Final Exam Material Chapter 7 Questions 1. What is the “business portfolio” of a corporation? Distinguish the terms “corporation” and “strategic business unit”. 2. Explain the three generic strategic directions that the corporate center can follow in managing its business portfolio. 3. Under what circumstances is corporate management likely to employ a stabilization or a retrenchment portfolio strategy? 4. Describe the differences in growth strategies based on concentration, related diversification, and unrelated diversification. 5. How might a corporation assess the degree of relatedness of a proposed diversification move in its business portfolio? Why does related diversification often work better than unrelated diversification? 6. Describe several examples of synergy that may be possible among the SBU’s in a related diversified business portfolio. a. 7. Compare vertical integration and horizontal expansion within an industry value chain. 8. Describe the components in a vertically integrated healthcare delivery system and how they interact with each other. a. 9. Explain the different forms that a retrenchment can take – ranging from the most modest to the most severe. 10. Explain how portfolio analysis matrices work and their function in making portfolio management decisions. Use either the BCG Growth-Share matrix or the GE Business Screen as examples. a. 11. What is meant by the “parenting style” of the managers of a multi-SBU corporation? Chapter 8 Questions 1. Explain the differences in strategies formulated at the corporate and at the SBU levels. 2. Describe the possible roles that corporate management might play in the strategic planning and management process within individual SBUs in its portfolio. Discuss also the tensions between corporate and SBU management over these issues. 3. Explain the five generic types of growth strategy available to individual SBUs. 4. Explain the concept of “competitive advantage” and the purpose it serves in planning and managing strategy. What is the importance of adding the term “sustainable” to competitive advantage? 5. What are the four generic business strategies defined by Michael Porter? Explain also a fifth strategy that is a combination of those four and that was rejected by Porter. 6. Describe five methods by which a business can build a “low-cost leadership” strategic position. 7. What are some problems that can develop with a low-cost leadership strategy, leading to poor performance? 8. What are the four essential criteria of a differentiation strategy that results in a sustainable competitive advantage? 9. What are some problems that can develop with a differentiation strategy, leading to poor performance? 10. Explain the concept of a “hybrid” strategy. Why did Porter think that such a strategy could not work, and how have some businesses found ways to make the strategy successful? 11. Discuss the concept of a “focus” strategy and its connection to the definition of individual market segments. 12. What are some of the generic ways in which a business can respond to the strategic initiatives of its competitors? Chapter 9 Questions 1. Which is more important – the formulation of a strategy or its implementation? Hint: either answer is correct as long as it is well explained. 2. In what ways could an organization’s culture affect, positively or negatively, the success of its strategic plans? 3. Describe the three basic forms of organizational structure and the strategic conditions to which they are best suited. i. 4. Describe the three ways that personnel in functional areas can provide valuable inputs to the strategic planning and management process. 5. Give three examples of functional area strategies that could be used to support an organization-wide strategy. 6. Explain the several steps in the process by which a strategic plan is broken down into tasks and activities that can be performed by individual employees. 7. Describe a multi-step process for allocating financial resources among several strategic projects, in addition to other non-strategic capital investment proposals. 8. A well-conceived strategic plan can fail through mistakes made in its implementation. What are at least five ways in which strategy implementation can go wrong? Chapter 10 Questions 1. Exactly what is an organization paying attention to through its strategic monitoring program? 2. What are some of the elements and trends in the health care industry that make strategic monitoring especially important? 3. List 10 significant developments or changes in an organization’s competitive or market environment that might be discovered by a good strategic monitoring program. 4. Compare and contrast the monitoring of trends and events in the past, the present, and the future. Explain how monitoring can occur in each of those three time frames and their significance to the strategy implementation process. 5. Describe the steps that a managed care organization might follow in setting up a strategic monitoring program. Explain how those steps and the resulting program might differ in a small physician group practice. 6. What are the differences in strategic monitoring programs at the level of multi-SBU corporations and individual SBUs? 7. What policies or procedures might a health care organization use to decide when changes in its external environment require some type of change or adjustment in its strategies? 8. Discuss some of the changes that an organization might make to an ongoing strategy in response to developments it has observed in its external environment. Chapter 11 Questions 1. Describe the four primary purposes of a professional strategic financial management function in an organization. 2. Describe the principal responsibilities of the corporate finance department of a modern professionally-run organization. 3. List and briefly explain the most important sources of capital financing for both for-profit and not-for-profit corporations. 4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of relying on debt for capital financing? 5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of relying on equity for capital financing? 6. Explain the concept of “capital structure” and its relevance to the strategic financial management. 7. Define the term “creditworthiness” and explain its importance to the purposes of strategic financial management. 8. What are some of the factors that credit rating firms take into account in assigning ratings to individual businesses? 9. Discuss the interplay between maintenance of a business’s creditworthiness and investment of its capital funds in often risky strategies. 10. Review some of the mistakes that are often made in managing the financial component of strategic planning
