INSTRUCTIONS:

SECTION A: ANSWER QUESTION 1 BELOW

STRATEGY AND POSITIONING

Extract:

“Business strategy borrows from military strategy. Business strategy was first mooted in the 1960s, but rose to prominence in the early 1990s as a response to the Japanese surge. Economic success has never been far from the defence of Western interests in world affairs and the strategic efforts of the Department of Defence found its echo in the world of business. Strategy was needed to halt not just the Soviet threat, but the Japanese one.

Even as the competitive position atop the battlements is being successfully defended, the members of the community are escaping from the back entrance into the arms of those who treat them better and attract their custom. In business, there is no plan thought out in advance and then precisely copied as necessarily the best way of operating. We go into battle with well-practised routines, because the stress is very high and we are steeled against the prospect of death, but we do not necessarily approach markets or customers in this way.

The metaphor of strategy is not wrong, but it is surely incomplete. At the very least, we need non-lethal strategies. The different approaches to strategy are focused on different sources of competitive advantage. We will review both authors who propose a market- or resource-based strategy and those who propose a strategy that is a synthesis of different perspectives.”

REQUIRED

(A) Critically analyse ANY THREE of the market-based or resource-based strategy and positioning models & strategies that are a synthesis of different perspectives indicated below. [10 marks].

Model 1- Product/Market Growth Matrix, Igor Ansoff (1957)

Model 2 - Five Forces, Michael Porter (1979)

Model 3 - 7S: Tom Peters, Robert Waterman, Julien Phillips (1980)

Model 4 - Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (2005)

BENCHMARKING AND RESULTS

Extract:

“Benchmarking is essentially about looking at another company’s practices, picking the best and comparing them with one’s own processes. Looking at what another company does is very efficient; the company evaluates itself by comparing their performance with that of another company. A company can decide to benchmark all areas of business or to focus on specific aspects (Moore, 2008).

What is not counted does not register and what does not register will not be done is a familiar axiom. However, recording, benchmarking and celebrating attainment is more than just codification and more than mere encouragement. But that excellence also needs to be defined, measured and celebrated if high performance is to be attained consistently. We need feedback on mounting degrees of approximation to the goals we have agreed. Such feedback actually propels us to higher levels. It tells us what we can do and confirms us as champions.



We come finally to a combination of benchmarks and the results obtained from using various benchmarks. There can be no progress towards excellence without feedback as to where you are now and how far you have advanced towards your goals. Counting output, costs, efficiency and profits is one of the largest forward steps which industry has ever taken.

Focus on output and productivity started with the time and motion studies of Frederick Winslow Taylor. His studies ensured that the most could be achieved in the least amount of time. He is credited with finding the connection between two variables, as we have done repeatedly in this book. It was a very effective method for its time.

Today, manufacturing products is too complex for such methods. However, scientific management has survived in other forms, like operations research and as key performance indicators (KPIs). This last deserves our attention. There lies the potential for an interesting fallacy in the very existence of KPIs. Certain performance indicators are thought to be ‘key’, in the sense of distilling numerous productive factors into a single indicator of overall merit. The so-called bottom line, meaning the net profit, is probably the most famous KPI but that it is a reliable indicator of our capacity to create wealth has been increasingly doubted of late.



Society increasingly objects to shareholder value as the ultimate metric for success. This objection does not concern profitability per se, since profits are essential to keep a company in business. This objection concerns the singularity of profit, the claim to be the be-all and end-all of the enterprise. Stakeholders increasingly find that we cannot afford to measure in a way that puts any one element above the rest. For instance, one can bankrupt one’s company by the single-minded pursuit of sustainability, innovation, (military-style) strategy, developing employees, serving customers and meeting benchmarks/bottom lines. We also need to be careful of KPIs which at least appear noble in their aspirations.

There is almost certainly no ‘one key’ to what is going on in a complex system, and we get ourselves into trouble imagining that there is. Scoreboards can be made to work, as we shall see, but this is by no means simple, and believing you have an infallible measure does great harm. In this section, we will look at some well-known attempts to benchmark and ask, ‘What do these omit and how much of a problem is this?’ ‘Can we steer the company by such feedback, or will the numbers lead us astray?’ It is important that we study outcomes, but are we looking at the right outcomes and what do these mean for the future of the enterprise?’ In this part, we show a paradigm shift in thinking, from the classic approach to benchmarking focused on business profit, environmental health and people’s growth. Above all, we will emphasize how different perspectives in each model can come together and what the key issues are in terms of circling ideas.”

REQUIRED

(B) Critically analyse the key distinguishing elements of the benchmarking and results of ANY THREE models and their application in business indicated below. [10 marks]

Model 5 - Management by Objectives, Peter Drucker (1954)

Model 6 - BCG Matrix, Bruce Henderson (1968)

Model 7 - GE–McKinsey Matrix, General Electric and McKinsey Consulting (1971)

Model 8 - Balanced Scorecard, Robert Kaplan and David Norton (1992)

MODELS FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Extract:

“Arguably, most models that are in use by managers, or other practitioners in organizational management, are used to implement some form of change, preferably following some plan or strategy. By contrast, conceptual models − labelled as such because of their perceived explanatory and predictive capacity – are mostly considered to be too complex for frequent use. Conceptual models in organizational management are typically developed by scientists, consultants or authors to explain or predict how people or organizations function.

In spite of - or maybe thanks to - the wide and ambitious scope of many of these conceptual models, these can become very popular or even formally accepted standards in many organizations, albeit quite often without proper academic testing of the theory. For example, not many authors other than Henry Mintzberg dared to challenge the literature of Michael Porter, who attempts to capture the essence of strategy and competitiveness. Yet one might question how many managers who suggest they support Michael Porter’s theory have actually read his work from cover to cover before putting his theories into practice. Moreover, to what extent did managers actually put this theory into practice at all? And will there ever come a time when Abraham Maslow’s widely adopted ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ will be tested academically, as Maslow himself called for at the end of his career (Lowry, 1979)?

There is a growing need to test theory on organizational management, as scientists and consultants, like so many authorities in our time, are increasingly pressured to deliver proper evidence when substantial conceptual claims are made. This development calls upon critical students, teachers and managers to test theories and to share results; in other words, to apply science, and to encourage valorization; the testing and enrichment of potentially powerful theories. This need for testing of hypotheses by trying to refute them, which Karl Popper coined as ‘falsification’, is fundamentally less important for models for implementation, as these models make less powerful claims to be able to explain or predict reality. Models for implementation merely help to structure information, for instance, to manage the information that goes into or comes out of a conceptual model. There is not so much right or wrong in their projection of reality, but rather they distinguish themselves by being more or less helpful in organizational practice. The value of models for implementation is largely determined bytheir ease of use as well as their effectiveness. In addition, their level of acceptance helps as well, as Robert Cialdini explained by identifying ‘six principles of influence’ (1984). If a model for implementation offers appropriate social proof, authority or liking, the chances are that your organization might be interested in this model as well, independent of its evidence, relevance and guidance, the criteria we used to select (conceptual) models for this book.

The models for implementation we selected for this book have typically proved their value through the years, especially the vintage models that originated before the turn of this millennium. The models that have been developed in the current century may not prove to be the models for implementation that show the same enduring power as the oldest model in our selection, Aristotle’s modes of persuasion (350 BCE), but they do give original and concise insight into the upcoming and pressing issues of our time: sustainability, digital communications, transparency and culture change.

To summarize: using a model for implementation versus using a conceptual model for explanation or prediction is like riding a bicycle versus driving a car. Compared to conceptual models, models for implementation are easier to understand and use, but their scope and impact have more limitations. Conversely, conceptual models are typically more complex to manage, but if the machinery of the conceptual model is well tuned and understood, it can bring the user much further than a typical model for implementation.”

REQUIRED:

(C) Critically, but briefly, evaluate the key distinguishing elements of the ANY FIVE models for implementation provided below and describe their usefulness in a competitive business organisation. [20 marks]

Model 9 SWOT, Heinz Weihrich (1982)

Model 10 Means-End Analysis, Jonathan Gutman (1982)

Model 11 Learning Style Inventory, David A. Kolb (1984)

Model 12 Six Principles of Influence, Robert Cialdini (1984)

Model 13 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey (1989)

Model 14 Mapping, Bridging, Integrating (MBI), Joseph DiStefano andMartha Maznevski (2000)

Model 15 Eight Routes for Culture Change (2013): Jaap Boonstra

(Total: 40 marks)

SECTION B

:
Answer the question 2 below

(a)


With practical business examples, critically discuss the statement:
“Strategy is militant, mutual or both”

[10 marks]

(b)

“Sun Tzu's
The Art of War (Book)



has proved to be a classic work on strategy, applicable to both military and business situations. While it has been relatively easy to apply the military concepts to wars, both past and current, it has proved much more difficult to translate Sun Tzu's strategic concepts into successful business strategies.” Extract from,
The Art of War.