Strategy Management

S Y MMS

Third Semester

Prof BharatNadkarni

Question Bank

1. Define Strategy. Explain strategic management process.What is Vision? What is Mission?

How is it important for organisations?
2. What is Strategic Management Process. Explain each with detail.
3. Explain Mintzberg’s 5 Ps for Strategy.
4. What is business environment? Explain with the help of diagram.Who are the stakeholders
of business? How to exceed and balance their need?How should organisation manage threats
from macro external environment?
5. Explain McKinsey’s 7 S for Strategy and elaborate on Soft and Hard factors (Pg 166)
6. Elaborate on business level and corporate level strategies.Explain SWOT analysis.What is
Core competency? How can organisation create value?
7. Explain Mike Porter’s Five Forces Model w.r.t. an organisation or a product/ service.
8. Explain Ansoff Model. Or Explain Expansion by Concentration with examples.Explain
Expansion by integration with examples.
9. Explain Expansion by Diversification with examples.Explain Expansion by
Internationalisation with examples.
10. Explain Mergers & Acquisition as expansion strategy, with examples. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of M & A?
11. What is Balance Score Card? Explain how is it used as strategic tool in today’s modern
businesses?
12. Models – i. BCG Model with examples.Ii. GE Nine cell model.
13. Discuss VUCA environment and how to develop sustainable business in VUCA
environment.
14. What is Turnaround strategy? What are the symptoms of organisation sliding down?How to
revive stagnating organisation?
15. Explain TQM and BPR and how is it being practiced in industries to make it competitive in
today’s global scenario?
16. “Innovate or Perish” is the biggest challenge faced by every organisation. What strategies
are being employed to make the organisation sustainable?
17. “Adopt stability and safety first policy, rest leave it to emerging markets.” Do you believe in
this strategy? If yes, why? If not, why not?
18. Discuss Red Ocean, Blue Ocean and Purple Ocean strategies with industry examples.
19. Short Notes
a. Internationalisation
b. Balance Scorecard
c. Verticle integration and Horizontal integration
d. Organisational culture
e. Importance of Ethical Business
f. T Q M and BPR
Mintzberg's 5 Ps for Strategy
The word "strategy" has been used implicitly in different ways even if it has traditionally been
defined in only one. Explicit recognition of multiple definitions can help people to manoeuvre
through this difficult field. Mintzberg provides five definitions of strategy:

 Plan
 Ploy
 Pattern
 Position
 Perspective.

Plan
Strategy is a plan - some sort of consciously intended course of action, a guideline (or set of
guidelines) to deal with a situation. By this definition strategies have two essential characteristics:
they are made in advance of the actions to which they apply, and they are developed consciously
and purposefully.

Ploy
As plan, a strategy can be a ploy too, really just a specific manoeuvre intended to outwit an
opponent or competitor.

Pattern
If strategies can be intended (whether as general plans or specific ploys), they can also be
realised. In other words, defining strategy as plan is not sufficient; we also need a definition that
encompasses the resulting behaviour: Strategy is a pattern - specifically, a pattern in a stream of
actions. Strategy is consistency in behaviour, whether or not intended. The definitions of strategy
as plan and pattern can be quite independent of one another: plans may go unrealised, while
patterns may appear without preconception.

Plans are intended strategy, whereas patterns are realised strategy; from this we can distinguish
deliberate strategies, where intentions that existed previously were realised, and emergent
strategies where patterns developed in the absence of intentions, or despite them.

Position
Strategy is a position - specifically a means of locating an organisation in an "environment". By
this definition strategy becomes the mediating force, or "match", between organisation and
environment, that is, between the internal and the external context.

Perspective
Strategy is a perspective - its content consisting not just of a chosen position, but of an ingrained
way of perceiving the world. Strategy in this respect is to the organisation what personality is to
the individual. What is of key importance is that strategy is a perspective shared by members of
an organisation, through their intentions and / or by their actions. In effect, when we talk of
strategy in this context, we are entering the realm of the collective mind - individuals united by
common thinking and / or behaviour.