BUS 4385 FINAL EXAM ACTUAL QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Problems in achieving success - ✔✔1. Integration
2. Inadequate target evaluation
3. Large debt
4. Cannot achieve synergy
5. Too much diversification
6. Overly focused on acquisition
7. Too large
✔✔Restructuring - ✔✔Firm changes its set of businesses or its financial structure
✔✔Rule makers - ✔✔The incumbents that built the industry
✔✔Rule takers - ✔✔The companies that pay homage to the industrial "lords"
✔✔Rule breakers - ✔✔Industrial revolutionaries
✔✔Principle 1: Strategic planning isn't strategic - ✔✔Calendar driven ritual vs
exploration
Ritualistic-Inquisitive
Reductionist-Expansive
Extrapolative-Prescient
Positioning-Inventing
Elitist-Inclusive
East-Demanding
✔✔Principle 2: Strategy making must be subversive - ✔✔-Cast off industry conventions
-Identify industry beliefs, opportunities if relaxed?
-Rule breakers redefine industry
✔✔Principle 3: Bottleneck is at the top of the bottle - ✔✔-Senior managers defend
strategic orthodoxy
-Pyramid based on experience
-Experience only valuable when future is like the past
✔✔Principle 4: Revolutionaries exist in every company - ✔✔-Pro change employees
even in successful companies
-Look for people who go against industry orthodoxy
-Let revolutionaries challenge from within
✔✔Principle 5: Change is not the problem, engagement is - ✔✔-Imposed change is fear
inducing
-Not about support but giving ppl responsibility to control change/destiny
, -Engage revolutionaries in dialogue
✔✔Principle 6: Strategy making must be democratic - ✔✔-Senior managers share same
ideas
-Get input from young people, people in foreign subsidiaries, newcomers
✔✔Principle 7: Anyone can be a strategy activist - ✔✔-Senior managers not likely to
start revolution
-Activist not anarchist
-Reform not tear down
✔✔Principle 8: Perspective is worth 50 IQ points - ✔✔-Look at world through new lens
for opportunities
-Core competencies not business units
-Discontinuity = lever for change not threat to status quo
-Imagination as determinant of capacity and not investment
✔✔Principle 9: Top down and bottom up are not the alternatives - ✔✔-Revolution starts
at bottom but needs manager endorsement
-Execs commit to learn alongside revolutionaries
✔✔Principle 10: You cannot see the end from the beginning - ✔✔-Escaping industry
conventions can lead to surprise conclusions
-Open ended/inclusive strategy creation paves way for smooth implementation
✔✔4 tasks to create industry revolution - ✔✔1. Identify core industry beliefs
2. Search for discontinuities that create opportunities to rewrite industry rules
3. Know core competencies
4. Use above to identify revolutionary ideas
✔✔Strategic intent - ✔✔Obsession with winning at all levels of the organization
- Hamel & Prahalad
✔✔Essence of strategic intent - ✔✔Global industry leadership
✔✔Improvisation - ✔✔-Strategy as stretch and leverage
-Innovation (mgt induced improv) critical to global industry leadership
-Create new competitive adv before rivals can mimic ones you have already
✔✔Ian Macmillan's 3 stage model of competitive advantage - ✔✔1. Build up
2. Exploitation
3. Erosion
(development over time)
✔✔Changing the rules - ✔✔-Strategy as revolution concept
ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Problems in achieving success - ✔✔1. Integration
2. Inadequate target evaluation
3. Large debt
4. Cannot achieve synergy
5. Too much diversification
6. Overly focused on acquisition
7. Too large
✔✔Restructuring - ✔✔Firm changes its set of businesses or its financial structure
✔✔Rule makers - ✔✔The incumbents that built the industry
✔✔Rule takers - ✔✔The companies that pay homage to the industrial "lords"
✔✔Rule breakers - ✔✔Industrial revolutionaries
✔✔Principle 1: Strategic planning isn't strategic - ✔✔Calendar driven ritual vs
exploration
Ritualistic-Inquisitive
Reductionist-Expansive
Extrapolative-Prescient
Positioning-Inventing
Elitist-Inclusive
East-Demanding
✔✔Principle 2: Strategy making must be subversive - ✔✔-Cast off industry conventions
-Identify industry beliefs, opportunities if relaxed?
-Rule breakers redefine industry
✔✔Principle 3: Bottleneck is at the top of the bottle - ✔✔-Senior managers defend
strategic orthodoxy
-Pyramid based on experience
-Experience only valuable when future is like the past
✔✔Principle 4: Revolutionaries exist in every company - ✔✔-Pro change employees
even in successful companies
-Look for people who go against industry orthodoxy
-Let revolutionaries challenge from within
✔✔Principle 5: Change is not the problem, engagement is - ✔✔-Imposed change is fear
inducing
-Not about support but giving ppl responsibility to control change/destiny
, -Engage revolutionaries in dialogue
✔✔Principle 6: Strategy making must be democratic - ✔✔-Senior managers share same
ideas
-Get input from young people, people in foreign subsidiaries, newcomers
✔✔Principle 7: Anyone can be a strategy activist - ✔✔-Senior managers not likely to
start revolution
-Activist not anarchist
-Reform not tear down
✔✔Principle 8: Perspective is worth 50 IQ points - ✔✔-Look at world through new lens
for opportunities
-Core competencies not business units
-Discontinuity = lever for change not threat to status quo
-Imagination as determinant of capacity and not investment
✔✔Principle 9: Top down and bottom up are not the alternatives - ✔✔-Revolution starts
at bottom but needs manager endorsement
-Execs commit to learn alongside revolutionaries
✔✔Principle 10: You cannot see the end from the beginning - ✔✔-Escaping industry
conventions can lead to surprise conclusions
-Open ended/inclusive strategy creation paves way for smooth implementation
✔✔4 tasks to create industry revolution - ✔✔1. Identify core industry beliefs
2. Search for discontinuities that create opportunities to rewrite industry rules
3. Know core competencies
4. Use above to identify revolutionary ideas
✔✔Strategic intent - ✔✔Obsession with winning at all levels of the organization
- Hamel & Prahalad
✔✔Essence of strategic intent - ✔✔Global industry leadership
✔✔Improvisation - ✔✔-Strategy as stretch and leverage
-Innovation (mgt induced improv) critical to global industry leadership
-Create new competitive adv before rivals can mimic ones you have already
✔✔Ian Macmillan's 3 stage model of competitive advantage - ✔✔1. Build up
2. Exploitation
3. Erosion
(development over time)
✔✔Changing the rules - ✔✔-Strategy as revolution concept
