Business Strategy

The goal of strategic management is to

• achieve competitive advantage.

• achieve and maintain competitive advantage.

• eliminate and abolish competitive advantage.

• eliminate competitive advantage.

• maintain competitive advantage.

During what stage of strategic management are a firm's specific internal strengths and weaknesses determined?

• Implementation

• Formulation

• Goal-setting

• Feedback

• Evaluation

An important activity in ________ is taking corrective action.

• strategy implementation

• strategy formulation

• strategy evaluation

• strategy leadership

• all the above

What step in the strategic development process involves mobilizing employees and managers to put strategies into action?

• Competitive advantage

• Strategy formulation

• Strategic advantage

• Strategy implementation

• Strategy evaluation

In recent years, the speedy flow of information through technology has

• made it harder for people worldwide to see how others work and live.

• made the real flow of financial activity align with political boundaries between countries.

• strengthened national boundaries and made countries more self-contained.

• ensured that the U.S. is unrivaled by other companies in all industries.

• created a borderless world with global competitors, customers, and citizens.

Anything that a firm does especially well compared to rival firms is referred to as

• comparative disadvantage.

• comparative advantage.

• unsustainable advantage.

• opportunity cost.

• an external opportunity.

________ allows firms to sell products, advertise, purchase supplies, bypass intermediaries, track inventory, and eliminate paperwork.

• E-commerce

• Viral video

• social networking

• blogging

• "trading down"

Which is generally considered to be the first step in strategic planning?

• Developing a mission statement

• Determining opportunities and threats

• Making a profit

• Establishing goals and objectives

• Developing a vision statement

Whenever new firms can easily enter a particular industry, the intensity of competitiveness among firms tends to.

• decrease

• neutralize.

• become irrelevant.

• increase

• remains the same

The initial step to implementing value chain analysis is

• establishing costs in terms of money.

• establishing costs in terms of time.

• dividing a firm's operations into specific activities or business processes.

• converting the cost data into information by looking for competitive cost strengths and weaknesses.

• attaching a cost to each discrete activity.