Deck 9: The Challenges of Mature Industry Environments and Competition in Manufacturing and Service Sectors

Question 1

Best practice of a particular process might be done by a competitor in a firm's own industry.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Factors responsible for the recent dramatic improvement in U.S. manufacturing sector profitability include all of the following EXCEPT:

A) decreased competition
B) productivity improvement
C) benchmarking and value chain analysis
D) reengineering and outsources
E) Quality

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Characteristics of service firms include which of the following?

A) Services cannot be inventoried
B) Service encounters are highly personal
C) Improving the efficiency of services can be challenging
D) All of these
E) None of these

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following is a technique or method that service firms are pursuing to increase their productivity?

A) Organizational knowledge and learning
B) Restructuring work practices
C) All of these
D) None of these
E) Bundling or cross selling

Question 5

Bar coding and information technology have allowed retailing firms to ________________.

A) monitor customer buying habits
B) identify popular items
C) detect fashion trends
D) improve the management of inventories
E) All of these

Question 6

Which of the following reasons explains the likely continued expansion of retail chains and franchises?

A) They are already a major force in retailing
B) They are likely to expand their influence in the years ahead
C) They have many economic and organizational learning advantages over small, independent, and locally owned business organizations
D) All of these
E) None of these

Question 7

List four unattractive characteristics of mature industry environments.

Question 8

Cite an example of how and why a product-based firm can come to dominate its industry when it owns no manufacturing facilities.

Question 9

By which two routes can firms pursue innovation that leads to increased firm performance?

Question 10

Why are firms giving greater emphasis to strategies aimed at growth in sales revenues while continuing to pursue reengineering efforts?

Question 11

Explain the effects of quality improvements in the processes of manufacturing firms.

Question 12

List three criticisms of the effects of retailing chain stores and franchising on the business environment of cities and smaller communities.

Question 13

Cite three positive observations of the effects of retailing chain stores and franchising on the business environment of cities and smaller communities.

Question 14

Why will bundling or cross selling require a rethinking of the role of front-line employees?

Question 15

Why do service firms not use the same techniques as manufacturing firms to improve productivity?

Question 16

What process effects are related to the inability of service firms to maintain an inventory of intangible services?

Question 17

What strategic opportunity does the interpersonal nature of service encounters present to service firms?

Question 18

Cite three examples of the positive impact of process innovation on U.S. businesses.

Question 19

Modular design offers a relatively less expensive way to offer customers "________________."

A) common components
B) economies of scale
C) mass customization
D) mass production
E) None of these

Question 20

The use of modular design has a number of benefits for companies, including which of the following?

A) The ability to offer more product variety
B) Lower product development costs
C) Bringing new products to the market faster
D) Keeping pace with technological innovations
E) All of these

Question 21

Which of the following is a way to achieve competitive advantage in mature industry environments?

A) Benchmarking
B) Value-totaling
C) Chain-processing
D) Best practice buy-in
E) None of these

Question 22

Benchmarking can only result in competitive parity.

Question 23

The fewer the differences or disparity between the focal firm and the firm being benchmarked, then the greater the need for learning and innovation on the
part of the benchmarking firm.

Question 24

Effective organizational processes will prove very difficult for other firms to imitate.

Question 25

Although distinctly unrelated to benchmarking, rethinking the value chain involves careful analysis of each of the various links in firms' value chains.

Question 26

Rethinking the value chain is a process that involves a change in managers' mental models regarding the ways in which various value-adding activities contribute value to the firm.

Question 27

Firms seldom find significant competitive advantage in improving existing components of their value chains.

Question 28

Product innovations have a remarkable record of revitalizing mature markets.

Question 29

Only after the successful invasion of the U.S. market by Japanese manufacturers in the 1970s and 1980s did the U.S. manufacturers begin to emphasize the importance of product innovations that would improve quality.

Question 30

Although reengineering efforts can be effective at cutting costs, they do little to increase revenue or market penetration.

Question 31

Service sector employment has been growing much less rapidly than employment in the other sectors of the U.S. labor force.

Question 32

Automation in the service sector does not always result in job cuts.

Question 33

Cross selling involves exposing customers to a broader array of a company's service offerings.

Question 34

Chain restaurants once dominated the restaurant industry but, due to an increasing desire for variety by busy customers, independent restaurants now generate more than half of all sales in the industry.

Question 35

Unlike most entrepreneurial activity, the chain or franchise is pursuing a concept that has already proven itself at another location.

Question 36

The rigidity of chains and franchise organizations makes them poorly designed to promote organizational learning.

Question 37

There is little need for firms in mature industry environments to continue innovating.

Question 38

Which of the following is not an unattractive characteristic of mature industry environment?

A) Exit barriers
B) Insufficient capacity
C) A lack of innovation
D) Pressure from new entrants
E) All of these

Question 39

What is the principal market risk to a firm that employs a strategy of differentiation using products based on a common platform or modular design?