scientists from R&D, a relatively senior manufacturing engineer, along with the manager of the plant making the product and someone from sales. The consultants felt that the marketing division lacked the experience and credibility to do this work, although they had the best view of the market through their relationships with surgeons. However, sales and marketing at Innostat was heavily sales dominated. To get around this problem, the consultants had suggested creating a strategic marketing department that would report to the CEO. This new department would be responsible for identifying opportunities and for leading the product development process. The consultants believed that people needed to be motivated further to commit the time and energy to the new process, and recommended that employees be held accountable to both their functional and team heads. The consultants also suggested that the team leaders and members be measured on the timeliness and profitability of new products and that all incentives be monetary and based on performance. It was the final recommendation, though, that obviously got the report killed. Henderson had strongly urged Jack and other top executives to be less involved in the details of developing new products, limiting themselves to formulating strategy, choosing the portfolio of new products, reviewing team progress, and continually reprioritizing projects and reallocating money and people based on emerging information. Stephanie wondered whether the consultants who recommended these measures would ever have received another assignment from Innostat. Probably not. Jack would never have said yes to these recommendations. But should she? Question 7 What Strategic advice would you give Stephanie Fortas (see the case above) and why? Use theory to explain your answers. (10 marks) Question 8 If Stephanie Fortas chose to adopt an International Strategy what would you advise in terms of the best type of strategy to choose and implement. Use theory to explain your answers. (10 marks) |
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