3.Which of these properly identifies the role a function can play in implementing
reliability improvement methodologies?
a. Marketing team providing feedback from customers about new product features they are seeking.
b. HR team instituting a Six Sigma training program.
c. Production team offering mass customization options through a flexible manufacturing technology.
d. The leadership team models a commitment to customer focus. 7.As companies gain more experience producing their products, they are able to
reduce unit costs because:
a. suppliers and distributors offer lower costs to more established companies.
b. the combination of learning effects and economies of scale lead to more efficient manufacturing.
c. they can charge more for their products as their brands become more established and well-known in the
marketplace.
d. their equipment is more specialized to manufacture products reducing the cost structure. 15.Which of these companies is experiencing a benefit of tight cross-functional
integration in its innovation strategy?
a. A company has a 5% success rate on its R&D projects in comparison to a 25% average success rate in its
industry.
b. A company’s cycle time is three times longer than most of its competitors, resulting in it coming out with new
products slower than its rivals.
c. A company manages its R&D costs to shorten the length of time for return on investment in new products from
1 year after launch to 6 months after launch.
d. A company’s newest product meets customer needs but is challenging to manufacture due to the complexity of
its assembly process. 16. Which of these includes a strategy for improving quality as excellence?
a. A soap company conducts a market research survey to understand customer priorities when purchasing
laundry detergent.
b. A machine company establishes a Six Sigma training program for its production team.
c. A food company invests in a piece of equipment that cuts in half the amount of time required to make its core
product.
d. A quick-service restaurant implements a personality assessment for cashiers to rate their level of positivity and
hires the most upbeat candidates for this role. 17. Customer responsiveness is an important differentiating attribute because:
a. it is rated and ranked by consumer news outlets.
b. job candidates utilize it to determine if they will work for a company.
c. it helps build brand loyalty and can give a company more pricing options.
d. it is a measure of how much capital it takes for a company to turn its outputs into inputs. 18. A company CEO can help his or her organization improve through innovation
by:
a. committing resources to copying competitors’ innovations.
b. ensuring that research and development is not performed by a single department, but instead has input from
multiple functional areas.
c. investing in newer machinery that will have less down-time and require fewer repairs and lower maintenance
costs.
d. directing the sales and marketing team to work alongside customers using the company’s products and capture
information about their experience. 19. A company can sometimes implement a strategy designed to improve one
factor of competitive advantage but also change another factor because:
a. the factors are often interrelated, and functional-level strategies can have a positive or negative impact on
each other.
b. the managers don’t recognize unintended consequences of their strategies.
c. the company adopts the wrong strategies to achieve its goals.
d. the factors are dependent on each other and you cannot have a strategy that doesn’t include all four of them. 20. Cross-functional teams are critical to reducing innovation failures. One
benefit of integration among departments is that:
a. it allows for fewer people to be involved in research and development, making it easier to keep new products a
secret from competitors.
b. it ensures that only engineers and technical specialists are making product development decisions.
c. it speeds up product development by streamlining the team that is working on projects.
d. R&D teams, marketing and production teams work together to ensure the new product can be efficiently
manufactured and will have a demand in the marketplace. 21. A high-end clothing manufacturer has a policy to inspect each article of clothing
before it is shipped to customers. Recently, the number of finished items that are failing this
final inspection has more than doubled from 3% six months ago to 7% last month. This
company would benefit from a strategy designed to:
a. examine the reliability of the process.
b. improve its customer responsiveness.
c. enhance its efficiency.
d. build a structure for increased innovation. 22. Economies of scale provide unit cost reductions, improving efficiency, and can
come from multiple sources, including:
a. learning effects gained over time.
b. customer defection rates.
c. spreading fixed costs over large production volume.
d. supply chain management and streamlining. 23. Which of the following can be considered a strategy for increasing efficiency?
a. Self-managing teams
b. Reducing new product launch failures
c. Researching customer needs
d. Using information systems to monitor defect rates 24Response time as it relates to improving customer responsiveness is:
a. the speed at which a company responds to customers’ needs and demands.
b. how quickly messages are relayed throughout different functional roles in the company.
c. the speed of production and how quickly the company can manufacture a product.
d. the amount of time it takes to bring a new product to market. 26. Which of these companies is most in need of a strategy to improve customer
responsiveness?
a. A television manufacturer has had trouble keeping up with its competitors. The company hasn’t released a
significant new technology in the last three years. All of its new televisions are using preexisting technology.
b. A grocery store chain has an inventory challenge. The store is purchasing fresh produce at a rate that is faster
than customers are buying it, leading to excess produce that goes bad on the shelf and must be discarded.
c. A cable television company has a public relations problem. Customers have been posting on social media that
the phone lines are clogged and it takes more than 30 minutes on hold for them to speak to a representative
about their cable bill.
d. A fast food restaurant has seen a steep decline in sales of its previously top-selling burger since making a small
change to its sauce recipe ingredients. It used to purchase its mayonnaise from one distributor and now purchases
from a different seller. 27. An entrepreneur started a small consulting business to provide training on multicultural communication to large corporations, educating managers on how to communicate
with people who have a different ethnic background than their own. In his conversations
with customers, he learns there is a need for training on socio-economic issues as well. He
develops a training class for teaching managers the differences in communication and
perception across socioeconomic situations that he can provide to multiple customers. This
is an example of strategies to improve:
a. positioning strategy.
b. customer responsiveness and innovation.
c. efficiency.
d. mass customization. 28. Innovation can be a source of competitive advantage in two ways, including:
a. tapping into new markets and working against competitors with a streamlined product portfolio.
b. finding ways to distribute or manufacture the product with fewer inputs and making the product better so that
the company can charge more for it.
c. preventing competitors from releasing their own new products and retaining existing customers.
d. increasing the cost structure of the company through overhead and hiring the most talented team members. 29. A positioning strategy is:
a. the set of key messages the marketing team will utilize to tell customers about a product.
b. the manufacturing design of a product, including the number of component parts needed to assemble it.
c. a specific set of options for a product based upon four main dimensions of marketing: price, distribution,
promotion and advertising, and product features.
d. the company’s infrastructure and leadership team’s support of a new product or new product features.
