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1
Q

What are the three main steps in the rational planning model?

A

Strategic position,

Strategic choice,

Implementation (or strategy into action)

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2
Q

What is meant by logical incrementalism?

A

The idea that planning is best done as a series of relatively small adjustments to past strategies rather than trying to plan radical leaps forward.

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3
Q

What is an SBU?

A

An SBU is a strategic business unit. Each SBU has to have its own strategy.
For example, one division might sell to the public and another division to companies. Pricing, marketing, competition etc will be different for the two divisions so this implies different strategies will probably be needed.

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4
Q

Why is stakeholder analysis important in strategic planning?

A

Key player stakeholders can prevent strategies of which they do not approve. The hope is that any strategic plan keeps most of the people happy most of the time (and the key players happy all the time!)

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5
Q

Why do advocates of logical incrementalism think that is a better approach than more radical planning?

A

Bounded rationality: we do not know (and cannot know) everything that is important to future plans so what is the point in making ambitious plans that rest on guesswork?
Additionally, managers do not have time to carefully evaluate all possible combinations of events.

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6
Q

What is a mission statement and what are its main elements?

A

The prime purpose of a mission statement is to set out the reason for the organisation’s existence.
The main sections are often taken to be: purpose, position (in the market), culture, ethics and values.

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7
Q

What are the two axes on a Boston Consulting Grid?

A

Market growth rate and relative market share (market share/share of market leader)

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8
Q

What are the three strategic ‘lenses’?

A
  • Strategy as ideas,
  • Strategy as experience,
  • Strategy as design.
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9
Q

What are the four quadrants of a BCG matrix and what market share and growth rates do they have?

A

Problem child (or question mark): high market growth rate, low market share.
Star: high market growth rate, high market share.
Cash cow: low market growth rate, high market share.
Dog: low market growth rate, low market share.

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10
Q

An organisation’s capabilities arise from two sources. What are these?

A

Resources and competences (how resources are used).

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11
Q

What is the problem with a problem child product or division?

A

BCG suggests that only companies with large market shares can survive in the long term so the company has to decide whether to withdraw or to invest to achieve a large market share. Note that niche or focus companies can survive with what looks like a small market share.

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12
Q

What is freewheeling opportunism?

A

The idea that planning can be inhibiting and that you are better grabbing opportunities as they arise.

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13
Q

List five advantages of strategic planning

A

Any five of:

  • It forces you to look ahead
  • Better coordination
  • Better use of resources
  • Targets to which all can work
  • An opportunity to influence the future
  • Holds out the promise of better times in the future after initial hard work
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14
Q

What are the four stages of a typical product life cycle?

A

Development, growth, maturity, decline.

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15
Q

What is needed for capabilities that give sustained competitive advantage?

A

Unique resources and/or core competences. These allow you to continually out-perform your rivals.

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16
Q

What is a PESTEL analysis?

A

An environmental analysis considering the influences of: politics, economics, social trends, technological changes, ecological (environmental) concerns, laws.

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17
Q

‘M words’ are often used to describe resources. List nine.

A 
Any nine of:
material,
machinery/manufacturing,
money,
markets,
marketing,
management,
men and women,
MIS (IT),
methods (knowhow),
make (brand).
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18
Q

Into what three categories can stakeholders be divided (not Mendelow’s classification)

A
  • Internal (such as employees),
  • Connected (such as customers,)
  • External (such as local people).
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19
Q

What are Porter’s five forces?

A
  • Rivalry/competition,
  • Threat of new entrants,
  • Supplier pressure,
  • Buyer pressure,
  • Threat of substitutes.
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20
Q

What is a stakeholder?

A

Any person or other organisation affected by an organisation.

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21
Q

What is a threshold capability?

A

The capability that just allows you to survive. It implies threshold resources and threshold competences.

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22
Q

What are two potential advantages of freewheeling opportunism?

A

Any two of:

  • fast decisions;
  • no time or money spent on planning;
  • not committed to one course of action (flexibility).
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23
Q

Should Porter’s five forces theory be applied to all companies in the country, an industry, an individual company?

A

Porter’s five forces should be applied to an industry to judge industry attractiveness.

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24
Q

What is meant by the terms ‘position-based’ and ‘resource-based’ strategic planning?

A

Position-based: alter your position to match the environment.
Resource-based: look at your resources and competences and see if they can be redeployed in ways that will give competitive advantage

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25
Q

What are the characteristics of the market that you would expect to see at the mature stage of a product life cycle?

A

Fierce competition because the market is not growing. This leads to price pressure and the need to improve specifications to sell to an experienced set of customers. Weaker competitors often drop out and many combine (consolidation) to achieve the economies of scale needed. High profits should be possible for efficient producers (great scale, efficiency and well down the learning curve).

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26
Q

What are the potentially successful strategies as set out on the strategic clock?

A

No frills, low price, hybrid, differentiator, focussed differentiator.

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27
Q

In Ansoff’s matrix, what is moving to a new market with an existing product known as?

A

Market development

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28
Q

What are the four descriptions of change in terms of scope of change and nature of change?

A

Adaptation (nature = incremental and scope = realignment)
Evolution (nature = incremental and scope = transformation)
Reconstruction (nature = big bang and scope = realignment)
Revolution (nature = big bang and scope = transformation)

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29
Q

In the Ashridge Portfolio display explain the terms: heartland business, ballast business, value trap and alien business.

A

Heartland: high benefit and high feel. The subsidiary needs help and the holding company can supply it.
Ballast business: low benefit and high feel. No help is needed
Value trap: high benefit and low feel.
Alien business: low benefit and low feel.

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30
Q

What can a company do to increase its profits if it stays with existing products and existing markets?

A

Market penetration,
Efficiency gains,
Withdrawal,
Consolidation.

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31
Q

What are the two axes on the Mckinsey/General Electric grid?

A

SBU strength and market attractiveness.

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32
Q

What are the characteristics of a professional bureaucracy in terms of Mintzberg’s structures?

A

Relatively short middle line and a small technostructure.
Because each job is different in a professional firm, there has to be close liaison between the strategic apex and the operating core and the technostructure has limited opportunity to enforce a standard approach.

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33
Q

Describe what is meant by the term ‘matrix structure’?

A

In a matrix structure, each employee has responsibilities to more than one superior. Eg, in project management an engineer could be responsible to the project manager and to the engineering manager.

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34
Q

What are Porter’s three generic strategies?

A

Cost leadership,
Differentiation,
Focus.

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35
Q

What are the three levels or categories of business process change?

A
  • Automation,
  • Rationalisation
  • Business process engineering.
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36
Q

What are the axes of Ansoff’s matrix?

A

Products (existing and current); markets (existing and current)

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37
Q

How does the portfolio manager’s approach to portfolio management work?

A

It’s a hands-off style.
Subsidiary companies are given financial targets and then left to get on with achieving those.
If targets are attained then all is well. If they are not attained then the subsidiary might be sold or management changed.

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38
Q

What are the five elements of Mintzberg’s organisation forms?

A 
Strategic apex,
Middle line,
Operating core,
Support
Technostructure.
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39
Q

What are the two classes of diversification?

A

Related and unrelated diversification.

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40
Q

What is a ‘shamrock organisation?

A

Handy defines a shamrock organization as a ‘core of essential executives and workers supported by outside contractors and part-time help’

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41
Q

n Ansoff’s matrix, what is selling a new product to an existing market known as?

A

Product development

42
Q

What are the support activities of the value chain?

A

Firm infrastructure,
Human resource management,
Technology development,
Procurement

43
Q

What are the main ways in which a business can be divisionalised?

A

By market and by product

44
Q

In BCG terms, what is meant by a balanced portfolio of products?

A

Some cash cows to generate lots of cash (but cash cows are heading towards market decline), and some problem children needing investment.
The cash generated by the cash cows can be used to build the problem children into star products that will become the cash cows of the future.

45
Q

What is meant by the terms ‘backward integration’ and ‘forward integration’?

A

Backward integration is taking over (or setting up) a supplier;
Forward integration is taking over (or setting up) a customer or supply chain.

46
Q

What is a span of control and how does it differ between tall narrow and wide flat structures.

A

The span of control (SoC)l is the number of people directly reporting to a manager. In a tall narrow structure the SoC is low; in a wide flat structure the SoC is large.

47
Q

What are Johnson, Scholes and Whittington’s three styles of portfolio management?

A
  • Portfolio managers,
  • Synergy seekers
  • Parental developers.
48
Q

What are the primary activities of the value chain?

A 
Inbound logistics,
Operations,
Outbound logistics,
Sales and marketing,
Service.\
49
Q

What is the name of the business structure which is organised as accounting, manufacturing, sales, IT etc?

A

This is a functional structure as it organises the business by function (or department).

50
Q

In the Ashridge Portfolio Display, what is meant by the terms ‘Benefit’ and ‘Feel’?

A 
Feel = the fit between the SBUs critical success factors (what it needs to be good at) and what head office could supply to help the SBU achieve those critical success factors.
Benefit = the opportunities to the SBU achieve its critical success factors.
51
Q

What is market targeting?

A

Deciding which segments of a market to address with products or services.

52
Q

What are transactional and transformational leadership?

A

Transactional: focus on short term, control, maintain/improve current situation, plan, organise, control, defend existing culture, positional power exercised
Transformational: long-term vision, climate of trust, empowerment, change culture, power from relationships.

53
Q

What are the 6Is of e-business?

A
  • Intelligence
  • Individualisation
  • Interactivity
  • Integration
  • Industry (structure)
  • Independence (of location)
54
Q

What are the contextual features in Balogun and Hope Hailey’s theory of change management?

A 
Power,
Time,
Scope,
Diversity,
Capability,
Capacity,
Readiness,
Preservation

In addition, the stability and so on of the software house also needs to be investigated.

55
Q

On what criteria should the suitability of a software supplier be assessed?

A
  • Financial stability
  • Size
  • Expertise
  • Reputation
  • Sometimes location of offices is important for support
  • Other clients – perhaps if it deals with competitors.
56
Q

In terms of a process’s strategic importance and complexity/dynamism how, should a process be carried out according to Harmon’s process strategy matrix?

A

High strategic importance, highly complex/dynamic: BPR and improvement
High strategic importance, low complexity/stable: automate
Low strategic importance, low complexity/stable: automate, outsource
Low strategic importance, high complexity/dynamic: outsource

57
Q

Name four types of activity that come under the heading of promotion?

A
  • Advertising
  • Sales promotion
  • Personal selling
  • Public relations
58
Q

What is a shamrock organisation?

A

It is a type of virtual organisation. It consists of a professional core, a contractual fringe and a flexible work-force. These act together to serve the customer.

59
Q

What additional 3Ps were added to the original 4P marketing mix to cover the marketing of services?

A
  • People
  • Physical evidence
  • Process
60
Q

What are the potential advantages of buying a computer package instead of having software specially written?

A
  • Cheaper
  • Faster
  • Probably no fatal errors (unless the package is very new)
  • Usually good support and updating
61
Q

What are four potential benefits of decentralisation?

A
  • Top managers have more time for strategic decisions.
  • Better decisions: fast, functional experts, geographical experts.
  • Motivation of staff.
  • Training and assessment of staff
62
Q
  • Top managers have more time for strategic decisions.
  • Better decisions: fast, functional experts, geographical experts.
  • Motivation of staff.
  • Training and assessment of staff
A

Required competences are defined together with the required levels of achievement. Achieved competences are compared against this to determine where improvement is needed.

63
Q

What are the two axes of Harmon’s process–strategy matrix?

A

The process’s strategic importance and its complexity/dynamism

64
Q

A change agent is often a consultant. What are the advantages of hiring such a consultant?

A
  • Often a change agent is a consultant because:
  • Skilled in the change process
  • Knowledge/expertise in the types of change needed
  • Perceived as independent and fair
  • Someone for management to transfer risk to.
65
Q

What are the steps in Lewin’s three step approach to change management?

A
  • Unfreeze
  • Effect the changes
  • Refreeze
66
Q

What are Handy’s four cultural types?

A
  • Power
  • Role
  • Task
  • Person
67
Q

What is Lewin’s force field analysis of change management?

A

Forces for change are likely to be opposed by forces resisting change.
Better to weaken the resistance than to confront it head-on.

68
Q

What are the potential barriers to e-business?

A 
Set-up costs
Type of business
Running costs
Time to set up system
No in-house skills
Suppliers/customers not interested
Security worries
69
Q

What are four business process redesign patterns?

A

Re-engineering – zero-based
Simplification – eliminate duplication and redundant steps
Value-added analysis – remove non-value adding activities
Gaps and disconnects – check flows between departments

70
Q

What are the seven elements of the cultural web?

A
  • Symbols and titles
  • Power relations
  • Organisational structure
  • Control systems
  • Rituals and routines
  • Myths and stories
  • Organisational assumptions (paradigm)
71
Q

What are the three types of market targeting?

A
  • Undifferentiated,
  • Differentiated,
  • Concentrated.
72
Q

What are the design choices in Balogun and Hope Hailey’s theory of change management?

A 
Change path
Change start point
Change style
Change interventions
Change roles
73
Q

What are the original 4Ps of the marketing mix?

A
  • Product,
  • Price,
  • Promotion,
  • Place
74
Q

Why has HRM become more difficult in many countries?

A

Demography/population – fewer younger people joining the job market
Greater technical content of many jobs.
Movement to service industries away from manufacturing (greater contact employee – customer)
Greater job mobility so a greater recruitment burden.

75
Q

What are the main headings under which software should be assessed?

A
  • Functionality
  • Response times
  • Usability
  • Compatibility
  • Reliability
  • Scalability
  • Cost
76
Q

What are the typical characteristics of a project?

A

Suitability
Acceptability
Feasibility

77
Q

What is a data warehouse and data mining?

A

A data warehouse is a vast collection of historic transaction data (eg, sales by a supermarket).
Data mining is searching though that looking for patterns and associations that might be helpful in increasing profits.

78
Q

What are the typical purposes of a project initiation document?

A
  • Defines the project, its scope and its deliverables.
  • Justifies the project: cost/benefit analysis; risk analysis.
  • Secures funding for the project.
  • Defines the roles and responsibilities of project participants.
  • Gives people the information they need to be productive and effective right from the start.
    What? Who? How? How much? Why? When?
79
Q

What is meant by: job enlargement, job rotation and job enrichment?

A

They all attempt to increase motivation. Job enlargement = more of almost exactly the same; a horizontal change
Job rotation = moving round jobs of the same skill level; a horizontal change
Job enrichment = introducing greater interest and challenge to a job to increase; a vertical change.
Only job enrichment is likely to be very successful at increasing motivation.

80
Q

What are three determinants of risk in a project?

A

How well is the project scope defined?
How large is the project?
How complex is the project?

81
Q

What is penetration pricing?

A

A very low initial price to gain a large market share. A very large market share might allow the low price to be sustained and can act as a barrier to entry.

82
Q

What is the expected profit arising from the following and what are the problems using expected values in project appraisals?
Outcome I p = 0.3 Profit = 3000
Outcome II p = 0.7 Profit = 5000

A

0.3 x 3000 + 0.7 x 5000 = 4400
Problems:
How are probabilities estimated
The expected value is usually not ‘expected’
Risk is not captured (eg a poor outcome of 3000 is quite possible in the above case)

83
Q

What is meant by marketing?

A

Establish needs (market research) and develop the appropriate product or service (R&D).

84
Q

What are the two types of review that should form part of a project completion report?

A
  • Post-project review – This is about how well the project was conducted
  • Post implementation review – This is about what the project achieved eg costs v benefits
85
Q

What would by included as product features?

A
  • Quality
  • Design
  • Brand
  • Packaging
86
Q

What is a critical activity and a project critical path?

A

The critical determines the time it will take to complete a project.
A critical activity lies on the critical path.
If a critical activity takes longer, project completion will be delayed.

87
Q

What tools can be used on a project cost/benefit analysis?

A
  • Net present value/payback/ROCE
  • Sensitivity analysis and risk analysis
  • Forecasting techniques
  • Expected values
  • Decision trees
88
Q

What is price skimming?

A

Initially a very high price (as some customers will pay that). Then the price is lowered to attract other customers and to sale greater numbers o goods.

89
Q

What are project gateways?

A

As each stage of a project is completed, it is subject to independent review.
The ‘gateway’ is not opened to the next stage unless the last stage has been successfully completed.

90
Q

What three items are usually reviewed at appraisal meetings?

A
  • Past performance
  • Future potential and career path
  • Rewards
91
Q

What are the two parts of a time series analysis that are analysed using moving averages?

A 
The trend (the underlying increase/decrease);
The seasonal variations
92
Q

What is non-price competition?

A

When customers consider more than the price when buying. For example, a strong brand can stimulate sales.

93
Q

What is meant by ‘benefits realisation’?

A

Benefits arising from projects are not automatic even in a technically successful project.
Therefore, the project manager should carry out tasks such as: demonstrations and presentations, training, managing and championing change.

94
Q

What is ‘transactions marketing’ and ‘relationship marketing’?

A

Transactions marketing: Focuses on the product and develops marketing mixes for it according to the needs customers satisfy when they buy it.
Relationship marketing: Seeks to attract, maintain and enhance customer relationships by focusing on the whole satisfaction experienced by the customer when dealing with the firm.

95
Q

What are the potential problems when relying on linear regression results?

A

The fit must be tested using the coefficient of correlation (r), or the coefficient of determination (r2).
If only a few points are used the results are not reliable
Extrapolation (predicting outside the range) is dangerous
Other known influences (such as inflation) should be removed first.
Even good correlation does no prove cause and effect.

96
Q

What are the project management variables?

A
  • Cost
  • Time
  • Quality
  • Scope
97
Q

What are the three classes of benefit that can be identified when appraising projects?

A
  • Observable
  • Measurable
  • Quantifiable
  • Financial
98
Q

What are the desirable characteristics of a test market?

A
  • Small
  • Representative
  • Stable
  • Suitable facilities for promotion and delivery.
99
Q

What are the typical characteristics of a project?

A

A start/end, non-routine
Novel, unique challenges
Team members from different backgrounds so different: priorities, terminology and outlooks
No benefit until finished

100
Q

What are the typical qualities of a project manager?

A
  • Leadership abilities, including the ability to motivate
  • Technical ability in running projects and in the subject matter
  • Ability to negotiate with project sponsors, project team members and suppliers.
  • Reporting on progress and difficulties
  • The ability to stay calm in a crisis
  • Excellent communication
  • Ability to delegate to team members.
101
Q

What are the three approaches to job design?

A
  • Job enlargement,
  • Job rotation
  • Job enrichment.

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