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Mbad 500: Strategic Management Question Paper
Mbad 500: Strategic Management
Course:Master Of Business Administration
Institution: Kenya Methodist University question papers
Exam Year:2013
KENYA METHODIST UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT
END OF SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR MASTER IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION APRIL, 2013
UNIT CODE : MBAD 500
UNIT TITLE : STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
TIME: 3 HOURS
Instructions
Read the case study below and answer questions that follow.
Revising Toyota’s Image
The hearty appetite for fancy German metal has Toyota Motor Co. ™ spooked. "Higher-priced sedans are a traditional base of strength for Toyota," says Yasuhiko Fukatsu, managing director for domestic luxury sales. "But BMW and Mercedes-Benz are doing a better job attracting younger buyers. "Toyota also is increasingly worried about a resurgent Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY), which is staging a comeback in the sedan niche.
Toyota’s answer: Run its rivals off the road. To do so, it is unleashing on Japan dozen-plus new or improved vehicles. Besides updating such midrange standbys as the camry. Toyota is bulking up on eye-candy luxury models, most of which sell for $30,000 to $60,000. Among them fully loaded versions of the muscular and decidedly BMW-ish Verossa, the remodeled Lexus ES 300 (known in Japan as the Windom), and a Mercedes-like sedan called the Brevis. Toyota is even debating marketing cars at home under the Lexus badge, which now exists only overseas.
Aging customers are a problem for Toyota everywhere, but nowhere more than in Japan. Most of the folks buying such luxury Toyota sedans as the best-selling crown are graying executives who started out with entry-level Toyotas in the 1950s and 1960s. By contrast, upwardly mobile Japanese wouldn’t be caught dead in a crown, a $30,000 sedan often used as a taxi. Consider Shunsuke Kurita, a 46-year-old interior designer who drives a black 1999 BMW has better resale value than domestic cars," he says. "Toyota sedans have a fuddy-duddy image."
Still, why all the fuss? After all, foreign imports account for less than 10 per cent of the Japanese auto market. Well, what worries Toyota is that up-and-coming Japanese drivers will develop the kind of loyalty to their German imports that their parents had to Toyota. Was that to happen? Toyota could lose out on future sales to drivers now in their late thirties and early forties.
Question One
Define the term strategic management. What are key issues facing Toyota and what value can strategic management offer?
(10 marks)
With reference to the three main levels of strategic management briefly develop some strategies at each level.
(10 marks)
Discuss in reference to this case the various dimensions of strategic decisions.
(5 marks)
Question Two
As an MBA student, you will undertake many functional courses like Marketing, Finance, Human Resource, Accounting e.t.c. What is the importance of each of these areas to the strategic planning process?
(15 marks)
Discuss the arguments for and against corporate social responsibility. Which side do you find more compelling.
(10 marks)
Question Three
Discuss the factors that make global environmental analysis a very complicated matter.
(10 marks)
Discuss the concept of strategy monitoring, evaluation and control.
(15 marks)
Question Four
Value chain approach is one of the techniques that can be used to analyze the key strengths and weaknesses of a firm. Briefly discuss this concept using a firm of your choice.
(20 marks)
Why are merges and acquisitions very common today?
(5 marks)
Question Five
Michael Porters five forces model is widely used in assessing the competitiveness of any industry. Discuss in details how this model can be used to analyze the competitiveness of the telecommunication industry in Kenya.
(20 marks)
Explain the concept of strategy hierarchy.
(5 marks)
Question Six
Discuss the following grand strategies.
Horizontal and Vertical integration
Conglomerate and concentric diversification
Product development and innovations.
(20 marks)
Discuss the benefits of outsourcing as a strategic choice.
(5 marks)
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