1.

Give the major weakness of each of the three competitive strategies;

a. Cost leadership – cost reduction strategies ae common that almost most of the companies
are using the same cost reduction strategies.
b. Differentiation – companies that are using product differentiation strategy are most likely
needs to spend a lot of time doing research for new product development processes, like
researching for future possible trends, features, brand image, etc., in order to stay in front of other
companies.
c. Focus – in this type of strategy the company has to manage it carefully because using this
is very risky. It may be too specific for the market or customers might be temporary.
2. What is a balance scorecard?
- Balanced scorecard enables the managers to assess and measures firm’s performances in
how they implement their strategies with different perspectives (financial perspective, customer
satisfaction, internal business processes, and innovation and learning). It does not solely focus on
financial aspects, but also in nonfinancial ones. This helps firms to improve where they are
internally lacking to produce better outcomes.
3. What is the primary objective when using a balance scorecard?
- In order to identify what factors are hindering the business performances and develop
long term strategies to improve their business.
4. Contrast using the balance scorecard with using only financial measure of success.
- Financial measure of success focuses more on the financial aspects of the firm, deals
only with the profitability and ability of the company to raise revenues from period to period. While, in
using the balanced scorecard, factors aside from the revenue are also considered in creating strategies that
will help the company to improve more, from the workforce to the customers.
5. How can an analyst incorporate the industry-market-size factor and the interrelationships between
the growth, price-recovery, and productivity components into a strategic analysis of operating income?
- In order to strategically analyze the operating income, analyst can examine the cause of
shift or change in selling prices or in productivity. Analysts can compare two different periods, for
example analyzing using the growth component, the forecasted outputs to be produce in previous year vs.
the actual output produced.