Exam 13: The Strategy of International Business

_____ imply that when a firm already has significant value built into its product offering,increasing value by a relatively small amount requires significant additional costs.

According to Porter,the way to create superior value is to drive down the cost structure of the business and/or differentiate the product in some way so that consumers value it more.

Core competencies enable a firm to reduce the costs of value creation and/or to create perceived value in such a way that premium pricing is possible.

Moving down the experience curve:

Discuss efficiency frontier.How does strategic positioning relate to the efficiency frontier?

The preeminent strategic goal for most firms is to maximize the value of the firm for its owners.

_____ activities of the value chain provide inputs that allow the primary activities to occur.

Explain the concept of location economies.

Discuss the creation of a global web of value creation activities.

Pressures for local responsiveness imply that it may not be possible to leverage skills and products associated with a firm's core competencies wholesale from one nation to another.

_____ activities are basically concerned with creating the product,marketing and delivering the product to buyers,and providing support and after-sales service.

Which strategy focuses on increasing profitability by customizing the firm's goods or services so they provide a good match to tastes and preferences in different national markets?

Top management should be viewed as part of the firm's infrastructure

The basic strategy paradigm suggests that to maximize its profitability,a firm should do all of the following,EXCEPT:

When consumer tastes and preferences differ significantly between countries,there is low pressure for local responsiveness.

A multinational firm may need to delegate marketing functions to national subsidiaries to be responsive to local differences in distribution channels.

Pressures for cost reduction are minimal in industries where major competitors are based in low-cost locations,where there is persistent excess capacity,and where consumers are powerful and face low switching costs.

A firm that is pursuing a(n)_____ strategy is simultaneously trying to achieve low costs through location economies,economies of scale,and learning effects,and trying to differentiate its product offering across geographic markets.

Learning effects tend to be more significant when a technologically simple task is repeated.

It has been observed that a product's production costs decline by some quantity about each time,cumulative output: