Question 1:Given your own firm’s mission, vision, and company and industry situation (Or, use a firm you are familiar with.), compare the pros and cons of various strategies, and recommend a strategic alternative that appears to best match the company’s current position with the environmental circumstances. Explain your reasoning.
Question 2: What are the competitive weapons rival companies are using to gain market shares and sales from the company you wrote about in your initial post?
Question 3: Describe the components of a company’s macroenvironment
Part 2
Question 1: Compare and contrast the company value chain versus the value chain system for an entire industry. Provide a relevant example.
Question 2: Provide an example of a company that maintains a strong value position by having low costs and low prices. Describe the actions it takes to maintain its low costs and low price positions.
Question 3: Provide an example of a company that maintains a strong value position without having low costs and low prices. Describe how it provides value, despite not having low costs or low prices.
Class
The discussions will be graded for the following two criteria:
1. Frequency—Number and regularity of your discussion comments. Students are expected to log into the course and post (respond) in the discussion topics on a minimum of three separate days per week in each graded discussion.
2. Quality—Content of your contributions. Examples of quality posts include:
providing additional information to the discussion
elaborating on previous comments from others
presenting explanations of concepts or methods to help fellow students
presenting reasons for or against a topic in a persuasive fashion
sharing your own personal experiences that relate to the topic
providing a URL and explanation for an area you researched on the Internet
Full credit is awarded when both high quality and required frequency is met.
