Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Review
Review
A value chain is a linked set of value-creating activities that begin with basic raw materials coming from
suppliers, moving on to a series of value-added activities involved in producing and marketing a product or service,
and ending with distributors getting the final goods into the hands of the ultimate consumer.
Divisional structure is appropriate for a large corporation with many product lines in several related industries.
Employees tend to be functional specialists organized according to product/market distinctions. General Motors, for
example, groups its various auto lines into the separate divisions of Saturn, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, and Cadillac.
Management.
Strategic business units (SBUs) are a modification of the divisional structure. Strategic business units are divisions
or groups of divisions composed of independent product market segments that are given primary responsibility and
authority for the management of their own functional areas.
Conglomerate structure is appropriate for a large corporation with many product lines in several unrelated industries.
A variant of the divisional structure, the conglomerate structure (sometimes called a holding company) is typically an
assemblage of legally independent firms (subsidiaries) operating under one corporate umbrella but controlled through
the subsidiaries’ boards of directors.
CORPORATE CULTURE
Corporate culture is the collection of beliefs, expectations, and values learned and shared by a corporation’s
members and transmitted from one generation of employees to another. The corporate culture generally reflects the
values of the founder(s) and the mission of the firm. It gives a company a sense of identity.
Cultural intensity is the degree to which members of a unit accept the norms, values, or other culture content
associated with the unit. This shows the culture’s depth. Organizations with strong norms promoting a particular value,
such as quality at BMW, have intensive cultures, whereas new firms (or those in transition) have weaker, less intensive
cultures. Employees in an intensive culture tend to exhibit consistent behavior, that is, they tend to act similarly over
time.
Cultural integration is the extent to which units throughout an organization share a common culture. This is the
culture’s breadth. Organizations with a pervasive dominant culture may be hierarchically controlled and power-
oriented, such as a military unit, and have highly integrated cultures. All employees tend to hold the same cultural
values and norms. In contrast, a company that is structured into diverse units by functions or divisions usually exhibits
some strong subcultures (for example, R&D versus manufacturing) and a less integrated corporate culture.
STRATEGIC MARKETING ISSUES
Market Position and Segmentation
Market position deals with the question, “Who are our customers?” It refers to the selection of specific areas
for marketing concentration and can be expressed in terms of market, product, and geographic locations. Through
market research, corporations are able to practice market segmentation with various products or services so that
managers can discover what niches to seek, which new types of products to develop, and how to ensure that a
company’s many products do not directly compete with one another.
Marketing Mix
Marketing mix refers to the particular combination of key variables under a corporation’s control that can be
used to affect demand and to gain competitive advantage. These variables are product, place, promotion, and price.
Within each of these four variables are several sub variables, listed in Table 5–1, that should be analyzed in terms of
their effects on divisional and corporate performance.