Full Summary Strategy

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FULL Summary Strategy
Strategic Management (Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin)
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Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18
Summary Strategic Management

Chapter 1 – What is strategy?
Strategic management: the integrative management field that combines analysis,
formulation, and implementation in the quest for competitive advantage
Mastery of strategic management enables you to view a firm in its entirety. It also enables
you to think like a general manager to help position your firm for superior performance. The
AFI strategy framework (page 6) embodies this view of strategic management
1.1 What Strategy Is: Gaining and Sustaining Cempetitive Advantage

Strategy: the set of goal-directed actions a firm takes to gain and sustain superior
performance relative to competitors
- To achieve superior performance, companies compete for resources
o New ventures compete for financial and human capital
o Existing companies for profitable growth
- A good strategy enables a firm to achieve superior performance
A good strategy consists of 3 elements:

1. A diagnosis of the competitive challenge
o Accomplished through analysis of the firm’s external and internal
environments (part 1 of the AFI framework)
o Defines the competitive challenges facing an organization through a critical
and honest assessment of the status quo
2. A guiding policy to address the competitive challenge
o Accomplished through strategy formulation, resulting in the firm’s corporate,
business and functional strategies (part 2 of the AFI framework)
o The formulated strategy needs to be consistent, often backed up with
strategic commitments such as sizable investments
o Defines how to deal with the competitive challenges identified – the
approach needs to be communicated in policies that provide clear guidance
for all employees involved
3. A set of coherent actions to implement the firm’s guiding policy
o Accomplished through strategy implementation (part 3 of the AFI framework)
What is cempetitive advantage?

Competitive advantage: superior performance relative to other competitors in the same
industry or the industry average
- Always relative, not absolute
- Compare firm performance to a benchmark – either the performance of other firms
in the same industry or an industry average
- Gain competitive advantage through providing goods or services similar to the
competitors’ at a lower price
- Rewards: profitability and market share

Competitive disadvantage: underperformance relative to other competitors in the same

industry or the industry average
Sustainable competitive advantage: outperforming competitors or the industry average

over a prolonged period of time
Competitive parity: performance of two or more firms at the same level
Strategy is about creating superior value, while containing the cost to create it – achieve this
through strategic positioning: staking out a unique position within an industry that allows
the firm to provide value to customers, while controlling costs
- The greater the difference between value creation and cost, the greater the firm’s
economic contribution and the more likely it will gain competitive advantage
- Requires trade-offs
o Strategy is as much about deciding what not to do, as it is about deciding
what to do
- Key to successful strategy: combine a set of activities to stake out a unique position
within an industry
o Competitive advantage has to come from performing different activities or
the same activities differently than rivals are doing reinforce one another
o Operational effectiveness, marketing skills, and other functional expertise all
strengthen a unique strategic position
Be on the lookout for the following hallmarks of what strategy is NOT:

1. Grandiose statements are not strategy
o Statements of desire are not strategy – “We will be No. 1”
o They provide little managerial guidance and often lead to goal conflict and
confusion
o Fails to address economic fundamentals
2. A failure to face a competitive challenge is not strategy
o If the firm does not define a clear competitive challenge, managers have no
way of assessing whether they are making progress in addressing it
3. Operational effectiveness, competitive benchmarking, or other tactical tools are not
strategy
o E.g.: pricing strategy, Internet strategy, alliance strategy, operations strategy,
IT strategy, brand strategy, marketing strategy, HR strategy, China strategy,
and so on
o These elements may be a necessary part of a firm’s functional and global
initiatives to support its competitive strategy, but these elements are not
sufficient to achieve competitive advantage

Industry vs. firm effects in determining firm perfermance

Firm performance is determined by 2 factors:
1. Industry effects: firm performance attributed to the structure of the industry in
which the firm competes
o The structure of an industry is determined by elements common to all
industries, elements such as entry and exit barriers, number and size of
companies, and types of products offered
2. Firm effects: firm performance attributed to the actions managers take
o Key point: managers’ actions tend to be more important in determining firm
performance than the forces exerted on the firm by its external environment
o Competition does not take place in isolation managers must understand
the relationship between strategic management and the role of business in
society
1.2 Stakehelders and Cempetitive Advantage

Companies with a good strategy generate value for society
- When firms compete in their own self-interest while obeying the law and acting
ethically, they ultimately create value
- Value creation occurs because companies with a good strategy are able to provide
products or services to consumer at a price point that they can afford while making a
profit at the same time both parties benefit they make society better
Black swan events: incidents that describe highly improbable but high-impact events
Stakeholders: organizations, groups and individuals that can affect or are affected by a firm’s
actions
Stakehelder strategy
Stakeholders have vested claim or interest in the performance and continued survival of the
firm. Stakeholders can be grouped by whether they are internal or external to a firm:
The firm is embedded in a multifaceted exchange relationship with a number of diverse

internal and external stakeholders
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Stakeholder strategy: an integrative approach to managing a diverse set of stakeholders

effectively in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage
- Allows firms to analyze and manage how various external and internal stakeholders
interact to jointly create and trade value
- A single-minded focus on shareholders alone exposes a firm to undue risks
- Putting shareholder interest above all else can undermine economic performance
and even threaten the very survival of the enterprise
- The strategist must understand the complex web of exchange relationships among
different stakeholders
- Effective stakeholder management exemplifies how managers can act to improve
firm performance, thereby enhancing the firm’s competitive advantage and the
likelihood of its continued survival
Arguments as to why effective stakeholder management can benefit firm performance:

- Satisfied stakeholders are more cooperative and thus more likely to reveal
information that can further increase the firm’s value creation or lower its costs
- Increased trust lowers the costs for firms’ business transactions
- Effective management of the complex web of stakeholders can lead to greater
organizational adaptability and flexibility
- The likelihood of negative outcomes can be reduced, creating more predictable and
stable returns
- Firms can build strong reputations that are rewarded in the marketplace by business
partner, employees, and customers
Stakehelder impact analysis

Stakeholder impact analysis: a decision tool with which managers can recognize, prioritize
and address the needs of different stakeholders, enabling the firm to achieve competitive
advantage while acting as a good corporate citizen
Managers must pay attention to 3 important stakeholder attributes:

1. A stakeholder has power over a company when it can get the company to do
something that it would not otherwise do
2. A stakeholder has a legitimate claim when it is perceived to be legally valid or
otherwise appropriate
3. A stakeholder has an urgent claim when it requires a company’s immediate attention
and response
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Step 1: Ideetify Stakeholders

The firm focuses on stakeholders that currently have, or potentially can have, a material
effect on a company. This prioritization identifies the most powerful internal and external
stakeholders as well as their needs
Step 2: Ideetify Stakeholders’ Ieterests

Managers need to specify and assess the interests and claims of the pertinent stakeholders
using the power, legitimacy, and urgency criteria
Step 3: Ideetify Opportueities aed Threats

Stakeholders have a claim on the company, therefore opportunities and threats are two
sides of the same coin. In the best-case scenario, managers transform threats into
opportunities
Step 4: Ideetify Social Respoesibilities

Corporate social responsibility (CSR): a framework that helps firms recognize and address
the economic, legal, social, and philanthropic expectations that society has of the business
enterprise at a given point in time
- Economic responsibilities
o Firms must obey the law and act ethically in their quest to gain and sustain
competitive advantage
o Investors expect an adequate return for their risk capital
o Creditors expect the firm to repay its debts
o Consumers expect safe products and services at appropriate prices and
quality
o Suppliers expect to be paid in full and on time
o Governments expect the firm to pay taxes and to manage natural resources
such as air and water under a decent stewardship
- Legal responsibilities
o Managers must ensure that their firms obey all the laws and regulations,
including but not limited labor, consumer protection, and environmental laws
- Ethical responsibilities
o Managers are called upon to go beyond what is required by law – the letter of
law cannot address or anticipate all possible business situations and newly
emerging concerns such as Internet privacy a firm’s ethical responsibilities go
beyond its legal responsibilities
o They embody the full scope of expectations, norms, and values of its
stakeholders
o Managers are called upon to do what society deems just and fair
- Philanthropic responsibilities
o Philanthropic responsibilities are often subsumed under the idea of corporate
citizenship, reflecting the notion of voluntary giving back to society

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The pyramid of corporate social responsibility symbolizes

the need for firms to carefully balance their social
responsibilities. Doing so ensures not only effective
strategy implementation, but also long-term viability
Step 5: Address Stakeholder Coeceres

Managers need to decide the appropriate course of
action for the firm, given all of the preceding factors.
Thinking about the attributes of power, legitimacy, and
urgency helps to prioritize the legitimate claims and to address them accordingly
1.3 The AFI Strategy Framewerk

A successful strategy details a set of actions that managers take to gain and sustain
competitive advantage. Effectively managing the strategy process is the result of 3 broad
tasks:
1. Analyze (A)
2. Formulate (F) The pillars of research and knowledge
3. Implement (I) about strategic management
AFI strategy framework: a model that links three interdependent strategic management
tasks – analyze, formulate, and implement – that together, help managers plan and
implement a strategy that can improve performance and result in competitive advantage

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Chapter 2 – Strategic Leadership: Managing the

Strategy Precess
2.1 Visien, Missien, and Values
Strategic management process: method put in place by strategic leaders to formulate and
implement a strategy, which can lay the foundation for a sustainable competitive advantage
Strategic leadership: executives’ use of power and influence to direct the activities of others
when pursuing an organization’s goals
To define the basic principles, strategic leaders can ask 3 questions:

1. Visien – What do we want to accomplish ultimately?
o Vision: a statement about what an organization ultimately wants to
accomplish; it captures the company’s aspiration
The goal can be described by the verb to
o An effective vision pervades the organization with a sense of winning and
motivates employees at all levels to aim for the same target, while leaving
room for individual and team contributions
o Employees experience a greater sense of purpose intrinsic motivation 
higher organizational performance
o Vision statements should be forward-looking and inspiring
o Visionary companies often outperform their competitors over the long-run
2. Missien – How do we accomplish our goals?
o Mission: description of what an organization actually does – the products and
services it plans to provide, and the markets in which it will compete
A mission defines the means by which vision is accomplished
o Firms need to back up their visions and mission with strategic commitments:
actions to achieve the mission that are costly, long-term oriented, and
difficult to reserve
o However noble the mission statement, for competitive advantage companies
still need strategic actions informed by economic fundamentals of value
creation
3. Values – What commitments do we make, and what guardrails do we put in place,
to act both legally and ethically as we pursue our vision and mission?
o Core values statement: statement of principles to guide an organization as it
works to achieve its vision and fulfill its mission, for both internal conduct and
external interactions; it often includes explicit ethical considerations
Helps employees to understand the company culture and serves as a
tool to deal with complexity and to resolve conflict
Product-orieeted visioe statemeets

A product-oriented vision defines a business in terms of a good or service provided. Product-
oriented visions tend to force managers to take a more myopic view of the competitive
landscape. Product-oriented vision statements often constrain the ability to adapt to
changing environments. They focus employees on improving existing products and services
without consideration of underlying customer problems to be solved

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Customer-orieeted visioe statemeets

A customer-oriented vision defines a business in terms of providing solutions to customer
needs. Companies with these visions can easily adapt to changing environments. Customer-
oriented visions identify a critical need but leave open the means of how to meet that need.
An organization’s vision should be flexible to allow for change and adaption
Movieg from product-orieeted to customer-orieeted visioe statemeets

In some cases, product-oriented vision statements do not interfere with the firm’s success in
achieving superior performance and competitive advantage
Sometimes vision statements and firm performance are associated with one another. A
positive relationship between vision statements and firm performance is more likely to exist
under certain circumstances:
- The visions are customer-oriented
- Internal stakeholders are invested in defining the vision
- Organizational structures such as compensation systems align with the firm’s vision
statement
An effective vision statement can lay the foundation upon which to craft a strategy that
creates competitive advantage
Organizational core values: ethical standards and norms that govern the behavior of
individuals within a firm or organization
Strong ethical values have 2 functions:
1. They form a solid foundation on which a firm can build its vision and mission, and
thus lay the groundwork for long-term success
2. Values serve as the guardrails put in place to keep the company on track when
pursuing its vision and mission in its quest for competitive advantage
- The values espoused by a company provide answers to: how do we accomplish our
goals?
- They help individuals make choices that are both ethical and effective in advancing
the company’s goals
- Without commitment and involvement from top managers, any statement of values
remains merely a public relations exercise – employees tend to follow values
practiced by strategic leaders
2.2 Strategic Leadership

Strategic leadership describes the executives’ successful use of power a nd influence to direct
the activities of others when pursuing an organization’s goals
- Executives whose vision and actions enable their organizations to achieve
competitive advantage demonstrate strategic leadership
What de strategic leaders de?

See the figure on the right. Most managers prefer oral communication. They consider face-
to-face meetings most effective in getting their message across and obtaining the
information they need

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Hew de yeu beceme a strategic leader?

Upper-echelons theory: a conceptual framework that views organizational outcomes –
strategic choices and performance levels – as reflections of the values of the members of the
top management team
- Executives interpret situations through the lens of their unique perspectives, shaped
by personal circumstances, values, and experiences
- Favors the idea that strong leadership is the result of both innate abilities and
learning
Level-5 leadership pyramid: a conceptual framework of leadership progression with five

distinct, sequential levels (Jim Collins)
- Effective strategic leaders go through a natural progression of five levels

- Each level builds upon the previous one; the manager can move on to the next level
of leadership only when the current level has been mastered
Fermulating strategy acress levels: cerperate, business, and functienal

managers
According to the upper-echelons theory, the top management team primarily determines a
firm’s ability to gain and sustain competitive advantage through the strategies they pursue
Strategy formulation: the part of the strategic management process that concerns the
choice of strategy in terms of where and how to compete
Strategy implementation: the part of the strategic management process that concerns the
organization, coordination, and integration of how work gets done, or strategy execution
Break them down into 3 distinct areas:
1. Corporate strategy concerns questions relating to where to compete in terms of
industry, markets, and geography
2. Business strategy concerns the question of how to compete. Three generic business
strategies are available: cost leadership, differentiation, or value innovation

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3. Functional strategy concerns the question of how to implement a chosen business

strategy
Although we generally speak of the firm in an abstract form, individual employees make
strategic decisions – whether at the corporate, business, or functional level
Corporate executives at headquarters formulate corporate strategy; they need to formulate

a strategy that can create synergies across business units that may be quite different, and
determine the boundaries of the firm by deciding whether to enter certain industries and
markets and whether to sell certain divisions
- They need to decide in which industries, markets and geographies their companies
should compete
- They are responsible for setting overarching strategic objectives and allocating scarce
resources among different business divisions, monitoring performance, and making
adjustments to the overall portfolio of businesses as needed
Objective of corporate-level strategy: increase overall corporate value so that it is higher

than the sum of the individual business units
Business strategy occurs within strategic business units (SBUs): the standalone divisions of a
larger conglomerate, each with its own profit-and-loss responsibility
- General managers in SBUs must answer business strategy questions relating to how
to compete in order to achieve superior performance
- General managers formulate an appropriate generic business strategy, including cost
leadership, differentiation, or value innovation, in their quest for competitive
advantage
Within each strategic business unit are various business functions: accounting, finance,
human resources, product development, operations, manufacturing, marketing, and
customer service
- Each functional manager is responsible for decisions and actions within a single
functional area
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2.3 The Strategic Management Precess

When strategizing for competitive advantage, managers rely on 3 approaches:
1. Strategic planning
2. Scenario planning
3. Strategy as planned emergence
This order also reflects how these approaches were developed: strategic planning, then
scenario planning, and then strategy as planned emergence. 1 and 2 are relatively formal,
top-down planning approaches. 3 begins with a strategic plan but offers a less formal and
less stylized approach
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Tep-dewn strategic planning

Top-down strategic planning: a rational, data-driven strategy process through which top
management attempts to program future success
- All strategic intelligence and decision-making responsibilities are concentrated in the
office of the CEO, who leads the company strategically through competitive battles
The figure shows the 3 steps of analysis, formulation, and implementation in a traditional
top-down strategic planning process
Strategic planners provide detailed analysis of internal and external data and apply it to all
quantifiable areas: prices, costs, margins, market demand, head count, and production runs
- They prepare 5-year plans, which are revisited regularly in order to predict future
sales based on anticipated growth
Top executives tie the allocation of the annual corporate budget to the strategic plan and
monitor ongoing performance accordingly
Top managers reconfirm or adjust the company’s vision, mission, and values before
formulating corporate, business, and functional strategies
Top-down strategic planning more often rests on the assumption that we can predict the
future from the past works well when the environment does not change much
Shortcomings of the top-down strategic planning approach:

- The formulation of strategy is separate from implementation, and thinking about
strategy is separate from doing it – information flows one way only: from the top
down
- We simply cannot know the future – there is no data and unforeseen events can
make plans obsolete
- Strategic leaders’ visions of the future can be downright wrong
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Scenarie planning
Scenario planning: strategy-planning activity in which top management envisions different
what-if scenarios to anticipate plausible futures in order to derive strategic responses
- Addresses both optimistic and pessimistic
futures
- Similar to top-down strategic planning,
scenario planning also starts with a top-down
approach to the strategy process
Scenario planning within the AFI strategy framework:
Goal: create a number of detailed and executable

strategic plans allows the strategic management
process to be more flexible and more effective than
the more static strategic-planning approach with one
master plan
In the analysis stage, managers brainstorm to identify possible future scenarios

- Input from several different hierarchies within the organization and from different
functional areas such as R&D, manufacturing, and marketing and sales is critical
- Although managers often tend to overlook pessimistic future scenarios, it is
imperative to consider negative scenarios carefully
- Managers might also consider how black swan events might affect their strategic
planning
In the formulation stage, management teams develop different strategic plans to address
possible future scenarios
- This kind of what-if exercise forces managers to develop detailed contingency plans
before events occur
- Plans capture the firm’s internal and external environments and answer several key
questions:
o What resources and capabilities do we need to compete successfully in each
future scenario?
o What strategic initiatives should we put in place to respond to each
respective scenario?
o How can we shape our expected future environment?
In the implementation stage, managers execute the dominant strategic plan: the strategic
option that top managers decide most closely matches the current reality and which is then
executed
- If the situation changes, managers can quickly retrieve and implement any of the
alternate plans developed in the formulation stage
- The firm’s subsequent performance in the marketplace gives managers real-time
feedback about the effectiveness of the dominant strategic plan
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Strategy as planned emergence: tep-dewn aed bettem-up

Critics of top-down and scenario planning argue that strategic planning is not the same as
strategic thinking
- They argue the strategic-planning processes are often too regimented and confining
– they lack the flexibility needed for quick and effective response
- To be successful, a strategy should be based on an inspiring vision and not on hard
data alone
- Managers engaged in a more formalized approach to the strategy process may also
fall prey to an illusion of control: a tendency by people to overestimate their ability
to control events
- The important work is to synthesize all available input from different internal and
external sources into an overall strategic vision this vision should guide the firm’s
strategy
Critic of more formalized approaches to strategic planning: HenryMintzberg, who proposes

a third approach to the strategic management process which is a less formal and less stylized
approach to the development of strategy: bottom-up
- The strategy process also begins with a top-down strategic plan based on analysis of
the external and internal environments (the first stage of the AFI framework)
- Top-level executives design an intended strategy: the outcome of a rational and
structured top-down strategic plan
o Parts of a firm’s intended strategy are likely to fall by the wayside because of
unpredictable events and turn into unrealized strategy
- A firm’s realized strategy is generally formulated through a combination of its top-
down strategic intentions and bottom-up emergent strategy
o Realized strategy: combination of intended and emergent strategy
o Emergent strategy: any unplanned strategic initiative bubbling up from the
bottom of the organization
If successful, emergent strategies have the potential to influence and
shape a firm’s overall strategy
- The strategic initiative is a key feature in the strategy as a planned emergence model
o Strategic initiative: any activity a firm pursues to explore and develop new
products and processes, new market, or new ventures (arrows in the figure)
Can bubble up from deep within a firm through: autonomous actions,
serendipity, resource-allocation process (RAP)
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Autoeomous actioes
Autonomous actions: strategic initiatives undertaken by lower-level employees on their own
volition and often in response to unexpected situations
Functional managers may start strategic initiatives based on autonomous actions that can
influence the direction of the company – because they are much closer to the final products,
services, and customers than the more removed corporate- or business-level managers
To be successful, top-level executives need to support emergent strategies that they believe
fit with the firm’s vision and mission
In the strategy-as-planned-emergence approach, executives need to decide which of the

bottom-up initiatives to pursue and which to shut down. This decision is made on the basis
of whether the strategic initiative fits with the company’s vision and mission, and whether it
provides an opportunity worth exploiting
Sereedipity
Serendipity: any random events, pleasant surprises, and accidental happenstances that can
have a profound impact on a firm’s strategic initiatives
Resource-allocatioe process
Resource-allocation process (RAP): the way a firm allocates its resources based on a
predetermined policies, which can be critical in shaping tis realized strategy
A firm’s realized strategy is frequently a combination of top-down strategic intent and

bottom-up emergent strategies 
Planned emergence: strategy process in which organizational structure and systems allow
bottom-up strategic initiatives to emerge and be evaluated and coordinated by top
management
- Bottom-up strategic initiatives can be the result of autonomous actions, serendipity,
or the resource allocation process
2.4 Implicatiens fer the Strategist

2 ingredients are needed to create a powerful foundation upon which to formulate and
implement a strategy in order to gain and sustain a competitive advantage:
1. The firm needs an inspiring vision and mission backed up by ethical values
o Customer-oriented or problem-defining vision statements are often
correlated with firm success over long periods of time because they allow
firms strategic flexibility to change in order to meet changing customer needs
and exploit external opportunities
2. The strategic leader must put an effective strategic management process in place
The effectiveness of the chosen strategy process is contingent upon the rate of change in the
internal and external environments of the firm and upon the firm size
- Slow-moving and stable environment most effective approach: top-down strategic
planning
- Larger firms tend to use a top-down strategic-planning process or scenario planning
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All employees should be involved in setting an inspiring vision and mission to create more
meaningful work
- Belief in a company’s vision and mission motivates its employees
- Every employee plays a strategic role lower-level employees focus mainly on
strategy implementation when a firm is using top-down or scenario planning
- Any employee can have great ideas that might become strategic initiatives with the
potential to transform companies
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Chapter 3 – External Analysis: Industry Structure,

Cempetitive Ferces, and Strategic Greups
3.1 The PESTEL Framewerk
A firm’s external environment consists of all the factors that can affects its potential to gain
and sustain a competitive advantage. By analyzing the factors in the external environment,
managers can mitigate threats and leverage opportunities
- External factors in the firm’s general environment are the ones that managers have
little direct influence over – interest rates or currency exchange rates
- External factors in the firm’s task environment are ones that managers do have some
influence over – composition of their strategic groups
or the structure of the industry
PESTEL model: a framework that categorizes and analyzes an

important set of external factors (political, economic,
sociocultural, technological, ecological, and legal) that might
impinge upon a firm. These factors can create both
opportunities and threats for the firm
Pelitical facters
Political factors result from the processes and actions of
government bodies that can influence the decisions and behavior of firms
- Located in the firm’s general environment, where firms traditionally wield little
influence
- Companies nevertheless increasingly work to shape and influence this realm by
applying nonmarket strategies: lobbying, public relations, contributions, litigation,
and so on, in ways that are favorable to the firm
Political and legal factors are closely related, as political pressure often results in changes in
legislation and regulation
Ecenemic facters
Economic factors in a firm’s external environment are largely macroeconomic, affecting
economy-wide phenomena
Managers need to consider how the 5 macroeconomic factors can affect firm strategy:
Growth rates
The overall economic growth rate is a measure of the change in the amount of goods and
services produced by a nation’s economy
Strategists look to the real growth rate, which adjusts for inflation
- Indicates the current business cycle of the economy – whether business activity is
expanding or contracting
- In periods of economic expansion, consumer and business demands are rising, and
competition among firms decreases
- During economic booms, businesses expand operations to satisfy demand and are
more likely to be profitable
- Occasionally, boom periods can overheat and lead to speculative asset bubbles
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Levels of employmeet
Growth rates directly affect the level of employment
- In boom times, unemployment tends to be low, and skilled human capital becomes a
scarce and more expensive resource
- In economic downturns, unemployment rises. As more people search for
employment, skilled human capital is more abundant and wages usually fall
Ieterest rates
Real interest rates: the amount that creditors are paid for use of their money and the
amount that debtors pay for that use, adjusted for inflation
- Low real interest rates have a direct bearing on consumer demand – when credit is
cheap because interest rates are low, consumers buy homes, automobiles,
computers, and vacations on credit; in turn, all of this demand fuels economic
growth
- Low real interest rates allow firms to easily borrow money to finance growth –
borrowing at lower real rates reduces the cost of capital and enhances a firm’s
competitiveness
- When real interest rates are rising, consumer demand slows, credit is harder to come
by, and firms find it more difficult to borrow money to support operations, possibly
deferring investments
Price stability
Price stability – the lack of change in price levels of goods and services – is rare 
companies will often have to deal with changing price levels, which is a direct function of the
amount of money in any economy
- Inflation: when there is too much money in an economy, we tend to see rising prices
– tends to go with lower economic growth
- Deflation: a decrease in the overall price level – a sudden and pronounced drop in
demand generally causes deflation, which in turn forces sellers to lower prices to
motivate buyers
o A serious threat to economic growth because it distorts expectations about
the future – companies will not invest in new production capacity or
innovation because they expect a further decline in prices
Curreecy exchaege rates

Currency exchange rate determines how many dollars one must pay for a unit of foreign
currency – a critical variable for any company that buys or sells products and services across
national borders
- E.g.: if the U.S. dollar appreciates against the euro, and so increases in real value,
firms need more euros to buy one dollar makes U.S. exports more expensive for
European buyers and reduces demand for U.S. exports overall
In summary, economic factors affecting businesses are ever-present and rarely static.
Managers need to fully appreciate the power of these factors, in both domestic and global
markets, to assess their effects on firm performance
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Seciecultural facters
Sociocultural factors capture a society’s cultures, norms, and values
- Not only are constantly in flux but also differ across groups managers need to
closely monitor such trends and consider the implications for firm strategy
Demographic trends are also important sociocultural factors. These trends capture
population characteristics related to age, gender, family size, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
religion, and socioeconomic class
Technelegical facters
Technological factors capture the application of knowledge to create new processes and
products
Ecelegical facters
Ecological factors involve broad environmental issues such as the natural environment,
global warming, and sustainable economic growth. Organizations and the natural
environment coexist in an interdependent relationship
- Managing these relationships in a responsible and sustainable way directly influences
the continued existence of human societies and the organizations we create
- Managers can no longer separate the natural and the business worlds; they are
inextricably linked
Legal facters
Legal factors include the official outcomes of political processes as manifested in laws,
mandates, regulations, and court decisions – all of which can have a direct bearing on a
firm’s profit potential
- Regulatory changes tend to affect entire industries at once
- Governments especially can directly affect firm performance by exerting both
political pressure and legal sanctions, including court ruling and industry regulations
3.2 Industry Structure and Firm Strategy: The Five Ferces Medel
Industry: a group of incumbent companies that face more or less the same set of suppliers
and buyers
Industry analysis: a method to (1) identify an industry’s profit potential and (2) derive
implications for a firm’s strategic position within an industry
- Strategic position: a firm’s strategic profile based on the difference between value
creation and cost (V – C)
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Five forces model: a framework that identifies five forces that determine the profit potential
of an industry and shape a firm’s competitive strategy (MichaelPorter)
2 key insights that form the basis of his seminal five forces model:
1. Rather than defining competition narrowly as the firm’s closest competitors to
explain and predict a firm’s performance, competition must be viewed more broadly,
to also encompass the other forces in an industry: buyers, suppliers, potential new
entry of other firms, and the threat of substitutes
2. The profit potential of an industry is neither random nor entirely determined by
industry-specific factors. Rather, it is a function of the five forces that shape
competition: threat of entry, power of suppliers, power of buyers, threat of
substitutes, and rivalry among existing firms
Cempetitien in the five ferces medel

Competition involves more than just creating economic value; firms must also capture a
significant share of it or they will see the economic value they create lost to suppliers,
customers, or competitors
- Economic value: V – C, the difference between the value the firm’s product or service
generates and the cost to produce it
Firms must also be able to capture a significant share of the value created to gain and
sustain a competitive advantage
The stronger the five forces, the lower the industry’s profit potential – making the industry
less attractive for competitors
The weaker the five forces, the greater the industry’s profit potential – making the industry
more attractive
The five forces model allows managers to analyze all players using a wider industry lens 
enables a deeper understanding of an industry’s profit potential
The model also provides the basis for how a firm should position itself to gain and sustain a
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The threat ef entry

Threat of entry: the risk that potential competitors will enter an industry
Potential new entry depresses industry profit potential in 2 ways:

1. Threat of additional capacity coming into an industry incumbent firms may lower
prices to make entry appear less attractive reduces the overall industry’s profit
potential
2. Threat of entry by additional competitors forces incumbent firms to spend more
to satisfy their existing customers reduces an industry’s profit potential
Entry barriers: obstacles that determine how easily a firm can enter an industry and often
significantly predict industry profit potential
Ecoeomies of scale
Economies of scale are cost advantages that accrue to firms with larger output because they
can spread fixed costs over more units, employ technology more efficiently, benefit from a
more specialized division of labor, and demand better terms from their suppliers
drive down the cost per unit large incumbent firms enjoy a cost advantage over new
entrants who cannot muster such scale
Network effects
Network effects: the value of a product or service for an individual user increases with the
number of total users
Threat of potential entry is reduced when network effects are present
Customer switchieg costs

Switching costs are incurred by moving from one supplier to another. Changing vendors may
require the buyer to alter product specifications, retrain employees and/or modify existing
processes
switching costs are onetime sunk costs
Capital requiremeets
Capital requirements describe the “price of the entry ticket” into a new industry
- How much capital is required to compete in this industry, and which companies are
willing and able to make such investments?
Advaetages iedepeedeet of size

Incumbent firms often possess cost and quality advantages that are independent of size –
based on brand loyalty, proprietary technology (e.g.: patents and trade secrets), preferential
access to raw materials and distribution channels, favorable geographic locations, and
cumulative learning and experience effects
Goveremeet policy
Frequently government policies restrict or prevent new entrants
Credible threat of retaliatioe

Potential new entrants must also anticipate how incumbent firms will react
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- Should entry occur, incumbent firms are able to retaliate quickly – e.g.: increased
product and service innovation, advertising, sales promotions, litigation, and a price
war industry profit potential can easily fall below the cost of capital
The pewer ef suppliers

The bargaining power of suppliers captures pressures that industry suppliers can exert on
and industry’s profit potential – they capture a part of the economic value created
This force reduces a firm’s ability to obtain superior performance for 2 reasons:
1. Powerful suppliers can raise the cost of production by demanding higher prices for
their inputs
2. Powerful suppliers can raise the cost of production by reducing the quality of the
input factor or service level delivered
To compete effectively, companies generally need a wide variety of inputs into the
production process, including raw materials and components, labor, and services
The relative bargaining power of suppliers is high when:

- The suppliers’ industry is more concentrated than the industry it sells to
- Suppliers do not depend heavily on the industry for a large portion of their revenues
- Incumbent firms face significant switching costs when changing suppliers
- Suppliers offer products that are differentiated
- There are no readily available substitutes for the products or services that the
suppliers offer
- Suppliers can credibly threaten to forward-integrate into the industry
The pewer ef buyers

The power of buyers concerns the pressure an industry’s customers can put on the
producer’s margins in the industry by demanding a lower price or higher product quality
The power of buyers is high when:

- There are a few buyers and each buyer purchases large quantities relative to the size
of a single seller
- The industry’s products are standardized or undifferentiated commodities
- Buyers face low or no switching costs
- Buyers can credibly threaten to backwardly integrate into the industry
Companies need to be aware of situations when buyers are especially price sensitive. This is
the case when:
- The buyer’s purchase represents a significant fraction of its cost structure of
procurement budget
- Buyers earn low profits or are strapped for cash
- The quality (cost) of the buyers’ products and services is not affected much by the
quality (cost) of their inputs
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Threat ef substitutes
The threat of substitutes is the idea that products or service available from outside the given
industry will come close to meeting the needs of current customers
The threat of substitutes is high when:

- The substitute offers an attractive price-performance trade-off
- The buyer’s cost of switching to the substitute is low
Rivalry ameng existing cempetiters

Rivalry among existing competitors describes the intensity with which companies within the
same industry jockey for market share and profitability
- The stronger the other 4 forces, the stronger the expected competitive intensity 
limits the industry’s profit potential
Competitors can lower prices or create more value in terms of product features and design,
quality, promotional spending, and after-sales service and support
The intensity of rivalry among existing competitors is determined by the following factors:
Competitive iedustry structure
Competitive industry structure: elements and features common to all industries, including
the number and size of competitors, the firms’ degree of pricing power, the type of product
or service offered, and the height of entry barriers
Iedustry growth
Industry growth directly affects the intensity of rivalry among competitors
- High growth consumer demand rises price competition among firms decreases
- Low growth price discounts, new product releases with minor modifications,
promotional campaigns, and fast retaliation by rivals limited choices, lower
product quality, and higher prices for consumers
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Strategic commitmeets
Firms make strategic commitments to compete in an industry rivalry among competitors
is likely to be more intense
Strategic commitments: firm actions that are costly, long-term oriented, and difficult to
reverse
Exit barriers
Exit barriers: obstacles that determine how easily a firm can leave an industry – fixed costs
that the company must pay regardless of whether the company is operating in the industry
or not
- Industry with low exit barriers more attractive: allows underperforming firms to
exit more easily reduces competitive pressure on remaining firms: excess capacity is
removed
- Industry with high exit barriers reduces profit potential: excess capacity still
remains
To summarize, the stronger the forces of the five forces model, the lower the industry’s
ability to earn above-average profits, and the lower the firm’s ability to gain and sustain a
managers need to craft a strategic position for their company that leverages weak forces
into opportunities and mitigates strong forces because they are potential threats to the
firm’s ability to gain and sustain a competitive advantage
A sixth ferce: the strategic rele ef cemplements

Complement: a product, service, or competency that adds value to the original product
offering when the two are used in tandem
- They increase demand for the primary product enhances the profit potential
Complementor: a company that provides a good or service that leads customers to value
your firm’s offering more when the two are combined
Co-opetition: cooperation by competitors to achieve a strategic objective
3.3 Changes ever Time: Industry Dynamics

Five-forces-plus-complements model is useful if it provides only a point-in-time snapshot of
a moving target one cannot determine the changing speed of an industry or the rate of
innovation managers must repeat their analysis over time important to consider industry
dynamics
Firms have a tendency to change the industry structure in their favor, making it more
consolidated through horizontal mergers and acquisitions fewer competitors higher
industry profitability
Industry convergence: a process whereby formerly unrelated industries begin to satisfy the
same customer need
- Often brought on by technological advances
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3.4 Perfermance Differences within the Same Industry: Strategic

Greups
Strategic group: the set of companies that pursue a similar strategy within a specific industry
- They differ from one another along important dimensions – e.g.: expenditures on
R&D, technology, product differentiation, product and service offerings, pricing,
market segments, distribution channels, and customer service
Strategic group model: a framework that explains differences in firm performance within
the same industry
- firm performance is not only determined by the industry to which the firm
belongs, but also by its strategic group membership
- Firms in the same strategic group tend to follow a similar strategy direct
competitors
- Rivalry within the same strategic group is generally more intense than the rivalry
among strategic groups – intra-group rivalry exceeds inter-group rivalry
The strategic greup medel

To understand competitive behavior and
performance within an industry map the
industry competitors into strategic groups:
1. Identify the most important strategic
dimensions
2. Choose two key dimensions for the
horizontal and vertical axes, which
expose important differences among
the competitors
3. Graph the firms in the strategic group,
indicating each firm’s market share by
the size of the bubble with which it is
represented
Additional insights of the strategic group map shown above:

- Competitive rivalry is strongest between firms that are within the same strategic
group
o The closer the firms are on the strategic group map, the more directly and
intensely they are in competition with one another
- The external environment affects strategic groups differently
o E.g.: during times of economic downturn or high oil prices, the low-cost
airlines tend to take market share away from the legacy carriers
- The five competitive forces affect strategic groups differently
o Barriers to entry are higher in the differentiated group
o Differentiated airlines can offer worldwide service and are protected from
foreign competition by regulation to some extent weaker buyer power
o Threat of substitutes is higher for low-cost airlines
o Supplier power tends to be stronger for low-cost airlines: they are much
smaller and thus have weaker negotiation power when acquiring new aircraft
o Rivalry among existing competitors in the low-cost group is more intense
- Some strategic groups are more profitable than others (low-cost)
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Mebility barriers
Mobility barriers: industry-specific factors that separate one strategic group from another

At the start of the strategic management process, it is critical for managers to conduct a
thorough analysis of the firm’s external environment to identify threats and opportunities
PESTEL: scan, monitor, and evaluate changes and trends in the firm’s macroenvironment
- Guiding consideration: the question of how the external factors identified affect the
firm’s industry environment
Applying Porter’s five forces model allows managers to understand the profit potential of an
industry and to obtain clues on how to carve out a strategic position that makes gaining and
sustaining a competitive advantage more likely. Steps to apply the five forces model:
1. Define the relevant industry
o Industry boundaries are drawn by identifying a group of incumbent
companies that face more or less the same suppliers and buyers likely to be
an industry if it also has the same entry barriers and a similar threat from
substitutes
2. Identify the key players in each of the five forces and attempt to group them into
different categories
o This step aids in assessing the relative strength of each force
3. Identify the underlying drivers of each force
o Which forces are strong, and which are weak? And why?
4. Assess the overall industry structure
o What is the industry’s profit potential?
o Identify the forces that directly influence industry profit potential – not all
forces are likely to have an equal effect
o Focus on the most important forces that drive industry profitability
The final step in industry analysis is to draw a strategic group map allows you to unearth
and explain performance differences within the same industry
Shortcomings:
- The models presented are static – they provide a snapshot what is actually a moving
target and do not allow for consideration of industry dynamics managers must
conduct external analyses at different points in time to gain a sense of the underlying
dynamics
- The models presented do not allow managers to fully understand why there are
performance differences among firms in the same industry or strategic group we
must look inside the firm to study its resources, capabilities, and core competencies
(next chapter)
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Chapter 4 – Internal Analysis: Reseurces, Capabilities,

and Cere Cempetencies
4.1 Cere Cempetencies
Core competencies: unique strengths, embedded deep within a firm, that are critical to
gaining and sustaining competitive advantage
- Allow a firm to differentiate its products and services from those of its rivals, creating
higher value for the customer or offering products and services of comparable value
at lower cost
- Developed through the interplay of resources and capabilities:
o Resources: any assets that a firm can draw on when formulating and
implementing a strategy – tangible or intangible
o Capabilities: organizational and managerial skills necessary to orchestrate a
diverse set of resources and deploy them strategically – intangible
Activities: distinct and fine-grained business processes that enable firms to add incremental
value by transforming inputs into goods and services
Two more observations:

1. Core competencies that are not continuously nourished will eventually lose their
ability to yield a competitive advantage
2. In analyzing a company’s success in the market, it can be too easy to focus on the
more visible elements or facets of core competencies such as superior products or
services. While these are the outward manifestation of core competencies, what is
even more important is to understand the invisible part of core competencies
4.2 The Reseurce-Based View

Resource-based view: a model that sees certain types of resources as key to superior firm
performance
- Aids in identifying core competencies
- Tangible resources: resources that have physical attributes and thus are visible – e.g.:
labor, capital, land, buildings, plant, equipment, and supplies
- Intangible resources: resources that do not have physical attributes and thus are
invisible – e.g.: culture, knowledge, brand equity, reputation, and intellectual
property (patents, designs, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets)
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- Competitive advantage is more likely to spring form intangible rather than tangible
resources
- A resource includes any assets as well as any capabilities and competencies that a
firm can draw upon when formulating and implementing strategy
Twe critical assumptiens

1. Resource heterogeneity: assumption in the resource-based view that a firm is a
bundle of resources and capabilities that differ across firms
o This insight ensures that analysts look more critically at the resource bundles
of firms competing in the same industry, because each bundle is unique to
some extent
2. Resource immobility: assumption in the resource-based view that a firm has
resources that tend to be “sticky” and that do not move easily from firm to firm
- These insights tell us that resource bundles differ across firms, and such differences
can persist for long periods
- The two assumptions are critical to explaining superior firm performance in the
resource-based model
In perfect competition, all firms have access to the same resources and capabilities, ensuring
that any advantage that one firm has will be short-lived
The resource-based view, delivers useful insights to managers about how to formulate a
strategy that will enhance the chances of gaining a competitive advantage
The VRIO framewerk

VRIO framework: a theoretical framework that explains and predicts firm-level competitive
advantage
- A firm can gain and sustain a competitive advantage only when it has resources that
satisfy all of the VRIO criteria
- Resources in the framework are broadly defined to include any assets as well as any
capabilities and competencies that a firm can draw upon when formulating and
implementing strategy
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Valuable
Valuable resource: one of the four key criteria in the VRIO framework. A resource is valuable
if it helps a firm exploit an external opportunity or offset an external threat
- Positive effect on a firm’s competitive advantage
- A valuable resource enables a firm to increase its economic value creation (V – C)
- Revenues rise if a firm is able to increase the perceived value of its product or service
in the eyes of the consumer by offering superior design and adding attractive
features
Rare
Rare: one of the four key criteria in the VRIO framework. A resource is rare if the number of
firms that possess it is less than the number of firms it would require to reach a state of
perfect competition
Costly to imitate
Costly-to-imitate resource: one of the four key criteria in the VRIO framework. A resource is
costly to imitate if firms that do not possess the resource are unable to develop or buy the
resource at a comparable cost
A firm that does not enjoy a competitive advantage will attempt to negate a firm’s resource
advantage by directly imitating the resource in question (direct imitation) or through
working around it to provide a comparable product or service (substitution)
- Direct imitation: a way to copy or imitate a valuable and rare resource, when firms
have difficulty protecting their advantage
o Is swift if the firm is successful and intellectual property protection such as
patents or trademarks, for example, can be easily circumvented
- Substitution is often accomplished through strategic equivalence
- In some instances, firms are able to combine direct imitation and substitution when
attempting to mitigate the competitive advantage of a rival
Orgaeized to capture value

Organized to capture value: one of the four criteria in the VRIO framework. The
characteristic of having in place an effective organizational structure, processes, and systems
to fully exploit the competitive potential of the firm’s resources, capabilities, and
competencies
In summary, for a firm to gain and sustain a competitive advantage, its resources and
capabilities need to interact in such a way as to create unique core competencies.
Ultimately, though, only a few competencies may turn out to be those specific core
competencies that fulfill the VRIO requirements. A company cannot do everything equally
well and must carve out a unique strategy position for itself, making necessary trade-offs
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Iselating mechanisms: hew te sustain a cempetitive advantage

Isolating mechanisms: barriers to imitation that prevent rivals from competing away the
advantage a firm may enjoy
- If one, or any combination, of these isolating mechanisms is present, a firm may
strengthen its basis for competitive advantage, increasing its chance to be
sustainable over a longer period of time
Better expectatioes of future resource value

Sometimes firms can acquire resources at a low cost, which lays the foundation for a
competitive advantage later when expectations about the future of the resource turn out to
be more accurate
Path depeedeece
Path dependence: a situation in which the options one faces in the current situation are
limited by decisions made in the past
- Rests on the notion that time cannot be compressed at will
o While management can compress resources such as labor and R&D into a
shorter period, the push will not be as effective when a firm spreads out its
effort and investments over a longer period
o Trying to achieve the same outcome in less time, even with higher
investments, tends to lead to inferior results, due to time compression
diseconomies
- Strategic decisions generate long-term consequences due to path dependence and
time-compression diseconomies; they are not easily reversible
Causal ambiguity
Causal ambiguity: a situation in which the cause and effect of a phenomenon are not readily
apparent
- Managers need to have a hypothesis or theory of how to compete; they need to have
some kind of understanding about what causes superior or inferior performance
Social complexity
Social complexity: a situation in which different social and business systems interact with
one another
- Emerges when two or more such systems are combined
- Copying the emerging complex social systems is difficult for competitors because
neither direct imitation nor substitution is a valid approach
Ietellectual property protectioe

Intellectual property (IP) protection: a critical intangible resource that can provide a strong
isolating mechanism, and thus help to sustain a competitive advantage
- 5 major forms of IP: patents, designs, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets
- The intent of IP protection: to prevent others from copying legally protected products
or services
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4.3 The Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

Firms that fail to adapt their core competencies to a changing external environment not only
lose a competitive advantage but also may go out of business
Core competencies might form the basis for a competitive advantage at one point, but as
the environment changes, the very same core competencies might later turn into core
rigidities, retarding the firm’s ability to change
- Core rigidity: a former core competency that turned into a liability because the firm
failed to hone, refine, and upgrade the competency as the environment changed
- Over time, the original core competency is no longer a good fit with the external
environment, and it turns from an asset into a liability
Reinvesting, honing, and upgrading resources and capabilities are crucial to sustaining
any competitive advantage
- This ability lies at the heart of the dynamic capabilities perspective
- Dynamic capabilities: a firm’s ability to create, deploy, modify, reconfigure, upgrade,
or leverage its resources in its quest for competitive advantage
o Allow firms to adapt to changing market conditions
o Enable firms to create market changes that can strengthen their strategic
position
- The goal should be to develop resources, capabilities, and competencies that create a
strategic fit with the firm’s environment
Dynamic capabilities perspective: a model that emphasizes a firm’s ability to modify and
leverage its resource base in a way that enables it to gain and sustain competitive advantage
in a constantly changing environment
- Competitive advantage is not derived from static resource or market advantages, but
from a dynamic reconfiguration of a firm’s resource base
o Resource stocks: the firm’s current level of intangible resources – e.g.:
dynamic capabilities, new product development, engineering expertise,
innovation capability, reputation for quality, and so on
o Resource flows: the firm’s level of investments to maintain or build a
resource
- The manager’s task is to decide which investments to make over time in order to best
position the firm for competitive advantage in a changing environment
- Managers need to monitor the existing intangible resource stocks and their attrition
rates due to leakage and forgetting
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4.4 The Value Chain Analysis

Value chain: the internal activities a firm engages in when transforming inputs into outputs;
each activity adds incremental value
- A careful analysis of the value chain allows managers to obtain a more detailed and
fine-grained understanding of how the firm’s economic value creation (V – C) breaks
down into a distinct set of activities that help determine the perceived value (V) and
the costs (C) to create it
As shown in the generic value chain above, the transformation process from inputs to
outputs is composed of a set of distinct activities
- When a firm’s distinct activities generate value greater than the costs to create them,
the firm obtains a profit margin
- A generic value chain needs to be modified to capture the activities of a specific
business
The value chain is divided into primary and support activities

- Primary activities: firm activities that add value directly by transforming inputs into
outputs as the firm moves a product or service horizontally along the internal value
chain
o Supply chain management, operations, distribution, marketing and sales, and
after-sales service
- Support activities: firm activities that add value indirectly, but are necessary to
sustain primary activities
o Research and development (R&D), information systems, human resources,
accounting and finance, and firm infrastructure including processes, policies,
and procedures
To help a firm achieve a competitive advantage, each distinct activity performed needs to
either add incremental value to the product or service or lower its relative cost
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A strategic fit increases the likelihood that a firm is able to gain a competitive advantage. If a
firm achieves a dynamic strategic fit, it is likely to be able to sustain its advantage over time
Using SWOT analysis te generate insights frem external and internal

analysis
SWOT analysis: a framework that allows managers to synthesize insights obtained from an
internal analysis of the company’s strengths and weaknesses (S and W) with those from an
analysis of external opportunities and threats (O and T) to derive strategic implications
- S and W concern resources, capabilities, and competencies
o Whether they are strengths or weaknesses can be determined by applying
the VRIO framework
- O and T are in the firm’s general environment and can be captured by PESTEL and
Porter’s five forces analyses
- A SWOT analysis allows the strategist to evaluate a firm’s current situation and future
prospects by simultaneously considering internal and external factors
- Encourages managers to scan the internal and external environments, looking for any
relevant factors that might affect the firm’s current or future competitive advantage
In a first step, managers gather

information for a SWOT analysis in
order to link internal factors to
external factors. Next, managers
use the SWOT matrix to develop
strategic alternatives for the firm
using a four-step process:
1. Focus on the Strengths-
Opportunities quadrant to
derive “offensive” alternatives by using an internal strength in order to exploit an
external opportunity
2. Focus on the Weaknesses-Threats quadrant to derive “defensive” alternatives by
eliminating or minimizing an internal weakness in order to mitigate an external
threat
3. Focus on the Strengths-Threats quadrant to use an internal strength to minimize the
effect of an external threat
4. Focus on the Weaknesses-Opportunities quadrant to shore up an internal weakness
to improve its ability to take advantage of an external opportunity
In a final step, the strategist needs to carefully evaluate the pros and cons of each strategic
alternative to select one or more alternatives to implement
Problem SWOT framework: a strength can also be a weakness and an opportunity can also
simultaneously a threat
To make the SWOT analysis an effective management tool, the strategist must first conduct a
thorough external and internal analysis (Chapter 3 and 4). This sequential process enables
the strategist to ground the analysis in theoretical frameworks before using SWOT to
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synthesize the results from the external and internal analyses in order to derive a set of
strategic options
Chapter 5 – Cempetitive Advantage, Firm Perfermance,

and Business Medels
5.1 Cempetitive Advantage and Firm Perfermance
Three standard performance dimensions:
1. What is the firm’s accounting profitability?
2. How much shareholder value does the firm create?
3. How much economic value does the firm generate?
These three performance dimensions tend to be correlated, particularly over time.
Accounting profitability and economic value creation tend to be reflected in the firm’s stock
price, which in turn determines in part the stock’s market valuation
Acceunting prefitability
Using accounting data to assess competitive advantage and firm performance is standard
managerial practice. When assessing competitive advantage by measuring accounting
profitability, we use financial data and ratios derived from publicly available accounting data
such as income statements and balance sheets
A firm’s managers must be able to accomplish 2 critical tasks:

1. Accurately assess the performance of their firm
2. Compare and benchmark their firm’s performance to other competitors in the same
industry or against the industry average
Standardized financial metrics, derived from such publicly available accounting data such as
income statements and balance sheets, fulfill both these conditions
Accounting data enable us to conduct direct performance comparisons between different

companies
Some of the profitable ratios most commonly used in strategic management:

- Return on invested capital (ROIC) = net profits / invested capital
o A good proxy for firm profitability
o The ratio measures how effectively a company uses its total invested capital,
which consists of 2 components:
1. Shareholder’s equity through the selling of shares to the public
2. Interest-bearing debt through borrowing from financial institutions
and bondholders
o Rule of thumb: if a firm’s ROIC is greater than its cost of capital, it generates
value; if it’s less than the cost of capital, the firm destroys value
The cost of capital represents a firm’s cost of financing operations
from both equity through issuing stock and debt through issuing
bonds
- Return on equity (ROE), Return on assets (ROA), and Return on revenue (ROR)
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Apple vs. Microsoft

Break down ROIC into its constituents: return on revenue and working capital turnover
- Return on revenue (ROR) indicates how much of the firm’s sales is converted into
profits. Break down into 3 additional financial ratios:
o Costs of goods sold (COGS) / Revenue: indicates how efficiently a company
can produce a good
o Research and development (R&D) expense / Revenue: indicates how much of
each dollar that the firm earns in sales is invested to conduct research and
development. A higher percentage is generally an indicator of a stronger
focus on innovation to improve current products and services, and to come
up with new ones
o Selling, general, & administrative (SG&A) expense / Revenue: indicates how
much of each dollar that the firm earns in sales is invested in sales, general,
and administrative expenses. It is an indicator of the firm’s focus on marketing
and sales to promote its products and services
- Working capital turnover is a measure of how effectively capital is being used to
generate revenue. Break down into other ratios, including:
o Fixed asset turnover (Revenue / Fixed assets): measures how well a company
leverages its fixed assets, particularly property, plant, and equipment (PPE)
o Inventory turnover (COGS / Inventory): indicates how much of a firm’s capital
is tied up in its inventory
o Receivables turnover (Revenue / Accounts receivable): a higher ratio implies
more efficient management in collecting accounts receivable and shorter
durations of interest-free loans to customers
o Payables turnover (Revenue / Accounts payable): indicates how fast the firm is
paying its creditors and how much it benefits form interest-free loans
extended by its suppliers. A lower ratio indicates more efficient management
in paying creditors and generating interest-free loans from suppliers
Limitatioes of accouetieg data

Although accounting data tend to be readily available and we can easily transform them into
financial ratios to assess and evaluate competitive performance, they also exhibit some
important limitations:
- All accounting data are historical and thus backward-looking
o Accounting profitability ratios show us only the outcomes from past
decisions, and the past is no guarantee of future performance
o There is also some time delay before accounting data become publicly
available
- Accounting data do not consider off-balance sheet items
o E.g.: pension obligations or operating leases in the retail industry
o Strategists address this shortcoming by adjusting accounting data to obtain an
equivalent economic capital base, so that they can compare companies with
different capital structures
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- Accounting data focus mainly on tangible assets, which are no longer the most
important
o E.g. intangible assets: innovation, quality, and customer experience
Ietaegibles aed the value of firms

Intangible assets that are not captured in accounting data have become much more
important in firm’s stock market valuations
Key financial ratios based on accounting data give us an important tool to assess competitive
advantage. In particular, they help us measure relative profitability, which is useful when
comparing firms of different sizes over time. They are an important starting point when
analyzing the competitive performance of firms
Sharehelder value creatien

Shareholders: individuals or organizations that own one or more shares of stock in a public
company – the legal owners of public companies
- The measure of competitive advantage that matters most is the return on their risk
capital: the money provided by shareholders in exchange for an equity share in a
company; it cannot be recovered if the firm goes bankrupt
Investors are primarily interested in a company’s total return to shareholders: return on risk
capital that includes stock price appreciation plus dividends received over a specific period –
an external and forward-looking performance metric
- Indicates how the stock market views all available public information about a firm’s
past, current state, and expected future performance, with most of the weight on
future growth expectations
- Efficient-market hypothesis: the idea that all available information about a firm’s past,
current state, and expected future performance is embedded in the market price of
the firm’s stock
Market capitalization: a firm performance metric that captures the total dollar market value
of a company’s total outstanding shares at any given point in time
- Market cap = number of outstanding shares * share price
A firm’s stock price generally increases only if the firm’s rate of growth exceeds investors’
expectations
Limitatioes of shareholder value creatioe

Although measuring firm performance through total return to shareholders and firm market
capitalization has many advantages, it has shortcomings:
- Stock prices can be highly volatile, making it difficult to assess firm performance,
particularly in the short term
o Implies that total return to shareholders is a better measure of firm
performance and competitive advantage over the long term
- Overall macroeconomic factors such as economic growth or contraction, the
unemployment rate, and interest and exchange rates all have a direct bearing on
stock prices
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- Stock prices frequently reflect the psychological mood of investors, which can at
times be irrational
Ecenemic value creatien

The relationship between economic value creation and competitive advantage is
fundamental in strategic management. It provides the foundation upon which to formulate a
firm’s competitive strategy for cost leadership or differentiation
A firm has a competitive advantage when it creates more economic value that rival firms
Economic value created: difference between value (V) and cost (C) or (V – C)
Reservation price: the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay for a product or service
based on the total perceived consumer benefits
- = total perceived consumer benefits = maximum willingness to pay
Competitive advantage can also result from a relative cost advantage over rivals, assuming
both firms can create the same total perceived consumer benefits
For ease in calculating competitive advantage, 3 components are needed:

1. Value (V): the dollar amount (V) a consumer attaches to a good or service; the
consumer’s maximum willingness to pay; also called reservation price
2. Price (P)
3. Cost (C)
Profit/producer surplus: difference between price charged (P) and the cost to produce (C) or
(P – C); also called producer surplus
Consumer surplus: difference between the value a consumer attaches to a good or service
(V) and what he or she paid for it (P), or (V – P)
Economic value creation (V – C) = (V – P) + (P – C)

A large difference between V and C gives the firm 2 distinct pricing options:
1. It can charge higher prices to reflect the higher value and thus increase its
profitability
2. It can charge the same price as competitors and thus gain market share
The economic value creation framework shows

that strategy is about (1) creating economic
value and (2) capturing as much of it as
possible
Profit () = total revenues – total costs

= TR – TC
TR = P * Q
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Opportunity costs: the value of the best forgone alternative use of the resources employed
Limitatioes of ecoeomic value creatioe

- Determining the value of a good in the eyes of consumer is not a simple task
o Tackle this problem by looking at consumers’ purchasing habits for their
revealed preferences, which indicate how much each consumer is willing to
pay for a product or service
- The value of a good in the eyes of consumers changes based on income, preferences,
time, and other factors
- To measure firm-level competitive advantage, we must estimate the economic value
created for all products and services offered by the firm
o Complicated for diversified firm – easy for firms who offer only a few products
or services
The balanced scerecard

Balanced scorecard: strategy implementation tool that harnesses multiple internal and
external performance metrics in order to balance financial and strategic goals
4 key questions:
1. How do customers view us?
o The customer’s perspective concerning the company’s products and services
links directly to its revenues and profits
2. How do we create value?
o Answering this question challenges managers to develop strategic objectives
that ensure future competitiveness, innovation, and organizational learning
o The answer focusses on the business processes and structures that allow a
firm to create economic value
3. What core competencies do we need?
o This question focusses managers internally, to identify the core competencies
needed to achieve their objectives and the accompanying business processes
that support, hone, and leverage those competencies
4. How do shareholders view us?
o Understanding the shareholders’ view of value creation leads managers to a
more future-oriented evaluation
The balanced scorecard combines the strengths provided by the individual approaches to
assessing competitive advantage (accounting profitability, shareholder value creation, and
economic value creation)
Advaetages of the balaeced scorecard

The balanced scorecard allows managers to:
- Communicate and link the strategic vision to responsible parties within the
organization
- Translate the vision into measurable operational goals
- Design and plan business processes
- Implement feedback and organizational learning to modify and adapt strategic goals
when indicated
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The balanced scorecard can accommodate both short- and long-term performance metrics It
allows managers to assess past performance, identify areas for improvement, and position
the company for future growth
Disadvaetages of the balaeced scorecard

- It is a tool for strategy implementation, not for strategy formulation
- Provides only a limited guidance about which metrics to choose
- Managers need to be aware that a failure to achieve competitive advantage is not so
much a reflection of a poor framework but of a strategic failure
- It is only as good as the skills of the managers who use it
o They first must devise a strategy that enhances the odds of achieving
o Second, they must accurately translate the strategy into objectives that they
can measure and manage within the balanced-scorecard approach
- Once the metrics have been selected, the balanced scorecard tracks chosen metrics
and measures and compares them to target values. It does not provide much insight
into how metrics that deviate from the set goals can be put back on track
The triple bettem line

Triple bottom line: combination of economic, social, and ecological concerns – or profits,
people, and planet – that can lead to a sustainable strategy
- Profits. The economic dimension captures the necessity of businesses to be
profitable to survive
- People. The social dimension emphasizes the people
aspect
- Planet. The ecological dimension emphasizes the
relationship between business and the natural
environment
The intersection of the three ovals (achieving positive
results in all three areas) can lead to a sustainable strategy:
a strategy along the economic, social, and ecological
dimensions that can be pursued over time without
detrimental effects on people or the planet
The triple bottom line, like the balance scorecard, takes a more integrative and holistic view
in assessing a company’s performance
Using a triple-bottom-line approach, managers audit their company’s fulfillment of its social
and ecological obligations to stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, and
communities as conscientiously as they track its financial performance triple-bottom-line
framework is related to stakeholder theory: an approach to understanding a firm embedded
in a network of internal and external constituencies that each make contributions and
expect consideration in return
5.2 Business Medels: Putting Strategy inte Actien

The translation of strategy into action takes place in the firm’s business model: a firm’s plan
that details how it intends to make money
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To come up with an effective business model, a firm’s managers first transform their strategy
of how to compete into a blueprint of actions and initiatives that support the overarching
goals. In a second step, managers implement this blueprint through structures, processes,
culture, and procedures
Pepular business medels
- Razor-razorblades. The initial product is often sold at a loss or given away for free in
order to derive demand for complementary goods
- Subscription. Users pay for access to a product or service whether they use the
product or service during the payment term or not – e.g.: cable television, Internet
service providers, health clubs, and Netflix
- Pay as you go. Users pay for only the services they consumer – e.g.: utilities providing
power and water and cell phone service plans
- Freemium. Provides the basic features of a product or service for free of charge, but
chargers the user for premium services such as advanced features or add-ons
- Wholesale. The traditional model in retail. E.g. book publishing industry: book
publishers sell books to retailers at a fixed price, retailers are free to set their own
price
- Agency. The producer relies on an agent or retailer to sell the product, at a
predetermined percentage commission. Sometimes the producer will also control
the retail price
- Bundling. Sells products or services for which demand is negatively correlated at a
discount. Demand for two products is negatively correlated if a user values one
product more than another
Dynamic nature ef business medels

Combieatioe
E.g.: AT&T combines the razor-razorblade model with the subscription model – they provide
a basic cell phone at no charge, or significantly subsidize a high-end smartphone, when you
sign up for a two-year wireless service plan
Evolutioe
The freemium business model can be seen as an evolutionary variation on the razor-
razorblade model
Disruptioe
E.g.: Amazon takes advantage of the pricing flexibility inherent in the wholesale model and
offers many books below the cost that other retailers have to pay to publishers
Respoese to disruptioe
Example continued: the market is dynamic, and the book publishers look for another model
Legal coeflicts
The rapid development of business models, especially in response to disruption, can lead
producers to breach existing rules of commerce
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No best strategy exists – only better ones. We must interpret any performance metric
relative to those of competitors and the industry average. True performance can be judged
only in comparison to other contenders in the field or the industry average, not on an
absolute basis
The goal of strategic management is to integrate and align each business function and
activity to obtain superior performance at the business unit and corporate levels
competitive advantage is best measured by criteria that reflect overall business unit
performance (rather than the performance of specific departments)
Both quantitative and qualitative performance dimensions matter in judging the

effectiveness of a firm’s strategy. Those who focus on only one metric will risk being
blindsided by poor performance on another managers need to rely on a more holistic
perspective when assessing firm performance, measuring different dimensions over
different time periods
A firm’s business model is critical to achieving a competitive advantage. How a firm does
business is as important as what it does
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Chapter 6 – Business Strategy: Differentiatien, Cest

Leadership, and Blue Oceans
6.1 Business-Level Strategy: Hew te Cempete fer Advantage
Business-level strategy: the goal-directed actions managers take in their quest for
competitive advantage when competing in a single product market
- Involves a single product or a group of similar products that use the same
distribution channel
- Concerns the question: “How should we compete?”
- Managers must answer:
o Who – which customer segments will we serve?
o What customer needs, wishes, and desires will we satisfy?
o Why do we want to satisfy them?
o How will we satisfy our customers’ needs?
- Competitive advantage is determined jointly by industry and firm effects
Strategic pesitien
Competitive advantage is based on the difference between the perceived value a firm is able
to create for consumers (V), captured by how much consumers are willing to pay for a
product or service, and the total cost (C) the firm incurs to create that value
The greater the economic value created (V – C), the greater is a firm’s potential for
A firm’s business-level strategy determines its strategic position – in a specific product

market
To achieve a desired strategic position, managers must make strategic trade-offs: choices
between a cost or value position. Such choices are necessary because higher value creation
tends to generate higher cost
Managers must address the tension between value creation and the pressure to keep cost in
check so as not to erode the firm’s economic value creation and profit margin
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A business strategy is more likely to lead to a competitive advantage if a firm has a clear
strategic profile, either as differentiation or a low-cost leader
Generic business strategies

1. Differentiation strategy: generic business strategy that seeks to create higher value
for customers than the value that competitors create – by delivering products or
services with unique features while keeping costs at the same or similar levels,
allowing the firm to charge higher prices to its customers
2. Cost-leadership strategy: generic business strategy that seeks to create the same or
similar value for customers at a lower cost – enabling the firm to offer lower prices to
its customers
These two are called generic strategies because they can be used by any organization in the
quest for competitive advantage, independent of industry context
A business strategy is more likely to lead to a competitive advantage if it allows firms to

either perform similar activities differently or perform different activities that their rivals that
result in creating more value or offering similar products or services at lower cost
Scope of competition: the size–narrow or broad–of the market in which a firm chooses to
compete
Focused cost-leadership strategy: same as the cost-leadership strategy except with a narrow
focus on a niche market
Focused differentiation strategy: same as the differentiation strategy except with a narrow
focus on a niche market
6.2 Differentiatien Strategy: Understanding Value Drivers

Goal differentiation strategy: to add unique features that will increase the perceived value of
goods and services in the minds of consumers so they are willing to pay a higher price
A company that uses a differentiation strategy can achieve a competitive advantage as long
as its economic value created (V – C) is greater than that of its competitors
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Although increased value creation is a defining feature of a differentiation strategy,

managers must also control costs. Rising costs reduce economic value created and erode
profit margins
Economies of scale denote decreases in cost per unit as output increases

Economies of scope: savings that come from producing two (or more) outputs at less cost
than producing each output individually, despite using the same resources and technology
Value drivers: product features, customer service, and complements – related to a firm’s
expertise in, and organization of, different internal value chain activities
Preduct features
Product features: adding unique product attributes increasing the perceived value of the
product or service offering allows firms to ask a premium price
Strong R&D is required to create superior product features
Custemer service
Focusing on customer service increasing the value of their firm’s product or service
offerings – e.g.: free shipping both ways
Cemplements
Complements add value to a product or service when they are consumed in tandem 
finding complements is an important task for managers in their quest to enhance the value
of their offerings
Short summary: by choosing the differentiation strategy as the strategic position for a
product, managers focus their attention on adding value to the product through its unique
features that respond to customer preferences, customer service during and after the sale,
or effective marketing that communicates the value of the product’s features. This involves
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increased costs, customers will be willing to pay a premium price for the product or service
that satisfies their needs and preferences
6.3 Cest-Leadership Strategy: Understanding Cest Drivers
Goal cost-leadership strategy: to reduce the firm’s cost below that of its competitors while
offering adequate value
The cost leader focuses its attention and resources on reducing the cost to manufacture a
product or deliver a service in order to offer lower prices to its customers – still needs to
offer products and services of acceptable value
Most important cost drivers that managers can manipulate to keep their costs low are: cost
of input factors, economies of scale, learning-curve effects, and experience-curve effects
Ecenemies ef scale
Economies of scale: decreases in cost per unit as output increases
Economies of scale allow firms to:
- Spread their fixed costs over a larger
output
- Employ specialized systems and
equipment
- Take advantage of certain physical
properties
Minimum efficient scale (MES): output range

needed to bring down the cost per unit as
much as possible, allowing a firm to stake out
the lowest-cost position that is achievable
through economies of scale
Diseconomies of scale: increases in cost per unit when output increases
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Learning curve
As individuals and teams engage repeatedly in an activity, they learn from their cumulative
experience – the steeper the learning curve, the more learning has taken place
As cumulative output increases, firms move down the learning curve, reaching lower per-
unit costs
The learning-curve effect is driving by increasing cumulative output within the existing
technology over time. That implies that the only difference between two points on the same
learning curve is the size of the cumulative output. The underlying technology remains the
same
By moving further down a given learning curve than competitors, a firm can gain a
Learning effects differ from economies of scale:

- Differences in timing. Learning effects occur over time as output accumulates, while
economies of scale are captured at one point in time when output increases.
Although learning can decline or flatten, there are no diseconomies to learning
- Differences in complexity. In some production processes, effects form economies of
scale can be quite significant, while learning effects are minimal. In contrast, in some
professions, learning effects can be substantial, while economies of scale are minimal
– e.g.: brain surgery
Experience curve
In the experience curve, the underlying technology is changed while cumulative output is
held constant
Process innovation – a new method or technology to produce an existing product – may

initiate a new and steeper curve
Learning by doing allows a firm to lower its per-unit costs by moving down a given learning
curve, while experience-curve effects based on process innovation allow a firm to leapfrog
to a steeper learning curve, thereby driving down its per-unit costs
Short summary: In a cost-leadership strategy, managers must focus on lowering the costs of
production while maintaining a level of quality acceptable to the customer. By looking to
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reduce costs in each value chain activity, managers aim for the lowest-cost position in the
industry. They strive to offer lower prices than competitors and to attract increased sales
6.4 Business-Level Strategy and the Five Ferces: Benefits and Risks
6.5 Blue Ocean Strategy: Cembining Differentiatien and Cest

Leadership
Blue ocean strategy: business-level strategy that successfully combines differentiation and
cost-leadership activities using value innovation to reconcile the inherent trade-offs
- Allows a firm to offer a differentiated product or service at a low cost
- Blue oceans represent untapped market space, the creation of additional demand,
and the resulting opportunities for highly profitable growth
- Red oceans are the known market space of existing industries – rivalry is cut-threat
because the market space is crowded and competition is a zero-sum game
2 pricing options:
1. The firm can charge a higher price than the cost leader, reflecting its higher value
creation and thus generating profit margins
2. The firm can lower its price below that of the differentiator because of its lower-cost
structure gain market share and make up the loss in margin through increased
sales
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Value innevatien
For a blue ocean strategy to succeed, managers must resolve
trade-offs between the two generic strategic positions – low
cost and differentiation
This is done through value innovation: the simultaneous
pursuit of differentiation and low cost in a way that creates a
leap in value for both the firm and the consumers; considered
a cornerstone of blue ocean strategy
Makes competition irrelevant opening new and
uncontested market spaces
Successful value innovation requires that a firm’s strategic moves lower its costs and at the
same time increase the perceived value for buyers (see exhibit)
- Lowering a firm’s cost is primarily achieved by eliminating and reducing the taken-
for-granted factors that the firm’s rivals in their industry compete on
- Perceived buyer value is increased by raising existing key success factors and by
creating new elements that the industry has not offered previously
Managers must answer 4 key questions when formulating a blue ocean business strategy:
Value innovation – lower costs
1. Eliminate. Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be
eliminated?
2. Reduce. Which of the factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard?
Value innovation – increase perceived consumer benefits
3. Raise. Which of the factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard?
4. Create. Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?
Blue ecean strategy gene bad: “stuck in the middle”

A blue ocean strategy can be quite difficult to translate into reality:
- Differentiation and cost leadership are distinct strategic options that require
important trade-offs
- It requires the reconciliation of fundamentally different strategic positions, which in
turn require distinct internal value chain activities so the firm can increase value and
lower cost at the same time
Stuck in the middle: the firm has neither a

clear differentiation nor a clear cost-
leadership profile inferior performance
competitive disadvantage
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Value curve: horizontal connection of the points of each value on the strategy canvas that
helps strategists diagnose and determine courses of action
- A strong value curve has focus and divergence, and it can even provide a kind of
tagline as to what strategy is being undertaken or should be undertaken
- A value curve that zigzags across the strategy canvas indicates a lack of effectiveness
in its strategic profile – stuck in the middle
Strategy canvas: graphical depiction of a company’s relative performance vis-à-vis its
competitors across the industry’s key success factors

When well-formulated and implemented, a firm’s business strategy enhances a firm’s
chances of obtaining superior performance. Strategic positioning requires making important
trade-offs
A few exceptional firms might be able to change the competitive landscape by opening
previously unknown areas of competition. To do so requires the firm reconcile the significant
trade-offs between increasing value and lowering costs by pursuing both business strategies
(differentiation and low cost) simultaneously. Such a blue ocean strategy tends to be
successful only if a firm is able to rely on a value innovation that allows it to reconcile the
trade-offs mentioned
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Chapter 7 – Business Strategy: Innevatien and

Entrepreneurship
7.1 Cempetitien Driven by Innevatien
Firms must be able to innovate while also fending off competitors’ imitation attempts a
successful strategy requires both an effective offense and a hard-to-crack defense
Factors that explain rapid technological diffusion and adoption:

- Initial innovations provided the necessary infrastructure for newer innovations to
diffuse more rapidly
- Emergence of new business models that make innovations more accessible
The accelerating speed of technological changes has significant implications for the
competitive process and firm strategy
The innevatien precess

Innovation describes the discovery, development, and transformation of new knowledge in a
four-step process captured in the four I’s:
1. Idea – presented in terms of abstract concepts or as findings derived from basic
research
2. Invention: the transformation of an idea into a new product or process, or the
modification and recombination of existing ones
o Patent: a form of intellectual property that gives the inventor exclusive rights
to benefit from commercializing a technology for a specified time period in
exchange for public disclosure of the underlying idea – temporary monopoly
position
o Trade secrets: valuable proprietary information that is not in the public
domain and where the firm makes every effort to maintain its secrecy
3. Innovation: the commercialization of any new product or process, or the
modification and recombination of existing ones allows a firm to extract
temporary monopoly profits
o First-mover advantages: competitive benefits that accrue to the successful
innovator
E.g.: economies of scale, experience and learning-curve effects,
intellectual property (patents), and increase switching costs to lock in
key suppliers and customers
o An innovation needs to be novel, useful, and successfully implemented in
order to help firms gain and sustain a competitive advantage
4. Imitation – if an innovation is successful in the marketplace, competitors will attempt
to imitate it
7.2 Strategic and Secial Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship: the process by which people undertake economic risk to innovate – to
create new products, processes, and sometimes new organizations
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- Entrepreneurs innovate by commercializing ideas and inventions. They seek out or

create new business opportunities and then assemble the resources necessary to
exploit them
- If successful, entrepreneurship not only drives the competitive process, but it also
creates value for the individual entrepreneurs and society at large
Entrepreneurs: the agents that introduce change into the competitive system
- They can introduce change by starting new ventures
- When innovating within existing companies, change agents are often called
intrapreneurs: those pursuing corporate entrepreneurship
Strategic entrepreneurship: the pursuit of innovation using tools and concepts from
strategic management
- Fundamental question: how to combine entrepreneurial actions, creating new
opportunities or exploiting existing ones with strategic actions taken in the pursuit of
Social entrepreneurship: the pursuit of social goals while creating a profitable business
- Social entrepreneurs evaluate the performance of their ventures not only by financial
metrics but also by ecological and social contribution
- They use a triple-bottom-line approach to assess performance
7.3 Innevatien and the Industry Life Cycle

Industries tend to follow a predictable industry life cycle: the five different stages –
introduction, growth, shakeout, maturity, and decline – that occur in the evolution of an
industry over time
- The number and size of competitors change as the industry live cycle unfolds, and
different types of consumers enter the market at each stage
- Both the supply and demand sides of the market change as the industry ages
- Each stage of the industry life cycle requires different competencies for the firm to
perform well and to satisfy that stage’s unique customer group
Intreductien stage
Individual inventor or company launches a successful innovation new industry emerges
In this introductory stage, the innovator’s core competency is R&D, which is necessary to
creating a new product category that will attract customers: a capital-intensive process
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Innovators also may encounter first-mover disadvantages – they must educate potential
customers about the product’s intended benefits, find distribution channels and
complementary assets, and continue to perfect the fledgling product
Strategic objective: to achieve market acceptance and seed future growth

- One way to accomplish these objectives is to initiate and leverage network effects:
the positive effect (externality) that one user of a product or service has on the value
of that product for other users
o If successful, they propel the industry to the next stage of the life cycle:
growth stage
Example iPhone: increased value creation is positively related

to demand, which in turn increases the installed base,
meaning the number of people using an iPhone 
incentivizes software developers to write more apps and make
them widely available strengthens Apple’s position
Grewth stage
Market growth accelerates in the growth stage of the industry life cycle. After the initial
innovation has gained some market acceptance, demand increases rapidly as first-time
buyers rush to enter the market
As the size of the market expands, a standard signals the market’s agreement
Standard: an agreed-upon solution about a common set of engineering features and design
choices
- Standards can emerge bottom-up through competition in the market place or be
imposed top-down by government or other standard-setting agencies
Demand is strong during the growth phase efficient and inefficient firms thrive.
Moreover, prices begin to fall as standard business processes are put in place and firms
begin to reap economies of scale and learning. Distribution channels are expanded
complementary assets in the form of products and services become widely available
Standard is established in an industry basis of competition moves from product

innovation toward process innovation
- Product innovation: new or recombined knowledge embodied in new products
o At a maximum in the introductory stage: new features increasing perceived
consumer value are critical to gaining traction in the market
- Process innovation: new ways to produce existing products or deliver existing
services
o At a minimum in the
introductory stage: companies
produce only a small number of
products; the main concern is
commercialization
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o After the market accepts a new product, and a standard for the new
technology has emerged, process innovation becomes more important
Core competencies for competitive advantage: manufacturing and marketing capabilities.

The R&D emphasis tends to shift to process innovation for improved efficiency
Market demand is robust and more competitors have entered, there tends to be more
strategic variety: some competitors will continue to follow a differentiation strategy and
others a cost-leadership strategy
Key objective: stake out a strong strategic position not easily imitated by rivals
Shakeeut stage
As the industry moves into the next stage of the industry life cycle, the rate of growth
declines. Firms begin to compete directly against one another for market share
Increase in competitive intensity firms cut prices and offer more services erodes
profitability of all but the most efficient firms weaker firms are forced out of the industry
- Winners are often firms that stake out a strong position as cost leaders
- Price becomes a more important competitive weapon in this stage, because product
features and performance requirements tend to be well-established
- Any firm that does not have a clear strategic profile is likely to not survive the
shakeout stage
Key success factors: manufacturing and process engineering capabilities that can be used to
drive costs down (process innovation further increases)
Maturity stage
The industry structure morphs into an oligopoly with only a few large firms. Most of the
demand was largely satisfied in the prior shakeout stage. Any additional market demand in
this stage is limited – demand now consists of replacement or repeat purchases increase in
competitive intensity
The market has reached its maximum size, and industry growth is likely to be zero or even
negative going forward
The level of process innovation reaches its maximum as firms attempt to lower cost as much
as possible, while the level of incremental product innovation sinks to its minimum
Firms that survive the shakeout stage tend to be larger and enjoy economies of scale, as the
industry consolidated and most excess capacity was removed
Decline stage
Changes in the external environment (PESTEL) often take industries from maturity to decline.
In this stage, the size of the market contracts further as demand falls, and both product and
process innovation cease
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If there is remaining excess industry capacity strong pressure on prices and further
increase of competitive intensity (especially with high exit barriers)
Managers generally have 4 strategic options:

1. Exit. Some firms are forced to exit the industry by bankruptcy or liquidation
2. Harvest. In pursuing a harvest strategy, the firm reduces investments in product
support and allocates only a minimum of human and other resources
3. Maintain. In pursuing a maintain strategy, the firm continues to support marketing
efforts at a given level despite the consumption is declining
4. Consolidate. Although market size shrinks in a declining industry, some firms may
choose to consolidate the industry by buying rivals. This allows the consolidating firm
to stake out a strong position – possibly approaching monopolistic market power
Cressing the chasm

The industry life cycle model assumes a more or less smooth transition from one stage to
another. This holds true form most continuous innovations that require little or no change in
consumer behavior. But not all inventions enjoy such continuity
Geoffrey Moore: “each stage of the industry life cycle is dominated by a different customer
group” such differences between customer groups lead to a big gulf or chasm into which
companies and their innovations frequently fall
Crossing-the-chasm framework: conceptual

model that shows how each stage of the
industry life cycle is dominated by a
different customer group
New technology ventures and innovations introduced by established firms have a high
failure rate: explained as a failure to successfully cross the chasm because the firm does not
recognize that the business strategy needs to be fine-tuned for each customer segment
- Formulating a business strategy for each segment guided by the who, what, why, and
how questions of competition, the firm will find that the core competencies to satisfy
each of the different customer segments are quite different
Techeology eethusiasts
The customer segment in the introductory stage is called technology enthusiasts. They often
have an engineering mind-set and pursue new technology proactively. They frequently seek
out new products before the products are officially introduced into the market. They will
often pay a premium price to have the latest gadget
Early adopters
Early adopters enter the market in the growth stage. They are eager to buy early into a new
technology or product concept. Their demand is driven by their imagination and creativity
rather than by the technology per se. They recognize and appreciate the possibilities the
new technology can afford them in their professional and personal lives
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Early majority
The early majority enter the market in the shakeout stage. Their main consideration in
deciding whether or not to adopt a new technological innovation is a strong sense of
practicality. They are pragmatists and are most concerned with the question of what the
new technology can do for them – they weigh benefits and costs carefully. They are aware
that many hyped new product introductions will fade away, so they prefer to wait and see
how things shake out. They rely on endorsements by others. Winning them over is critical to
the commercial success of the innovation
Late majority
Buyers in the late majority enter the market in the maturity stage. Demand coming from just
two groups – early and late majority – drives most industry growth and firm profitability.
They share all the concerns of the early majority, but there are important differences. The
late majority is not confident in their ability to master the new technology (early majority is).
They prefer to wait until standards have emerged and are firmly entrenched, so that
uncertainty is much reduced. They prefer to buy from well-established firms with a strong
brand image rather than from unknown new ventures
Laggards
The laggards enter in the declining stage. They adopt a new product only if it’s absolutely
necessary. They generally don’t want new technology, either for personal or economic
reasons. They are generally not considered worth pursuing; their demand is far too small to
compensate for reduced demand from the early and late majority, who are moving on to
different products and services
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7.4 Types ef Innevatien

Markets-and-technology framework: a conceptual
model to categorize innovations along the market
(existing/new) and technology (existing/new)
dimensions
Incremental vs. radical innevatien

Incremental innovation: an innovation that squarely
builds on an established knowledge base and
steadily improves an existing product or service
Radical innovation: an innovation that draws on novel methods or materials, is derived

either form an entirely different knowledge base or from a recombination of the existing
knowledge bases with a new stream of knowledge
A predictable pattern of innovation is that firms use radical innovation to create a temporary
competitive advantage. They then follow up with a string of incremental innovations to
sustain that initial lead
Future radical innovations are generally introduced by new entrepreneurial ventures.

Reasons: economic incentives, organizational inertia, and the firm’s embeddedness in an
innovation ecosystem
Ecoeomic ieceetives
An innovator has become an established incumbent firm strong incentives to defend its
strategic position and market power. An emphasis on incremental innovations strengthens
the incumbent firm’s position maintains high entry barriers. However, any potential radical
innovation threatens the incumbent firm’s dominant position
A focus on incremental innovation is particularly attractive once an industry standard has

emerged and technological uncertainty is reduced
Winner-take-all markets: markets where the market leader captures almost all of the
market share and is able to extract a significant amount of the value created
The incentives for entrepreneurial ventures are just the opposite: successfully
commercializing a radical innovation is frequently the only option to enter an industry
protected by high entry barriers – focus on radical innovations rather than incremental
Orgaeizatioeal ieertia
As firms become established and grow, they rely more heavily on formalized business
processes and structures. In some cases, the firm may experience organizational inertia –
resistance to changes in the status quo incumbent firms tend to favor incremental
innovations that reinforce the existing organizational structure and power distribution
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Ieeovatioe ecosystem
Incumbent firms tend to be a source of incremental innovations because they become
embedded in an innovation ecosystem: a firm’s embeddedness in a complex network of
suppliers, buyers, and complementors, which requires interdependent strategic decision
making
Architectural vs. disruptive innevatien

Architectural innovation: a new product in which known components, based on existing
technologies, are reconfigured in a novel way to attack new markets
Disruptive innovation: an innovation that

leverages new technologies to attack existing
markets from the bottom up
To be a disruptive force, a new technology has

to have additional characteristics:
1. It begins as a low-cost solution to an
existing problem
2. Its performance is inferior to the
existing technology, but its rate of
technology improvement over time is
faster than the rate of performance
increases required by different market segments
Factors favoring the success of disruptive innovation:

- It relies on a stealth attack: it invades the market form the bottom up, by first
capturing the low end incumbent firms frequently fail to defend the low end of
the market because of low profit margins
- Incumbent firms often are slow to change. Incumbent firms tend to listen closely to
their current customers and respond by continuing to invest in the existing
technology and in incremental changes to the existing products a newer
technology matures and proves to be a better solution the same customers will
switch the incumbent firm does not yet have a competitive product ready
How to respoed to disruptive ieeovatioe?

1. Continue to innovate in order to stay ahead of the competition
2. Guard against disruptive innovation by protecting the low end of the market
o Introducing low-cost innovations to preempt stealth competitors
3. Disrupt yourself, rather than wait for others to disrupt you
o Reverse innovation: an innovation that was developed for emerging
economies before being introduced in developed economies (also called
frugal innovation)
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Open innevatien
Open innovation: a framework for R&D that proposes permeable firm boundaries to allow a
firm to benefit not only from internal ideas and inventions, but also from external ones. The
sharing goes both ways: some external ideas and inventions are insourced while others are
spun out
- External sources of knowledge: customers, suppliers, universities, start-up
companies, and even competitors
Panel A: Closed innovation

- The firm is conducting all R&D in-house – protective of their intellectual property 
prevents the competitors to benefit from it
- The boundaries of the firm are impenetrable – outside ideas and projects cannot
enter, not does the firm allow its own research ideas and development projects to
leave the firm
- First-mover advantages
Panel B: Open innovation
- A company attempts to commercialize both its own ideas and research from other
firms
- Boundary has become porous allows the firm to spin out some R&D projects
while insourcing other promising projects
- Focus: building a more effective business model to commercialize both internal and
external R&D, rather than focusing on being first to market
Absorptive capacity: a firm’s ability to understand external technology developments,

evaluate them, and integrate them into current products or create new ones
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An effective innovation strategy is critical in formulating a business strategy that provides the
firm with a competitive advantage. Successful innovation affords firms a temporary
monopoly, with corresponding monopoly pricing power. Continuous innovation fuels the
success of companies
Entrepreneurs are the agents that introduce change into the competitive system by figuring
out how to use innovations and by introducing new products or services, new production
processes, and new forms of organizations
The industry life cycle model and the crossing-the-chasm framework have critical
implications for how you manage innovation. To cross the chasm, you need to formulate a
business strategy guided by the who, what, why, and, how questions of competition to
ensure you meet the distinctly different customer needs. To do so, you need to bring
different competencies and capabilities to bear at different stages of the industry life cycle
As a strategist, you must actively manage a firm’s internal and external innovation activities:
- Internally, you can induce innovation through a top-down process or motivate
innovation through autonomous behavior, a bottom-up process. In induced
innovation, you need to put a structure and system in place to foster innovation.
- Externally, you must manage innovation through cooperative strategies such as
licensing, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and acquisitions. These are the vehicles
of corporate strategy (discussed in the next chapters)
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Chapter 8 – Cerperate Strategy: Vertical Integratien and

Diversificatien
8.1 What Is Cerperate Strategy?
Strategy formulation centers around the key questions of where and how to compete
Business strategy concerns the questions of how to compete in a single product market
gain competitive advantage by increasing differentiation or lower costs (or both: blue ocean
strategy)
Corporate strategy: the decisions that senior management makes and the goal-directed
actions it takes to gain and sustain competitive advantage in several industries and market
simultaneously
- Determines the boundaries of the firm along 3 dimensions: vertical integration,
diversification, and geographic scope
- Executives must determine their corporate strategy by answering 3 questions:
1. In what stages of the industry value chain should the company participate
(vertical integration)?
o The industry value chain describes the transformation of raw materials into
finished goods and services along distinct vertical stages
2. What range of products and services should the company offer (diversification)?
3. Where should the company compete geographically in terms of regional,
national, or international markets (geographic scope)?
Why firms need te grew

Iecrease profits
Profitable growth businesses provide a higher return for their shareholders
The stock market valuation is determined by expected future revenue and profit streams
Lower costs
A larger firm may benefit from economies of scale; driving down average costs as their
output increases. Firms need to grow to achieve minimum efficient scale, and thus scale out
the lowest-cost position achievable through economies of scale
Iecrease market power

Achieve growth increase their market share and market power
Horizontal mergers and acquisition (buying competitors) change industry structure in
their favor
Reduce risk
Competing in a number of different industries diversify their product and service portfolio
rationale: falling sales and lower performance in one sectors might be compensated by
higher performance in another attempt to achieve economies of scope
Maeagerial motives
Firms may grow to achieve goals that benefit its managers more than their stockholders
(principal-agent problem)
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Three dimensiens ef cerperate strategy

The underlying strategic management concepts that will guide our discussion of vertical
integration, diversification, and geographic competition are:
- Core competencies: unique strengths embedded deep within a firm
o Allow a firm to differentiate its products and services from those of its rivals,
creating higher value for the customer or offering products and services of
comparable value at lower cost
o Resource-based view: a firm’s boundaries are delineated by its knowledge
bases and core competencies
- Economies of scale: when a firm’s average cost per unit decreases as its output
increases
- Economies of scope: the savings that come from producing two (or more) outputs or
providing different services at less costs than producing each individually, though
using the same resources and technology
- Transaction costs: all costs associated with an economic exchange
o Enables the manager to answer the question of whether it is cost-effective for
their firm to expand its boundaries through vertical integration or
diversification
8.2 The Beundaries ef the Firm

Transaction cost economics: a theoretical framework in strategic management to explain
and predict the boundaries of the firm, which is central to formulating a corporate strategy
that is more likely to lead to a competitive advantage
Transaction costs: all internal and external costs associated with an economic exchange,
whether within a firm or in markets
- External transaction costs: costs of searching for a firm or an individual with whom
to contract, and then negotiating, monitoring, and enforcing the contract
- Internal transaction costs: costs pertaining to organizing an economic exchange
within a hierarchy; also called administrative costs
Firms vs. markets: make er buy?

Transaction cost economics allows us to explain which activities a firm should pursue in-
house (“make”) versus which goods and services to obtain externally (“buy”). These
decisions help determine the boundaries of the firm
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When the costs of pursuing an activity in-house are less than the costs of transacting for that
activity in the market (Cin-house < Cmarket) firm should vertically integrate by owning production
of the needed inputs or the channels for the distribution of outputs
in other words: when firms are more efficient in organizing economic activity than are
markets (which rely on contracts among many independent factors), firms should vertically
integrate
Principal-agent problem: situation in which an agent performing activities on behalf of a
principal pursues his or her own interests
Information asymmetry: situation in which one party is more informed than another
because of the possession of private information
Alternatives en the make-er-buy centinuum

Short-term coetracts
When engaging in short-term contracting, a firm sends out requests for proposals (RFPs) to
several companies, which initiates competitive bidding for contracts to be awarded with a
short duration (less than one year)
- Benefit: allows a longer planning period than individual market transactions and t he
buying firm can demand lower prices due to the competitive bidding process
- Drawback: firms responding to the RFP have no incentive to make any transaction-
specific investments due to the short duration of the contract
Strategic alliaeces
Strategic alliances: voluntary arrangements between firms that involve the sharing of
knowledge, resources, and capabilities with the intent of developing processes, products, or
services
Can facilitate investments in transaction-specific assets without encountering the internal
transaction cost involved in owning firms in various stages of the industry value chain
Long term contracts – work much like short-term contracts but with a duration generally
greater than one year
- Licensing: a form of long-term contracting in the manufacturing sector that enables
firms to commercialize intellectual property
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- Franchising: a long-term contract in which a franchisor grants a franchisee the right

to use the franchisor’s trademark and business processes to offer goods and services
that carry the franchisor’s brand name
Equity alliances – a partnership in which at least one partner takes partial ownership in the
other partner. A partner purchases an ownership share by buying stock or assets, and thus
making an equity investment
- Credible commitment: a long-term strategic decision that is both difficult and costly
to reverse
Joint venture: a stand-alone organization created and jointly owned by two or more parent
companies
Pareet-subsidiary relatioeship
Describes the most-integrated alternative to performing an activity within one’s own
corporate family. The corporate parent owns the subsidiary and can direct it via command
and control. Transaction costs that arise are frequently due to political turf battles, which
may include the capital budgeting process and transfer prices, among other areas
8.3 Vertical Integratien aleng the Industry Value Chain

Vertical integration: the firm’s ownership of its production of needed inputs or of the
channels by which it distributes its outputs
- Measured by a firm’s value added: What percentage of a firm’s sales is generated
within the firm’s boundaries?
- The degree of vertical integration tends to
correspond to the number of industry value
chain stages in which a firm directly
participates
Industry value chain: depiction of the

transformation of raw materials into finished goods
and services along distinct vertical stages, each of
which typically represents a distinct industry in
which a number of different firms are competing
Types ef vertical integratien

Along the industry value chain, there are varying degrees of vertical integration. Some firms
participate in only one or a few stages of the industry value chain, while others comprise
many if not all stages
- Fully vertically integrated: all activities are conducted within the boundaries of the
firm faces different competitors in each stage of the industry value chain
- Vertically disintegrated with a low degree of vertical integration: firms who focus on
only one or a few stages of the industry value chain
Not all industry value chain stages are equally profitable
Backward vertical integration: changes in an industry value chain that involve moving
ownership of activities upstream to the originating (inputs) point of the value chain
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Forward vertical integration: changes in an industry value chain that involve moving
ownership of activities closer to the end (customer) point of the value chain
Benefits and risks ef vertical integratien

To decide the degree and type of vertical integration to pursue, managers need to
understand the possible benefits and risks of vertical integration
Beeefits of vertical ietegratioe

- Lowering costs
- Improving quality
- Facilitating scheduling and planning
- Facilitating investments in specialized assets: unique assets with high opportunity
costs: They have a significantly more value in their intended use than in their next-
best use. They come in three types:
1. Site specificity – assets required to be co-located
2. Physical-asset specificity – assets whose physical and engineering properties
are designed to satisfy a particular customer
3. Human-asset specificity – investments made in human capital to acquire
unique knowledge and skills
- Securing critical supplies and distribution channels
Risks of vertical ietegratioe

- Increasing costs
- Reducing quality
- Reducing flexibility
- Increasing the potential for legal repercussions
In-house suppliers tend to have higher cost structures because they are not exposed to
market competition, benefit less from economies of scale, have rising administrative
costs, have a lower learning curve, are less flexible to changes in the external
environment, all due to reduced incentives as they will always have a buyer for their
products
Vertical market failure: when the markets along the industry value chain are too risky,
and alternatives too costly in time or money
Alternatives te vertical integratien

Taper ietegratioe
Taper integration: a way of orchestrating value
activities in which a firm is backwardly
integrated but also relies on outside-market
firms for some of its supplies and/or is
forwardly integrated but also relies on outside-
market firms for some of its distribution
Benefits:
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- It exposes in-house suppliers and distributions to market competition 

performance comparisons are possible
- It allows a firm to retain and fine-tune its competencies in upstream and
downstream value chain activities
- It enhances a firm’s flexibility – e.g.: when adjusting fluctuations in demand, a firm
could cut back on the finished goods it delivers to external retailers while continuing
to stock its own stores
- Firms can combine internal and external knowledge innovation
Strategic outsourcieg
Strategic outsourcing: moving one or more internal value chain activities outside the firm’s
boundaries to other firms in the industry value chain reducing its level of vertical
integration
When outsourced activities take place outside the home country, it is called offshoring (or
offshore outsourcing)
8.4 Cerperate Diversificatien: Expanding Beyend a Single Market

Diversification: an increase in the variety of products and services a firm offers or markets
and the geographic regions in which it competes
- Product diversification strategy: corporate strategy in which a firm is active in several
different product markets
- Geographic diversification strategy: corporate strategy in which a firm is active in
several different countries
- Product-market diversification strategy: corporate strategy in which a firm is active
in several different product markets and several different countries
Types ef cerperate diversificatien

2 variables that identify the 4 main types of diversification:
1. The percentage of revenue from the dominant primary business
2. The relationship of the core competencies across the business units
4 main types of business diversification:

1. Single business – derives more than 95% of its revenues from one business
2. Dominant business – derives between 70% and 95% of its revenues form a single
business, but it pursues at least one another business activity that accounts for the
remainder of revenue
3. Related diversification – related diversification strategy: corporate strategy in which
a firm derives less than 70% of its revenues form a single business activity and
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obtains revenues from other lines of business that are linked to the primary business
activity benefit from economies of scale and scope
o Related-constrained diversification strategy: a kind of related diversification
strategy in which executives pursue only businesses where they can apply the
resources and core competencies already available in the primary business
o Related-linked diversification strategy: a kind of related diversification
strategy in which executives pursue various businesses opportunities that
share only a limited number of linkages
4. Unrelated diversification: the conglomerate – unrelated diversification strategy:
corporate strategy in which a firm derives less than 70% of its revenues from a single
business and there are a few, if any, linkages among its businesses
o Conglomerate: a company that combines two or more strategic business
units under one overarching corporation; follows an unrelated diversification
strategy
Leveraging cere cempetencies fer cerperate diversificatien

Core competence-market matrix: a framework to guide corporate diversification strategy by
analyzing possible combinations of existing/new core competencies and existing/new
markets
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4 options to formulate corporate strategy via core competencies:

1. Leverage existing core competencies to improve current market position
2. Build new core competencies to protect and extend current market position
3. Redeploy and recombine existing core competencies to compete in markets of the
future
4. Build new core competencies to create and compete in markets of the future
Cerperate diversificatien and firm perfermance

The diversification-performance relationship is a function of the underlying type of
diversification an inverted U-shaped relationship between the type of diversification and overall
firm performance high and low levels of diversification are associated with lower overall firm
performance, while moderate levels are generally associated with higher firm performance
Diversification discount: situation in which the stock price of highly diversified firms is
valued at less than the sum of their individual business units
Diversification premium: situation in which the stock price of related-diversification firms is

valued at greater than the sum of their individual business units
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For diversification to enhance firm performance, it must do at least one of the following:
- Provide economies of scale, which reduces costs
- Exploit economies of scope, which increases value
- Reduce costs and increase value
Restructurieg
Restructuring describes the process of reorganizing and divesting business units and
activities to refocus a company in order to leverage its core competencies more fully
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) growth-share matrix: a corporate planning tool in which the
corporation is viewed as a portfolio of business units, which are represented graphically
along relative market share (horizontal axis) and speed of market growth (vertical axis). SBUs
are plotted into four categories (dog, cash cow, star, and question mark), each of which
warrants a different investment strategy
Ietereal capital markets

Internal capital markets can be a source of value creation in a diversification strategy if the
conglomerate’s headquarters does a more efficient job of allocating capital through its
budgeting process than what could be achieved in external capital markets
- Private information corporate managers are in a position to discover which of
their strategic business units will provide the highest return on invested capital
- Internal capital markets allow the company to access capital at a lower cost
A strategy of related-constrained or related-linked diversification is more likely to enhance

corporate performance than either a single or dominant level of diversification or an
unrelated level of diversification:
- The sources of value creation include not only restructuring, but also the potential
benefits of economies of scopa and scale
- A related-diversification strategy entails 2 types of costs:
o Coordination costs: a function of the number, size, and types of businesses
that are linked
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o Influence costs: occur due to political maneuvering by managers to influence

capital and resource allocation and the resulting inefficiencies stemming from
suboptimal allocation of scarce resources

An effective corporate strategy increases a firm’s chances to gain and sustain a competitive
advantage. By formulating corporate strategy, executives make important choices along 3
dimensions that determine the boundaries of the firm:
1. The degree of vertical integration – in what stages of the industry value chain to
participate
2. The type of diversification – what range of products and services to offer
3. The geographic scope – where to compete
External environment never remains constant corporate strategy needs to be dynamic

over time
The relationship between diversification strategy and competitive advantage depends on the
type of diversification – related diversification is most likely to lead to superior performance:
it taps into multiple sources of value creation (economies of scale and scope; financial
economies)
Chapter 9 – Cerperate Strategy: Strategic Alliances and

Mergers and Acquisitiens
9.1 Hew Firms Achieve Grewth
Corporate executives have 3 options to drive firm growth: organic growth through internal
development, external growth through alliances, or external growth through acquisitions
The build-berrew-er-buy framewerk

Build-borrow-or-buy framework: conceptual model that aids firms in deciding whether to
pursue internal development (build), enter a contractual arrangement or strategic alliance
(borrow), or acquire new resources, capabilities, and competencies (buy)
- Firms that are able to learn how to select the right pathways to obtain new resources
are more likely to gain and sustain a competitive advantage
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- Resources: include capabilities and competencies (as in the VRIO model)
Starting point: the firm’s identification of a strategic resource gap that will impede future
growth (strategic because closing this gap leads to a competitive advantage) close the gap
by opting to build, borrow, or buy
- Build: internal development
- Borrow: the use of strategic alliances
- Buy: acquiring a firm you buy an entire “resource bundle” if obeying VRIO
principles and successfully integrated: the basis of competitive advantage
1. How relevaet are the firm’s existieg ietereal resources to solvieg the
resource gap?
Firm starts by asking if their internal resources are high or low in relevance highly
relevant firm should itself build the new resources needed through internal development
Firms evaluate the relevance of internal resources in 2 ways: they test whether resources are
(1) similar to those of the firm needs to develop and (2) superior (apply the VRIO framework)
to those competitors in the targeted area if both conditions are met: resources are relevant
pursue internal development
2. How tradable are the targeted resources that may be available

extereally?
Firm needs to determine how tradable the targeted resources may be
Tradable implies that the firm is able to source the resource externally through a contract
that allows for the transfer of ownership or use of the resource
short-term and long-term contracts (licensing or franchising) are ways to borrow
resources form another company
A resource is highly tradable the resource should be borrowed via a licensing agreement or
other contractual agreement
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A resource is not easily tradable firm needs to consider either a deeper strategic alliance
through an equity alliance or a joint venture, or an outright acquisition
3. How close do you eeed to be to your extereal resource parteer?

Firms are able to obtain the required resources to fill the strategic gap through more
integrated strategic alliances: equity alliances or joint ventures
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are the most costly, complex, and difficult to reverse
strategic option only if extreme closeness to the resource partner is necessary in order to
understand and obtain its underlying knowledge, the buy option should be considered
4. How well cae you ietegrate the targeted firm, should you determiee
you eeed to acquire the resource parteer?
Last question: Can you integrate the target firm?
Only if the 3 prior conditions (low relevancy, low tradability, and high need for closeness) are
met, the firm should consider M&A: if the firm’s internal resources are insufficient to build,
and the resource needed to fill the strategic gap cannot be borrowed through a strategic
alliance, and closeness to the resource partner is needed last question: whether the
integration of the two firms using a merger or acquisition will be successful
Other cases: firm should consider a less costly borrow arrangement when building is not an
option strategic alliances are the less costly and more common tool to execute corporate
strategy
9.2 Strategic Alliances

Strategic alliance: a voluntary arrangement between firms that involves the sharing of
knowledge, resources, and capabilities with the intent of developing processes, products, or
services
- Speed of technological change, innovation, and globalization strategic alliances
- Join complementary parts of a firm’s value chain (R&D and marketing), or focus on
joining the same value chain activities
- Attractive because they enable firms to achieve goals faster and lower costs
- Allow firms to circumvent potential legal repercussions
- Only strategic if the alliance has the potential to affect a firm’s competitive
advantage
Relational view of competitive advantage: strategic management framework that proposes
that critical resources and capabilities frequently are embedded in strategic alliances that
span firm boundaries
Why de firms enter strategic alliances?

Streegthee competitive positioe
Firms can use strategic alliances to change the industry structure in their favor
Eeter eew markets

Firms may use strategic alliances to enter new markets, either in terms of products and
services or geography
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When entering new geographic markets, in some instances governments may require that
foreign firms have a local joint venture partner before doing business in their countries
cross-border strategic alliances have benefits and risks: the foreign firm can benefit from
local expertise and contacts, but it is exposed to the risk that some of its proprietary know-
how may be appropriated by the foreign partner
Hedge agaiest uecertaiety

In dynamic markets, strategic alliances allow firms to limit their exposure to uncertainty in
the market
Real-options perspective: approach to strategic decision making that breaks down a larger
investment decision into a set of smaller decisions that are staged sequentially over time
allows the firm to obtain additional information at predetermined stages, at each stage
the firm evaluates whether or not to make further investments
Access critical complemeetary assets

The successful commercialization of a new product or service requires complementary
assets – marketing, manufacturing, and after-sale service
new firms are in need of complementary assets to complete the value chin from
upstream innovation to downstream commercialization
Strategic alliances allow firms to match complementary skills and resources to complete the
value chain
Licensing agreements of this sort allow the partners to benefit from a division of labor,
allowing each to efficiently focus on its core competency
Leare eew capabilities

Firms enter strategic alliances because they are motivated by the desire to learn new
capabilities form their partners
Co-opetition: cooperation by competitors to achieve a strategic objective Learning races:
situation in which both partners in a strategic alliance are motivated to form an alliance for
learning, but the rate at which the firms learn may vary
In sum, alliance formation is frequently motivated by leveraging economies of scale, scope,

specialization, and learning
Geverning strategic alliances
Noe-equity alliaeces
Non-equity alliance: partnership based on contracts between firms – e.g.: supply
agreements, distribution agreements, and licensing agreements vertical strategic
alliances, connecting different parts of the industry value chain
- Firms share explicit knowledge: knowledge that can be codified; concerns knowing
about a process or product – e.g.: patens, user manuals, fact sheets, and scientific
publications
- Contractual nature non-equity alliances are flexible and easy to initiate and
terminate
- Temporary in nature produce weak ties between the alliance partners lack of trust
and commitment
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Equity alliaeces
Equity alliance: partnership in which at least one partner takes partial ownership in the
other
- Less common, require larger investments
- Based on partial ownership stronger commitments
- Sharing of tacit knowledge: knowledge that cannot be codified; concerns knowing
how to do a certain task and can be acquired only through active participation in that
task partners frequently exchange personnel
- “try before you buy” strategic option
Corporate venture capital (CVC): equity investments by established firms in entrepreneurial

ventures; CVC falls under the broader rubric of equity alliances
- CVC investments create real options in terms of gaining access to new, and
potentially disruptive, technologies
- CVC investments have a positive impact on value creation for the investing firm
Joiet veetures
Joint venture (JV) is a standalone organization created and jointly owned by two or more
parent companies
- Partners contribute equity to a joint venture they make a long-term commitment
- Exchange of explicit and tacit knowledge through interaction of personnel is typical
- Used to enter foreign markets where the host country requires such a partnership to
gain access to the market in exchange for advanced technology and know-how
- Least common of the 3 types of strategic alliances
- Advantages: strong ties, trust, and commitment between the partners
- Disadvantages: long negotiations and significant investments, knowledge shared with
the new partner could be misappropriated by opportunistic behavior, and rewards
must be shared between the partners
Alliance management capability

Alliance management capability: a firm’s ability to effectively manage three alliance-related
tasks concurrently: (1) partner selection and alliance formation, (2) alliance design and
governance, and (3) post-formation alliance management
Parteer selectioe aed alliaece formatioe

When one or more of the 5 reasons for alliance formation are present – to strengthen
competition, enter new markets, hedge against uncertainty, access critical complementary
resources, or learn new capabilities – the firm must select the best possible alliance partner
Conditions for successful alliance formation:

- Partner compatibility captures aspects of cultural fit between different firms
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- Partner commitment concerns the willingness to make available necessary resources

and to accept short-term sacrifices to ensure long-term rewards
Alliaece desige aed govereaece

Once two or more firms agree to pursue an alliance, managers must then design the alliance
and choose an appropriate governance mechanism from among the 3 options: non-equity
contractual agreement, equity alliances, or joint venture
In addition, interorganizational trust is a critical dimension of alliance success
Post-formatioe alliaece maeagemeet

To be a source of competitive advantage, the partnership needs to create resource
combinations that obey the VRIO criteria most likely if the alliance partners make
relation-specific investments, establish knowledge-sharing routines, and build interfirm trust
Interfirm trust entails the expectation that each alliance partner will behave in good faith
and develop norms of reciprocity and fairness relationship survives increases possibility
of meeting the intended goals of the alliance
Systematic differences in firm’s alliance management capability can be a source of

competitive advantage. Firms move down the learning curve and become better at
managing alliances through repeated alliance exposure “learning by doing”
To accomplish effective alliance management, firms must create a dedicated alliance

function, led by a director of alliance management with its own resources and support staff.
The dedicated alliance function should be given the tasks of coordinating all alliance-related
activity in the entire organization, taking a corporate-level perspective
- Alliance champion: senior, corporate-level executive responsible for high-level
support and oversight, responsible for making sure that the alliance fits within the
firm’s existing alliance portfolio and corporate-level strategy
- Alliance leader: has technical expertise and knowledge needed for the specific
technical area and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the alliance
- Alliance manager: positioned within the Office of Alliance Management, serves as an
alliance process training and development, as well as diagnostic tools
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9.3 Mergers and Acquisitiens

Merger: the joining of two independent companies to form a combined entity – tend to be
friendly
Acquisition: the purchase or takeover of one company by another; can be friendly or
unfriendly
- Hostile takeover: acquisition in which the target company does not wish to be
acquired
Why de firms merge with cempetiters?

Horizontal integration: the process of merging with competitors, leading to industry
consolidation
- Rule of thumb: firms should go ahead with horizontal integration if the target firm is
more valuable inside the acquiring firm than as a continued standalone company
the net value creation of a horizontal acquisition must be positive to aid in gaining
and sustaining a competitive advantage
- 3 main benefits to a horizontal integration strategy (V)
Reductioe ie competitive ieteesity

Horizontal integration changes the underlying industry structure in favor of the surviving
firms. Excess capacity is taken out of the market, and competition tends to decrease (no new
entrants) industry structure becomes more consolidated and potentially more profitable
Lower costs
Firms use horizontal integration to lower costs through economies of scale and to enhance
their economic value creation, and in turn their performance
Iecreased differeetiatioe
Horizontal integration through M&A can help firms to strengthen their competitive positions
by increasing the differentiation of their product and service offerings by filling gaps in a
firm’s product offering, allowing the combined entity to offer a complete suite of products
and services
Why de firms acquire ether firms?

To gaie access to eew markets aed distributioe chaeeels
Firms may pass to acquisitions when they need to overcome entry barriers into markets they
are currently not competing in or to access new distribution channels
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To gaie access to a eew capability or competeecy

To preempt rivals
Sometimes firms may acquire promising startups not only to gain access to a new capability
or competency, but also to preempt rivals from doing so
M&A and cempetitive advantage

In most cases, mergers and acquisitions do not create competitive advantage
- Many mergers destroy shareholder value: the anticipated synergies never materialize
o If value is created, it generally accrues to the shareholders of the firm that
was taken over (the acquiree), because acquires often pay a premium when
buying the target company
- Sometimes companies get involved in a bidding war for an acquisition; the winner
may end up with the prize but may have overpaid for the acquisition: victim to the
winner’s curse
M&As, on average, destroy rather than create shareholder value still we see many
mergers. Reasons:
Priecipal-ageet problems
Managers, as agents, are supposed to act in the best interest of the principals, the
shareholders. However, managers may have incentives to grow their firms through
acquisitions (to build a larger empire prestige, power, and pay)
Managerial hubris: a form of self-delusion in which managers convince themselves of their

superior skills in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. 2 forms:
1. Managers of the acquiring company convince themselves that they are able to
manage the business of the target company more effectively and, therefore, create
additional shareholder value. Often used for an unrelated diversification strategy
2. Although most top-level managers are aware that the majority of acquisitions
destroy rather than create shareholder value, they see themselves as the exceptions
to the rule
The desire to overcome competitive disadvaetage

In some instances, mergers are motivated by the attempt to overcome a competitive
disadvantage
Superior acquisitioe aed ietegratioe capability

Acquisition and integration capabilities are not equally distributed across firms. Although
M&As, on average, destroy rather than create shareholder value, it does not exclude the
possibility that some firms are consistently able to identify, acquire, and integrate target
companies to strengthen their competitive positions
Since it is valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate, a superior acquisition and integration
capability, together with past experience, can lead to a competitive advantage
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Constantly changing business environment new opportunities come and go firms need
to develop new resources, capabilities, or competencies to take advantage of opportunities
– e.g.: book publishers must transform into digital content companies
A firm’s corporate strategy is critical in pursuing growth. To be able to grow as well as gain
and sustain a competitive advantage, a firm must possess VRIO resources and be able to
leverage existing resources, often in conjunction with partners, and build new ones
Strategic alliances, mergers, and acquisitions are the key tools that the strategist uses in
executing corporate strategy. Ideally, these tools should be centralized and managed in the
corporate level, rather than at the level of the strategic business unit allows the company to
assess their effect on the overall company performance
Rather than focusing on developing an alliance management capability in isolation, firms

should develop a relational capability that allows for the successful management of both
strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions
To ensure a positive effect on competitive advantage, the management of strategic alliances

and M&A needs to be placed at the corporate level
Chapter 10 – Glebal Strategy: Cempeting Areund the

Werld
10.1 What Is Glebalizatien?
Globalization: the process of closer integration and exchange between different countries
and peoples worldwide, made possible by falling trade and investment barriers, advances in
telecommunications, and reductions in transportation costs
- These factors reduce the cost of doing business around the world larger market
- Allows companies to source supplies at lower costs, to learn new competencies, and
to further differentiate products
- world’s market economies become more integrated and interdependent
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Multinational enterprise (MNE): a company that deploys resources and capabilities in the
procurement, production, and distribution of goods and services in at least two countries
Foreign direct investment (FDI): a firm’s investments in value chain activities abroad
Global strategy: part of a firm’s corporate strategy to gain and sustain a competitive
advantage when competing against other foreign and domestic companies around the world
Stages ef glebalizatien
Globalizatioe 1.0: 1900-1941
All the important business functions were located in the home country. Only sales and
distribution operations took place overseas, exporting goods to other markets. In some
instances, firms produced raw materials form overseas
Strategy formulation and implementation followed one-way path: from domestic
headquarters to international outposts
Globalizatioe 2.0: 1945-2000

New focus on growing businesses – not only to meet the needs that went unfulfilled during
the war but also to reconstruct the damage from the war MNEs began to create smaller, self-
contained copies of themselves, with all business functions intact, in a few key countries
required significant amounts of foreign direct investment
Globalizatioe 3.0: 21st ceetury

MNEs have become global-collaboration networks: they freely locate business functions
anywhere in the world based on an optimal mix of cost, capabilities, and PESTEL factors
The MNE’s strategic objective has changed: multinational company with self-contained
operations in a few selected countries global enterprise with centers of expertise:
beneficial in service industries and in the industrial sector
State ef glebalizatien
Although many large firms are more than 50% globalized – more than half of their revenues
are from outside the home country – the world itself is less global: for example, only 9% of
all investments in the economy are foreign direct investments world is semi-globalized
Continued economic development across the globe has 2 consequences for MNEs:
1. Rising wages and other costs are likely to negate any benefits of access to low-cost
input factors
2. As the standard of living rises in emerging economies, MNEs are hoping that
increased purchasing power will enable workers to purchase products they used to
make for export only
10.2 Geing Glebal: Why?

Firms expand beyond their domestic borders if they can increase their economic value
creation (V – C) and enhance competitive advantage
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Advantages ef geing glebal

Gaie access to a larger market
Companies that base their competitive advantage on economies of scale and scope have an
incentive to gain access to larger markets because this can reinforce the basis of their
competitive advantage allows MNEs to outcompete rivals
Countries with relatively weak domestic demand, focus on export-led economic growth 
drives many of their domestic businesses to become MNEs
Companies based in smaller economies, becoming an MNE may be necessary to achieve

growth or to gain and sustain a competitive advantage – their domestic markets are often
too small for them to reach significant economies of scale to compete effectively against
other MNEs
Gaie access to low-cost ieput factors

MNEs that base their competitive advantage on a low-cost leadership strategy are
particularly attracted to go overseas to gain access to low-cost input factors – Globalization
1.0 and 2.0: access to low-cost raw materials & Globalization 3.0: benefit from lower labor
costs in manufacturing and services
Develop eew competeecies

The motivation to develop new competencies is particularly attractive for firms that base
their competitive advantage on a differentiation strategy: they make foreign direct
investments to be part of communities of learning, which are often contained in specific
geographic regions
Location economies: benefits from locating value chain activities in the world’s optimal
geographies for a specific activity, wherever that may be
Many MNEs now are replacing the one-way innovation flow from Western economies to
developing markets with a polycentric innovation strategy – a strategy in which MNEs now
draw on multiple, equally important innovation hubs throughout the world
Disadvantages ef geing glebal
If the cost of going global as captured by the following disadvantages exceeds the expected
benefits in terms of value added (C > V), if the economic value creation is negative, then
firms are better off by not expanding internationally
Liability of foreigeeess
Liability of foreignness: additional cost of doing business in an unfamiliar cultural and
economic environment, and of coordinating across geographic distances
Loss of reputatioe
Globalizing a supply chain can have unintended side effects loss of reputation and
diminish the MNE’s competitiveness: risk for doing business abroad – e.g.: search for low-
cost labor concerns the MNEs’ corporate social responsibility (CSR)
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Loss of ietellectual property

The issue of protecting intellectual property in foreign markets looms large. When required
to partner with a foreign host firm, companies may find their intellectual property being
siphoned off and reverse-engineered
10.3 Geing Glebal: Where and Hew?

Where in the werld te cempete? The CAGE distance framewerk
The primary driver behind firms expanding beyond their domestic market is to strengthen
their competitive position by gaining access to larger markets and low-cost input factors and
to develop new competencies
CAGE distance framework: a decision framework based on the relative distance between
home and a foreign target country along four dimensions: cultural distance, administrative
and political distance, geographic distance, and economic distance
- Most of the costs and risks involved in expanding beyond the domestic market are
created by distance
- Breaks distance into different relative components between any two country pairs
that affect the success of FDI
Cultural distaece
National culture: the collective mental and emotional “programming of the mind” that
differentiates human groups
Culture is made up of a collection of social norms and mores, beliefs, and values. It captures
the often unwritten and implicitly understood rules of the game. Cultural differences find
their expression in language, ethnicity, religion, and social norms directly affect customer
preferences
4 main dimensions of culture (Hofstede):

1. Power distance
2. Individualism
3. Masculinity-femininity
4. Uncertainty avoidance
Two additional dimensions: long-term orientation and indulgence
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Cultural distance: cultural disparity between an internationally expanding firm’s home

country and its targeted host country
- A firm’s decision to enter certain international markets is influenced by cultural
differences
- Greater cultural distance increases costs and uncertainty of conducting business
abroad – greater cultural distance increases the liability of foreignness
Admieistrative aed political distaece

Captured in factors such as the absence or presence of shared monetary or political
associations, political hostilities, and weak or strong legal and financial institutions
Many foreign (target) countries also erect other political and administrative barriers, such as
tariffs, trade quotas, FDI restrictions, and so forth, to protect domestic competitors
Strong legal and ethical pillars as well as well-functioning economic institutions such as
capital markets and independent central bank reduce distance. Strong institutions, both
formal and informal, reduce uncertainty reduce transaction costs
Geographic distaece
Geographic distance does not simply capture how far two countries are form each other but
also includes additional attributes, such as the country’s physical size, the within-country
distances to its borders, the country’s topography and infrastructure, its time zones, and
whether the countries are contiguous to one another or have access to waterways and the
ocean
Ecoeomic distaece
The wealth and per capita income of consumers is the most important determinant of
economic distance
Companies from wealthy countries benefit in cross-border trade with other wealthy
countries when their competitive advantage is based on economies of experience, scale,
scope, and standardization
- Replication of an existing business model is much easier in a country where the
incomes are relatively similar and resources, complements, and infrastructure are of
roughly equal quality
Companies from wealthy countries also trade with companies from poor countries to benefit
from economic arbitrage – access to low-cost input factors
Hew de MNEs enter fereign markets?

Different options managers have when entering foreign markets, along with the required
investments necessary and the control they can exert:
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Exporting – producing goods in one country to sell in another – is one of the oldest forms of
internationalization. Often used to test whether a foreign market is ready for a firm’s
products
In some instances, companies are required by the host country to form joint ventures in
order to conduct business there, while some MNEs prefer greenfield operations – building
new, fully owned plants and facilities from scratch
10.4 Cest Reductiens vs. Lecal Respensiveness: The Integratien-

Respensiveness Framewerk
MNEs face 2 opposing forces when competing around the globe: cost reductions (cost-
leadership strategy) vs. local responsiveness (differentiation strategy) in a way that can
affect strategy
Globalization hypothesis: assumption that consumer needs and preferences throughout the
world are converging and thus becoming increasingly homogenous
- Strategic foundation: cost reduction by leveraging economies of scale and by
managing global supply chains to access the lowest-cost input factors
- Institutions and cultures national differences remain
Local responsiveness: the need to tailor product and service offerings to fit local consumer
preferences and host-country requirements generally entails higher costs, and sometimes
even outweighs cost advantages from economies of scale and lower-cost input factors
Integration-responsiveness framework:
strategy framework that juxtaposes the
pressures an MNE faces for cost
reductions and local responsiveness to
derive four different strategies to gain
and sustain competitive advantage when
competing globally
1. International
2. Multidomestic
3. Global-standardization
4. Transnational
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Internatienal strategy
International strategy: strategy that involves leveraging home-based core competencies by
selling the same products or services in both domestic and foreign markets
- Enables MNEs to leverage their home-based core competencies in foreign markets
- First step companies take when beginning to conduct business abroad
- Used successfully by MNEs with relatively large domestic markets and with strong
reputations and brand names (use differentiation)
- Relies on exporting or the licensing of products and franchising of services to reap
economies of scale by accessing a larger market
- Low pressure for local responsiveness and cost reductions
- Highly affected by exchange-rate fluctuations
Multidemestic strategy
Multidomestic strategy: strategy pursued by MNEs that attempts to maximize local
responsiveness, with the intent that local customers will perceive them to be domestic
companies
- High pressure for local responsiveness and low pressure for cost reductions
- Used when MNEs enter host countries with large and/or idiosyncratic domestic
markets
- Main strategy pursued by MNEs in the Globalization 2.0 stage
- Common in the consumer products and food industries
- An MNE faces reduced exchange-rate exposure, because the majority of the value
creation takes place in the host-business units, which tend to span all functions
- Costly and inefficient: it requires the duplication of key business functions across
multiple countries – each country unit tends to be highly autonomous unable to
reap economies of scale or learning across regions
- Risks: exposing codified knowledge embedded in products and tacit knowledge
because products are manufactured locally
Glebal-standardizatien strategy
Global-standardization strategy: strategy attempting to reap significant economies of scale
and location economies by pursuing a global division of labor based on wherever best-of-
class capabilities reside at the lowest cost
- High pressure for cost reductions and low pressure for local responsiveness
- MNEs using this strategy are often organized as networks (Globalization 3.0)
- Products and services are standardized price becomes the main competitive
weapon (cost-leadership) little or no differentiation or local responsiveness
- Obtaining the lowest cost point possible by minimizing local adaptions
- Benefits: economies of scale and standardization
- Risks: no local responsiveness, and little or no product differentiation
Transnatienal strategy
Transnational strategy: strategy that attempts to combine the benefits of a localization
strategy (high local responsiveness) with those of a global-standardization strategy (lowest-
cost position attainable)
- High pressure for local responsiveness and cost reductions
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- Used by MNEs that pursue a blue ocean strategy at the business level by attempting
to reconcile product and/or service differentiations at low cost
- Global matrix structure
o Risk: costly and difficult to implement high failure rate
- Benefit from economies of scale, location, experience, and global learning
- Mantra: “think globally, but act locally”
Perter’s diamend framewerk

Explains national competitive advantage,
consisting of 4 interrelated factors:
1. Factor conditions
2. Demand conditions
3. Competitive intensity in focal industry
4. Related and supporting
industries/complementors
Factor coeditioes
Factor conditions describe a country’s
endowments in terms of natural, human, and
other resources. Other important factors: capital
markets, a supportive institutional framework,
research universities, and public infrastructure
- Natural resources are often not needed to generate world-leading companies,
because competitive advantage is often based on other factor endowments such as
human capital and know-how
Demaed coeditioes
Demand conditions are the specific characteristics of demand in a firm’s domestic market. A
home market made up of sophisticated customers who hold companies to a high standard of
value creation and cost containment contributes to national competitive advantage
Competitive ieteesity ie a focal iedustry
Companies that face a highly competitive environment at home tend to outperform global
competitors that lack such intense domestic competition
Related aed supportieg iedustries/complemeetors

Leadership in related and supporting industries can also foster world-class competitors in
downstream industries
The availability of top-notch complementors – firms that provide a good or service that leads
customers to value the focal firm’s offering more when the two are combined – further
strengthens national competitive advantage
The effects of sophisticated customers and highly competitive industries ripple through the
industry value chain to create top-notch suppliers and complementors
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In addition to determining the degree of vertical integration and level of diversification, the
strategist needs to decide if and how the firm should compete beyond its home market
The CAGE framework allows for a detailed analysis of any country pairing. The strategist can
determine the relative distance or closeness of a target market to the home market along
cultural, administrative/political, geographic, and economic dimensions. Once the strategic
has decided which countries to enter, the mode of foreign entry needs to be determined –
consider the degree of investment and level of control: higher levels of control greater
protection of IP and lower likelihood of any loss in reputation more investment-intensive
foreign-entry modes such as acquisition or greenfield plants
The strategist must be aware of the fact that despite globalization and the emergence of the
Internet, the firm’s geographic location has actually maintained its importance
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FULL Summary Strategy

Strategic Management (Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin)

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Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18

Summary Strategic Management

1.1 What Strategy Is: Gaining and Sustaining Cempetitive Advantage

A good strategy consists of 3 elements:

What is cempetitive advantage?

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Competitive disadvantage: underperformance relative to other competitors in the same

Sustainable competitive advantage: outperforming competitors or the industry average

Competitive parity: performance of two or more firms at the same level

Be on the lookout for the following hallmarks of what strategy is NOT:

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Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18

Industry vs. firm effects in determining firm perfermance

1.2 Stakehelders and Cempetitive Advantage

The firm is embedded in a multifaceted exchange relationship with a number of diverse

Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18

Stakeholder strategy: an integrative approach to managing a diverse set of stakeholders

Arguments as to why effective stakeholder management can benefit firm performance:

Stakehelder impact analysis

Managers must pay attention to 3 important stakeholder attributes:

Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18

Step 1: Ideetify Stakeholders

Step 2: Ideetify Stakeholders’ Ieterests

Step 3: Ideetify Opportueities aed Threats

Step 4: Ideetify Social Respoesibilities

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The pyramid of corporate social responsibility symbolizes

Step 5: Address Stakeholder Coeceres

1.3 The AFI Strategy Framewerk

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Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18

Chapter 2 – Strategic Leadership: Managing the

To define the basic principles, strategic leaders can ask 3 questions:

Product-orieeted visioe statemeets

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Customer-orieeted visioe statemeets

Movieg from product-orieeted to customer-orieeted visioe statemeets

2.2 Strategic Leadership

What de strategic leaders de?

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Hew de yeu beceme a strategic leader?

Level-5 leadership pyramid: a conceptual framework of leadership progression with five

- Effective strategic leaders go through a natural progression of five levels

Fermulating strategy acress levels: cerperate, business, and functienal

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Jaimy Eymael Summary Strategy 17/18

3. Functional strategy concerns the question of how to implement a chosen business

Corporate executives at headquarters formulate corporate strategy; they need to formulate

Objective of corporate-level strategy: increase overall corporate value so that it is higher

2.3 The Strategic Management Precess

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Tep-dewn strategic planning

Shortcomings of the top-down strategic planning approach:

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