Exam 4: Business-Level Strategy

Business-level strategies are concerned specifically with:

Human resources and other support functions are not value-creating activities in the value chain; only value chain activities create value.

A firm's core strategy is its ____ strategy.

A firm successfully implementing a differentiation strategy would expect:

A cost leadership strategy targets the industry's ____ customers.

Southwest Airlines' tightly integrated activities make its cost leadership strategy more vulnerable to imitation than if its activities were loosely integrated.

The benefit of a flexible manufacturing system is that:

TQM is most helpful to firms following the ____ business strategy.

A manufacturer of jewelry imitates the style of a popular and expensive brand using manufactured stones rather than real gemstones and lesser grade metals rather than silver and gold. The manufacturer packages the jewelry in boxes of the same color imprinted with an almost identical logo. About 85 percent of the company's sales are through Internet sales. This example illustrates the competitive risk of ____ that threatens companies that use the differentiation strategy.

The integration of a cost leadership and a differentiation strategy:

Changing consumer needs are illustrated by Starbucks' enabling consumers to have an experience and design their own drinks rather than just a cup of coffee.

Walmart went against business-level strategy and made changes to attract upscale customers. These changes had which of the following results?

More choices and easily accessible information about the functionality of firms' products are creating increasingly ______ customers.

Strategic fit among the many activities in the value chain is critical for competitive advantage because it is more difficult for a competitor to match a configuration of integrated activities than to imitate a particular activity, such as sales promotion or a process technology.

A risk of the differentiation strategy is that the firm's means of differentiation may eventually not provide value for which customers are willing to pay.

How do focused differentiation and focused cost leadership strategies differ from their non-focused counterparts?

The differentiation strategy can be effective in controlling the power of rivalry with existing competitors in an industry because:

Suppose another firm found a way to offer IKEA's customers (young buyers interested in stylish furniture at low cost) additional sources of differentiation while charging the same price or to provide the same service with the same sources of differentiation at a lower price. What category of competitive risk to a focus strategy would this be?

When the costs of supplies increase in an industry, the low-cost leader:

The key to Southwest Airlines' success has been its ability to continuously reduce costs while providing customers with superior levels of differentiation, such as an engaging culture.