Module 2 Strategy Exercises Worksheet

Overview:

This exercise will tie concepts from the chapter material to the simulations assigned in this module. Completing this exercise will prepare you to help your group make decisions during the simulation rounds and prepare you for completing this module’s decision log journal entries and artifact analyses.

 
Specifically, you will apply what you learned in Chapters 3 and 4 to analyze many aspects of your industry and company, including rivalry, financial performance, core competencies, and benchmarking.
 
Directions: Download and save a copy of this document so you can edit the worksheet with your responses to the questions below.
Chapter 3

1. Which of the five competitive forces is creating the strongest competitive pressures for your athletic footwear company?

 

1. What are the “weapons of competition” that footwear rivals in your industry can use to gain sales and market share? See Figure 3.4 in the text to help you identify the various competitive factors.

 

1. Consider the intensity of rivalry for your industry and answer the following:

3. What are the factors affecting the intensity in which your company is competing? Use Figure 3.4 and the accompanying discussion to help you in pinpointing the specific factors most affecting competitive intensity.

 

1. Would you characterize the rivalry and jockeying for better market position, increased sales, and market share among the companies in your industry as fierce, very strong, strong, moderate, or relatively weak? Why?

 
Chapter 4

1. Using the formulas in Table 4.1 and the data in your company’s financial statements for the most recent year available, calculate the following measures of financial performance for your company:

Operating profit margin
Current ratio
Working capital
Long-term debt-to-capital ratio
Price-earnings ratio
Return on total assets

 

1. Based on your company’s latest financial statements and all of the other available data regarding its performance that appear in the most recent Footwear Industry Report, list the three measures of financial performance on which your company did “best” and the three measures on which your company’s financial performance was “worst.”

1. Best three measures of financial performance for your company:

 

1. Worst three measures of financial performance for your company:

 

1. What hard evidence can you cite that your company’s strategy is working fairly well (or perhaps not working so well, if your company’s performance is lagging behind that of rival companies)?

 

1. Does your company have any competencies? If so, what are they?

 

1. Compare your company’s costs to industry averages:
   1. Overall, how favorably do your company’s costs compare on the benchmarking data provided in the most recent year’s Footwear Industry Report?

 

1. 1. On how many of the benchmarking measures were your company’s costs below the footwear industry average?

 

1. 1. On how many of the benchmarking measures were your company’s costs above the industry average?

 

1. 1. Based on the benchmarking data, how strong, on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 = very weak and 10 = very strong), is your company’s cost competitiveness?

 

1. 1. Are there any areas where you and your co-manager(s) should take action to lower costs and improve your company’s relative cost position?

 
 

Rubric

 
Guidelines for Submission: To complete this assignment, submit a saved copy of this completed worksheet.
 
Instructor Feedback: This activity uses an integrated rubric in Blackboard. Students can view instructor feedback in the Grade Center.
 

Criteria	Exemplary (100%)	Needs Improvement (75%)	Incomplete (50%)	Not Evident (0%)	Value
Worksheet	Submitted a complete worksheet that demonstrates sincere effort.	Submitted a mostly complete worksheet that demonstrates sincere effort.	Submitted an incomplete worksheet.	Did not submit a worksheet.	100
Total					100%