Competitive Advantage & Strategy

Test 2 Review

Competitive Advantage & Strategy

• Advantages of CI (continuous improvement)

• How to compete – Service, information technology, innovation/product design, agility, time.
• TQ is a part of a long chain of customers & suppliers.
• Strategy- the pattern of decisions that determines and reveals a company’s goals, policies, and plans to meet the needs of its stakeholders
• What is strategic planning-– the process by which members of an organization envision its future and develop the necessary procedures and operations to carry out that vision
• How to gain a competitive advantage – market superiority, added value (quality relative to price),
• Outsource versus vertical integration
• Core competencies.
• Balanced scorecard – need, effectiveness, lagging- what has transpired, leading- what going to happen in the future
• Performance measures – service standards (customer contact)
• Agility versus flexibility- allows you to adapt.  How its applied, advantages, etc.

Consumer- Supplier relationships

• Supplier relations – practices.
• Customer engagement – characteristics.
• Customer satisfaction – product attributes.
• What are/is moments of truth – customer relationships? – if the
• Customer Relationships.  What they are, how to improve, how to manage.

Practices for Dealing with Suppliers

• Base purchasing decisions on quality as well as cost
• Reduce the number of suppliers
• Establish long-term contracts
• Measure and certify supplier performance
• Develop cooperative relationships and strategic alliances

Organizational design

• Traditional structure (mechanistic) highly structured, bureaucratic, division or labor, slow, lots of layers.
• Characteristics of flatter organization – less reporting structure and tasks for managers  and supervisors but not for senior management.
• Functional structure most often used.
• Types of leadership creativity/perspective
• Understand the difference between core and support processes/functions.
• Internal versus external customers.
• Define a supply chain.  What encompasses a value chain?
• Work design approaches