The University of Texas at Dallas

BPS 6310
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Section 501
Spring 2009

Professor Sumit Majumdar

Office: (972) 883 4786
majumdar@utdallas.edu
SOM 3.433
Office Hours: By appointment

Objectives of the Course:

• To develop analytic skills to identify key issues and formulate appropriate strategies for
complex business situations.
• To understand how to analyze industry dynamics
• To understand how to respond to competitive challenges & improve corporate performance.

Main thrust of course and short outline:

To Understand How to Achieve Sustained Competitive Advantage

ƒ The basic purpose of strategy is to take a series of decisions and make a series of moves
which are designed to achieve sustained competitive advantage.

ƒ One must relate moves back to outcomes, that is the extent to which these moves actually
affect business performance.

ƒ Ultimately business performance is based on the performance achieved in competitive

domains, so a great deal of strategic thinking is all about understanding how to compete.

ƒ This course focuses on the many competitive moves that businesses make and the types of
analyses required to make these moves effective.

ƒ You will learn how to undertake an analysis of the industry environment, its stakeholders
and an analysis of a company’s internal resources.

ƒ The main moves that flow from such an analysis are

o positioning versus competitors in terms of the cost and quality of products,
o positioning in terms of the scope of businesses,
o positioning with respect to innovation.

ƒ The basic premise of the course is that making winning moves depends on finding profitable
patterns of activities that meet customer demands for solutions, and doing so repeatedly.

ƒ There are human resources issues to implement strategy and the question of global markets.
There are IB and OB classes covering these topics and this class will not go into these issues.
 ƒ Nevertheless, we will continuously address issues of strategy implementation as we analyze
the various concepts and the cases that have been assigned for the class.

There are seven broad areas that are covered:

What is Strategy?
Performance: the Key to a Successful Strategy
Competitive Dynamics: Strategy Not Done in Isolation
Matching External Opportunities & Threats with Internal Strengths and Weaknesses

How to Do Industry and Environmental Analysis

Porter’s Five Forces
Industry Boundaries
The Analysis of Social and Political Factors
Stakeholder Analysis

How to Analyze a Company's Resources

Resources, Capabilities, and Competencies
The Need to Replicate Successes
Continuously Building Capabilities

How to Position a Company within an Industry

Generic Strategies: Low Cost and High Quality
Strategic Groups
The Broad Basis for Segmentation
Heterogeneity as Source of Competitive Advantage

Company Positioning, Mergers and Acquisitions

Corporate Strategy
Scope of the Firm
Portfolio management

Innovation and Company Positioning

Finding and Exploiting New Opportunities
Forecasting
Technology Push and Market Pull
Obstacles to Realization

Conclusion: Making the Moves that Win

Profitable Patterns or Models of Business
Customer Demand for Solutions
Searching the Value Chain
Reinventing Channels

Learning Methods:

This is both a concepts based and a case based class.

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Concepts: From readings, lectures and discussion.
Group Case Analysis: Applying concepts to cases where key issues are identified and recommendations made.
Strategic Analysis: Comparing companies to understand their strategies for sustained competitive advantage.

ƒ This is an integrative course that takes into account all the management functions including
accounting, finance, marketing, and operations.

Please come prepared to participate in each class. Course materials can be found on the WebCT site.
Regularly consult the site for information about the course.

Reading Material:

ƒ The required materials for this course are a set of cases. They are available at the book
store.
ƒ The title of the case book is: Winning Moves: Cases in Strategic Management,
Alfred A. Marcus, 2009, Marsh Publications, Lombard, Il.
ƒ Other materials will also be handed out and placed on the WebCT. They will include
conceptual as well as business pres materials about strategy.
ƒ On the WebCT site you will find chapters from a textbook that will be used for this
class. The book has been written by a colleague, Alfred Marcus, for McGraw Hill
called Management Strategy: Sustaining Competitive Advantage. That will be
the main source for the conceptual strategy related text material.
ƒ The chapters and the other cases are available for downloading at the WebCT site.

Grading:

Class participation: 28 points

Group analysis, discussion and presentation of cases: 72 points ~ The cases will be put on the
WebCT or are in the book.

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 Detailed Course Schedule
Serial Date Agenda Topic Details of Readings
Number
Class 1 12th January Introduction What is the class all
about?
Class 2 26th January Concepts What is strategy? Bose ~ Introduction and
class Chapter 1
Marcus ~ Chapter 1
Paret ~ Readings from
Makers of Modern
Strategy
Class 3 2nd February Case class Canon To be handed out
Class 4 9th February Concepts Industry and internal Bose ~ Chapter 2
class analysis Marcus ~ Chapters 2 and 3
Class 5 16th February Case class Amazon
Class 6 23th February Case class Dell
Class 7 2nd March Case class Best Buy
Class 8 9th March Case class Pepsi Coke
Class 9 23rd March Concepts Market positioning and Bose ~ Chapter 5 and 9
class mergers Marcus ~ Chapters 4 and 5
Class 10 30th March Case class AOL Time Warner
Class 11 6th April Concepts Innovation, Bose ~ Chapters 6 and 8
class entrepreneurship and re- Marcus ~ Chapter 7
invention
Class 12 13th April Case class Nucor To be handed out
Class 13 20th April Case class Monsanto
Class 14 27th April Case class Intel versus AMD
Class 15 4th May Concepts Summing Up Final case due
class

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Assignments:

1. Group analysis of cases:

ƒ For each case topic there are several questions. Groups meet according to their convenience.
ƒ Each group is expected to develop a series of 4 to 6 Power Point overheads to answer the
questions related to the case. The overheads should summarize your answers to the following
detailed issues:
ƒ How has the company evolved to its present situation?
ƒ What is the main challenge or opportunity the company faces?
ƒ How should it respond to this challenge or opportunity?
ƒ What is the outcome likely to be?
ƒ The overheads can be in the form of figures, tables, and diagrams. For each session, two groups
will be called on to present their overheads to the class. After the first class I will list the groups
that will start the discussion for each case class.
ƒ For the following class meeting, all groups should write a memo that answers the case question
and hand in their overheads along with their memo.
ƒ Only if your group is not willing to include your name in its submissions, should you hand in your
own memo and overhead the Class after the scheduled class.
ƒ If your group is called upon to present its answer to a case question to the class as a whole, use the
overheads to get the discussion started. Be honest with the class about aspects of your answer
about which you are unsure. Solicit the class’ help. The presenting groups should be prepared to
talk for about 10 to 20 minutes. The rest of the class time will be devoted to class discussion.
ƒ As a member of the class, be sure to participate in these discussions. Think about what the
presenting group has said. What do you think? Has the presenting group missed something? Are
its ideas on target, or off? What can be done to strengthen the presenting group’s answer?

2. Memo:

Recall that memos are due the class after the case is discussed.
Appendices are permitted if you want to amplify or develop your points.
Memos should have no more than 2 to 3 single-spaced pages of text excluding appendices.
Below I have presented the elements of what would be in a good memo.

Current Challenge and Assessment of the Situation

• What is the pivotal question that must be addressed? Why?

• What is the problem/threat/opportunity? How have these been analyzed? What is the issue --
the negative assumption, the complication -- that necessitates action?

Recommended Strategy
• What is the main action that should be taken to alleviate the problem you have identified? Why
this action rather than some other? Did you consider alternatives? Why did you reject them?
• What moves should be made? These moves must be implementable? If there are internal or
external barriers, if there are serious limitations, or constraints that might stand in the way of the
moves you are advocating, how can they be overcome?
• Substantiate each element in the moves you are proposing? Try to be specific as specific as
possible. Who should do what, how, and in what time period?

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• How will other parties, competitors in particular, respond to these moves? Will their responses
effectively neutralize the moves you are proposing and make them null and void?
• In the end, what difference will the moves you are recommending make? How likely are they to
solve the problem you have identified? What problems will they create in their wake?
• Why do you think the strategy you are proposing should be carried out and what difference it
would make?
• Who will be better off? In short run? In the long run? What are the uncertainties? What risk is
involved?