Exam 4: Evaluating a Companys Resources and Competitive Position

A) determine whether the value chains of rival companies are similar or different.
B) benchmark the costs of primary value chain activities against the costs of the support value chain activities.
C) determine the costs of each primary and support activity comprising a company's value chain and thereby reveal the nature and makeup of a company's internal cost structure.
D) determine the costs of each strategic action a company initiates.
E) analyze the costs of each primary activity.

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A) resources are unique.
B) resources must be built over time.
C) capabilities reflect a high level of social complexity and causal ambiguity.
D) resources and capabilities require a high level of capital investment.
E) resources are primarily intangible.

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A) company competence.
B) core competence.
C) distinctive competence.
D) key value chain proficiency.
E) competitive advantage over rivals.

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A) whether the company's sales are growing faster, slower, or about the same pace as the industry as a whole, thus resulting in a rising, falling, or stable market share
B) whether it has a larger number of competitive assets than competitive liabilities and whether it has a superior quality product
C) the firm's image and reputation with its customers
D) whether its profit margins are rising or falling and how large its margins are relative to those of its rivals
E) evidence of improvement in internal processes such as defect rate, order fulfillment, delivery times, days of inventory, and employee productivity

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A) competitive strength analysis.
B) activity-based costing.
C) resource cost mapping.
D) SWOT analysis.
E) benchmarking.

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A) is an accounting system that assigns a company's expenses to whichever activity in a company's value chain is responsible for creating the cost.
B) involves using benchmarking techniques to develop cost estimates for the value chain activities of each major rival.
C) is a powerful tool for identifying the different pieces of a company's value chain and classifying them as primary activities and support activities.
D) involves determining which value chain activities represent variable costs and which represent fixed costs.
E) is a tool for identifying the activities that cause a company's product to be strongly differentiated from the products of rivals.

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A) competence.
B) competitive advantage over rivals.
C) key value chain proficiency.
D) distinctive capability.
E) resource advantage.

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A) whether the company has more competitive assets than it does competitive liabilities.
B) whether the company is in the industry's best strategic group.
C) the caliber of results the strategy is producing, specifically whether the company is achieving its financial and strategic objectives and whether it is an above-average industry performer.
D) whether the company has a shorter value chain than close rivals.
E) whether the company is in the Fortune 500.

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A) hard evidence of cost competitiveness
B) proof of resource availability
C) a company strategy
D) verification of total cost ownership
E) improvements to internal processes

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A) achieving its stated financial objectives, its financial performance equates to the industry average, and market share gains reflect short-term preferences for capacity maximization.
B) attentive to its poor execution in functional areas, business goals are stretch, and the value proposition has a product focus.
C) geared to initiatives designed to build market share and to promote corporate responsibility.
D) achieving its stated financial and strategic objectives, its financial performance is better than the industry average, and it is gaining customers and increasing its market share.
E) geared to initiatives to promote corporate social responsibility.

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A) changing to a more economical distribution strategy such as putting more emphasis on cheaper distribution channels (perhaps direct sales via the Internet) or perhaps integrating forward into company-owned retail outlets
B) enhancing differentiation through activities such as cooperative advertising at the forward end of the value chain
C) pressuring distributors/dealers and other forward-channel allies to reduce their costs and markups
D) insisting on across-the-board cost cuts in all value chain activities-those performed by suppliers, those performed in-house, and those performed by distributors/dealers
E) collaborating with forward channel allies to identify win-win opportunities to reduce costs

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A) a company's own internal activity segments, the suppliers' part, and the forward (distribution) channel portion of the value chain system
B) a company's reinforced activities identified as efficiency measures for improved effectiveness
C) only the internal activity segments
D) only the suppliers' part
E) only the distributors' channel portion

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A) the likely entry of potent new competitors
B) the lack of a well-known brand name with which to attract new customers and help retain existing customers
C) shifts in buyer needs and tastes away from the industry's product
D) costly new regulatory requirements
E) growing bargaining power on the part of the company's major customers and major suppliers

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A) signal which competitor has the most distinctive competencies and which competitor has the fewest.
B) provide useful indicators of how a company compares against key rivals, factor by factor and capability by capability-thus indicating whether the company has a net overall competitive advantage or disadvantage against each rival.
C) reveal which competitors are in the best and worst strategic groups.
D) show which industry rival has the best overall market opportunities and which competitor has the poorest market opportunities.
E) pinpoint which industry rival is subject to the least amount of competitive pressures from the five competitive forces.

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The six questions are as follows: 1. How...

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A) age of plants and equipment, number of employees, and advertising costs.
B) operating-level activities, functional area activities, and line of business activities.
C) the nature and makeup of their own internal operations, the activities performed by suppliers, and the activities performed by wholesale distribution and retailing allies.
D) human resource activities (particularly labor costs) , vertical integration activities, and strategic partnership activities.
E) variable cost activities, fixed cost activities, and administrative activities.

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A) physical resources.
B) financial resources.
C) human assets.
D) technological assets.
E) organizational resources.

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