CHAPTER 2: ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS – Answer any five(5) of the following seven (7) questions.
- Why is it important for a firm to study and understand the external environment?
- What are the differences between the general environment and the industry environment? Why are these differences important?
- What is the external environmental analysis process (four parts)? What does the firm want to learn when using this process
- What are the seven segments of the general environment? Explain the differences among them. Type your answer here
- How do the five forces of competition in an industry affect its profit potential? Explain.
- What is a strategic group? Of what value is knowledge of the firm’s strategic group in formulating that firm’s strategy? Type your answer here
- What is the importance of collecting and interpreting data and information about competitors? What practices should a firm use to gather competitor intelligence and why?
CHAPTER 3: ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS – Answer any six (6) of the following nine (9) questions.
- Why is it important for a firm to study and understand its internal organization?
- What is value? Why is it critical for the firm to create value? How does it do so?
- What is the external environmental analysis process (four parts)? What does the firm want to learn when using this process?
- What are capabilities? How do firms create capabilities?
- What four criteria must capabilities satisfy for them to become core competencies? Why is it important for firms to use these criteria to evaluate their capabilities’ value creating potential?
- What is value chain analysis? What does the firm gain by successfully using this tool?
- What is outsourcing? Why do firms outsource? Will outsourcing’s importance grow in the future? If so, why?
- How do firms identify internal strengths and weaknesses? Why is it vital that managers have a clear understanding of their firm’s strengths and weaknesses?
- What are core rigidities? What does it mean to say that each core competence could become a core rigidity?