STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

EXAM REVISION
Wednesday 4th May 2011

RICHMOND AS3
 EXAM FORMAT
 

 
ESSAYS (60 Marks, scaled up to 100%)
 
Answer 3 questions out of 4. (20 Marks each)
 
The essays are intended to be part of the learning process and therefore
seek to get you to apply what we have studied.
 
Each question has 3 or 4 parts on different topics.

 
 
ESSAY TOPICS: drawn from any lecture
Lectures on strategy process, methods, tools etc:

• Week 2, External analysis

• Week 3, Internal analysis
• Week 4, Organisational purpose
• Week 5, Generation of strategy options
• Week 7, Strategy development, evaluation & choice
• Week 8, Strategy implementation

Three additional lectures: No Wk 6 lecture.

• Week 9, (i) Industry evolution 2 lectures in Wk 9
(ii) Technology-intensive industries
• Week 10, Strategic change programmes

But… revise Week 1 as this introduction should be basic knowledge by now

 CASE STUDIES & READINGS
3 key articles about strategic management should be
studied:

• Week1, What is strategy? Michael Porter

• Week 3, The core competence of the corporation,
C.K.Prahalad & Gary Hamel
• Week 10, Does structure follow strategy?
Gerry Johnson, R Whittington & K Scholes
 CASE STUDIES & READINGS

Other case /readings:

• Week 4, Starbucks: the coffee goes cold

• Week 4, Renault-Nissan Alliance: corporate objectives
• Week 4, Setting objectives, practical example
• Week 7, 3 readings on portfolio approaches (very
similar to lecture material)
• Week 8, Strategic Management archetypes (read
lightly)
 STRATEGIC MANAGEMWENT:
AN INTRODUCTION (Week 1)
Lecture material in several main sections:
1. Broad introduction:
– what is strategy?
– corporate vs business strategy;
– describing a firm’s strategy (using Coca-cola as example)
2. Strategic planning model (useful)
3. Some concepts & tools (essential)

NOTE: you should study all sections as we introduce new

concepts for the first time.
 EXTERNAL ANALYSIS (Week 2)
Lecture material is in 4 main sections:
1. External & internal environments
– PEST(EL) & SWOT
2. Industry analysis
– Industry attractiveness
– Porter’s 5 forces of competition (as drivers of industry profitability &
attractiveness)
3. Competitive advantage
– Basis of competition & Key Success Factors
– Using profitability to identify KSFs (ROC etc: retailing & airlines)
4. Segmentation

NOTE:
You should revise the above sections but you can read Sections 3.3 &
3.4 of the lecture slides ‘lightly’.
 INTERNAL ANALYSIS (Week 3)
The lecture was in 4 main parts:
1. The role of resources & capabilities
– Environmental instability
– Facing obsolescence
– Company examples (core competences successfully applied &
companies failing to adapt to obsolescence)
2. Organisational capabilities
– Core competences
– Functional analysis
– Value chain analysis (Porter’s value chain expanded)
3. Appraising resources & capabilities
4. Some strategy implications
– 6 step process in identifying key resources & capabilities
– Plotting capabilities (relative strength vs strategic importance)
 ORGANISATIONAL PURPOSE
(Week 4)
The lecture material is in 3 main sections:
1. Mission & objectives
– Mission, vision, corporate values
– Objectives (two types. Look at example of financial objectives & Renault-
Nissan alliance objectives)
2. Ethics, corporate governance, stakeholders &
purpose
3. Financial performance: past results as basis for
setting objectives

NOTE: understand the example (last 5 slides of lecture) using

ROC & its component ratios to set financial objectives.
NOTE ALSO the retailing example again (penultimate slide) to identify
Key Success Factors
 GENERATION OF STRATEGIC
OPTIONS (Week 5)
Lecture material in 4 main parts:
1. Environment-based strategies
– Porter’s Generic strategies
– Product/market options (Ansoff’s matrix)
– Expansion strategies (including several international strategies)
2. Resource-based strategies
3. Survival: financial imperatives (again using ROC & component ratios)
4. Choosing our strategy
– Where & how we compete
– ‘Strategic direction’ matrix

NOTE: When Porter uses the term ‘focus’, he is really thinking of ‘breadth’:
breadth of product range, technology, market sectors, geographic
coverage… So, a strategy may be focussed (narrowly focussed, that is
‘selective’ or broad (wide product range etc)
 STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT,
EVALUATION & CHOICE(Week 7)
Lecture material in 3 main parts:

1. Criteria for evaluating strategic options

– an introduction on using portfolio approaches for the
multi-business firm
2. Four main portfolio approaches
– You should be able to describe and draw each matrix
– Study the Arthur D Little matrix in particular
3. The choice of strategy (useful)
 STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION
(Week 8)
Lecture material in 6 main parts:
1. Programming
2. Changing behaviour
3. Organisational design
– Management functions in international businesses (centralised vs de-
centralised)
– 3 examples (GM, Mobil, Shell)
4. Key personnel
5. Resource allocation
6. Control
– ‘Steering control’
– Key steps (‘milestones’ etc)
 INDUSTRY EVOLUTION
(Week 9)

Lecture material in 3 main parts:

1. Industry life cycle

2. Industry structure
– Stages in life cycle
– Key success factors
3. Adapting to technological change

NOTE: you should study all sections (it is common sense!)

 TECHNOLOGY-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES
(Week 9)

Lecture material in 3 main parts:

1. Technological innovation
2. Innovation strategies
3. Strategy implementation

NOTE: you should study all sections

 STRATEGIC CHANGE PROGRAMMES
(Week 10)

Lecture material in 4 main parts:

1. Managing the individual business (within a multi-business firm)

2. Performance targets
– Balanced scorecards
– Strategy Maps
3. Organisational design
– McKinsey 7-S Framework
4. Strategic change programmes: leading people to bring about
change