Exam 5: Business-level Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantages

A pitfall of integrated overall cost leadership and differentiation is underestimating the expenses associated with coordinating value-creating activities in the extended value chain.

Barnes and Noble lost its market share in book retailing to Amazon.It tried to regain market share by offering a similar electronic reader,the Nook,to the Amazon Kindle series.This demonstrates that Barnes and Noble lacked

Which of the following is not a potential pitfall of a focus strategy?

A differentiation strategy enables a business to address the five competitive forces by

Aldi,a discount supermarket retailer,has grown from its German base to the rest of Europe,Australia,and the United States by replicating a simple business format.Aldi limits the number of products in each category to ensure product turn,to ease stocking shelves,and to increase its power over supplier.This is an example of an overall cost leadership strategy because it

Factors that lead to a low-cost position also provide substantial entry barriers to substitute and new products as is demonstrated by the retailer,Aldi,whose focus on minimizing costs across the entire operation permits it to position well against competitors such as Walmart.

A market that mainly competes on the basis of price and has stagnant growth is characteristic of what life cycle stage?

The text discusses three approaches to combining overall cost leadership and differentiation competitive advantages.Which of the following is not one of these three approaches?

A business that strives for a low-cost advantage must attain a(n)________ cost advantage over rivals.

In the ________ stage of the industry life cycle,there are few segments,the emphasis on process design is low,and the major functional areas of concern are general management and finance.

Which type of competitive strategy is characterized by convincing rivals not to enter a price war,protection from customer pressure to lower prices,and the ability to better withstand cost increases from suppliers?

At one CVS drugstore,a four-pack of Energizer AA batteries was on sale at 2.99 USD compared with a Duracell four-pack at 4.59 USD.The Duracell market share dropped 2 percent in a recent two-year period,and its profits declined over 30 percent.Why did this happen?

In the ________ stage of the industry life cycle,the emphasis on product design is very high,the intensity of competition is low,and the market growth rate is low.

Zulily,an online retailer,competes with Amazon and other online retailers by

Discuss how each stage of the industry life cycle (introduction,growth,maturity,and decline)can play a role in decisions that managers must make at the business level.Provide an example for each stage.

Company competitive advantages can be eroded by all the following except

Atlas Door created competitive advantage by reducing the time to receive and process an order and through installing a just-in-time logistics operation.Which of the following is not a reason for their favorable position relative to the five forces of industry competition?

One aspect of using a cost leadership strategy is that experience effects may lead to lower costs.Experience effects are achieved by

A ________ can be defined as the total profits in an industry at all points along the industry value chain.

Research has consistently shown that firms that achieve both cost leadership and differentiation advantages tend to perform