EXAM GUIDELINES QUESTIONS

Name: Camila Andrade

1. Why knowledge becomes the basis of competitiveness?

El conocimiento es la base fundamental de la competencia. Porque competir con éxito en el

conocimiento requiere alinear la estrategia con lo que sabe la organización o desarrollar el
conocimiento y las capacidades necesarias para respaldar una estrategia deseada.

Knowledge is the fundamental basis of competition. Competing successfully on knowledge requires

either aligning strategy to what the organization knows, or developing the knowledge and
capabilities needed to support a desired strategy.

2. Explain the influence of knowledge in sustainable practices?

Having superior intellectual resources an organization can understand how to exploit and develop
their traditional resources better than competitors.

Knowledge can be considered the most important strategic resource, and the ability to acquire,
integrate, store, share and apply it the most important capability for building and sustaining
competitive advantage.

Knowledge developed from experience tends to be unique and difficult to imitate. To acquire similar
knowledge, competitors must engage in similar experiences. However, acquiring knowledge
through experience takes time, and competitors are limited in how much they can accelerate their
learning merely through greater investment.

The knowledge is sustainable because the more a firm already knows, the more it can learn, learning
opportunities for an organization that already has a knowledge advantage may be more valuable
than for competitors having similar learning opportunities but starting off knowing less.

3. Why strategy maps can help a company to detect mayor gaps in the strategies?

Porque permite analizar todos los niveles de organización para cada unidad de negocios, learning
and growth perspective, internal process perspective, customer perspective and financial
perspective, y todos estos están correlacionados de tal forma que, si algo falta en un nivel, el otro
no existe. Permite detectar omisiones. Realizando preguntas como ¿Esta unidad habría
perfeccionado sus operaciones? ¿De qué forma habría perfeccionado sus operaciones? Analizando
Relaciones con stakeholders, etc.

4. What is the key to implement a strategy?

Have everyone in the organization clearly understand the underlying hypotheses, to align all
organizational units and resources with those hypotheses, to test the hypotheses continually, and
to use those results to adapt as required.
 5. Explain why a company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it
can preserve?

It’s about operational effectiveness. It means performing similar activities better than rivals perform
them.

It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a lower cost or do both.

Concentrate on deepening a strategic position rather than broadening and compromising it.

6. List some of the Implicit Strategy Model of the Past Decade and Sustainable Competitive
Advantage

The implicit strategy model of the past decade:

 One ideal competitive position in the industry.

 Benchmarking of all activities and achieving best practice.
 Aggressive outsourcing and part-nering to gain efficiencies.
 Advantages rest on a few key success factors, critical resources, core competencies.
 Flexibility and rapid responses to all competitive and market changes.

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

 Unique competitive position for the company

 Activities tailored to strategy
 Clear trade-offs and choices vis-à-vis competitors
 Competitive advantage arises from fit across activities.
 Sustainability comes from the activity system, not the parts.
 Operational effectiveness a given.

7. Definition, use and limitations of Mind Mapping

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas or items linked to one another. The diagram
includes a central theme placed in the center of a page, with groupings of ideas branching outward
highlighting links and associations.

Use:

 During the solution generation stage of the problem-solving journey.

 During the implementation phase. (the mind map branches should be concerned with ideas
for managing resistance to change, contingency planning, communication and so on)
 Brainstorming sessions. (Start with the basic problem and then generate association ideas)
 Summarising information
 Consolidating information from different research resoruces.
  Presenting information in a format that shows the overall structure of your subject.
 Essay planning tool for students preparing for exams as information is set out in a format
that your mind finds easy to remember and quick to review.

Limitations:

Prevents virtual teams adopting this tool.

The paper-based nature of mind maps limits the sharing of maps in soft copy.

8. What is a shared value and how a shared value can be created?

Policies and operating practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while
simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it
operates.

Shared value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to
achieve economic success.

Economic value can be created by creating social value. It can do by reconceiving products and
markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and building supportive industry clusters at the
company’s locations.

9. Differentiation and influence between Business Model and Strategy and viceversa

10. What are some of the barriers to business models and innovation?

Lock-in complementarities and efficiency as key aspects of business model innovation may often
conflict with the more traditional configurations of firm assets.

11. What are SMART Goals? What is the SMART criteria based on?

Statements of the important results you are working to accomplish.

Designed in a way to foster clear and mutual understanding of what constitutes expected levels of
performance and successful professional development.

The smart criteria is based on:

S SPECIFIC What will be accomplished? What actions will you take?

M MEASURABLE What data will measure the goal? (How much? How well?
A ACHIEVABLE Is the goal doable? Do you have the necessary skills and resources?
R RELEVANT How does the goal align with broader goals? Why is the result
important?
T TIME-BOUND What is the time frame for accomplishing the goal?