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Strategic Alliance for International Expansion

When might a company wish to use a strategic alliance for international expansion?

SECTION #1

Read:

1. Reeves, Love, and Tillmans, “Your Strategy Needs a Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, September 2012, 2-9.
2. Porter, Michael E. (2008). The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review (January), 24-40.

Questions:

1. Porter’s five-factor model provides a structure for analyzing the investment value of an industry or market/submarket, i.e., how profitable the average firm in the industry will be. Using this structure, assess whether each of the five factors is “good”, “bad”, or “uncertain” news for the retail banking industry (e.g., Wells Fargo, Fifth Third, etc.). Based on this analysis, what level of ROI would you expect firms in the industry to achieve, on average?
2. Why does Porter not include market size and growth rate when determining the profitability of an industry or market/submarket?

• What is the right “style” strategy for the retail coffee market? What is the risk of pursuing this style?

SECTION #2

Read:

1. Porter, “What is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review, November 1996, 61-78.
2. Barney, Jay (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17 (1), 99 – 120. (Skim read – understand VRIN framework.)
3. Christensen, Johnson and Rigby, “Foundations for Growth: How to Identify and Build Disruptive New Businesses”, Sloan Management Review, Spring 2002, 22-31.
4. Christensen, C. M., M. E. Raynor, and R. McDonald (December 2015). What is disruptive innovation. Harvard Business Review, 44-53.
5. Markides and Oyon, “What to Do Against Disruptive Business Models”, MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer 2010, 25-32
6. Christensen, Anthony, Berstell and Nitterhouse, “Finding the Right Job For Your Product”, MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2007, 38-47.
7. Dawar, “When Marketing Is Strategy” Harvard Business Review, December 2013, 101-108

Questions:

1. What is sustainable competitive advantage (SCA)? How does a firm get/keep it??
2. According to the 2015 Christensen et al. article, how do managers often misunderstand the concept of disruptive innovation?
3. What is the link between disruptive innovations and SCAs?
4. Why are disruptive innovations so difficult for incumbents to compete against?
5. What are the major implications of the Porter article for marketing strategy?
6. Which of Porter’s ideas/concepts, if any, might you question or challenge?
7. Does the 2007 Christensen article support Porter’s concept of strategy? Does Dawar?

SECTION #3

Read:

1. Kim and Mauborgne, “Creating New Market Space,” Harvard Business Review, January-February, 1999, 83-93.
2. Forsyth, Gupta, Haldar, and Marn, “Shedding the Commodity Mind-Set,” McKinsey Quarterly, 4, 2000, 78-85.
3. Lodish and Mela, “If Brands Are Built Over Years, Why Are They Managed Over Quarters”, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2007, 104-112

Questions:

1. How differentiation be created in a new market space?
2. What is the major message in the Forsyth et al article?
3. Can quality be a sustainable competitive advantage? Why or why not? (Consider different definitions of quality.)
4. What is the value of brand equity?
5. What does Lodish and Mela’s article offer with respect to energizing the business?

SECTION #4

Read:

1. Suarez and Lanzolla, “The Half-Truth of First-Mover Advantage”, Harvard Business Review, April 2005, 121-127.
2. Halaburda and Oberholzer-Gee, “The Limits of Scale,” Harvard Business Review, April 2014, 95-99.

Questions:

1. When is there a first-mover advantage? When is there not?
2. When is “wait and see” a viable marketing strategy?

SECTION #5

Read:

1. Adner and Snow, “Bold Retreat”, Harvard Business Review, March 2010, 76-81.
2. MacMillan, van Putten and McGrath, “Global Gamesmanship”, Harvard Business Review, May 2003, 62-71
3. Carr and Collis, “Should You Have a Global Strategy?” MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2011, 21-24
4. Frank Vermeulen, “Many strategies fail because they’re not really strategies,” Harvard Business Review, November 2017.
5. Amy Gallo, “A refresher on marketing ROI,” Harvard Business Review, July 2017.

Questions:

1. What are the strategic options for a firm facing game-changing technology?
2. When might a company wish to use a strategic alliance for international expansion?
3. What is the main message in the MacMillan, van Putten and McGrath article? How does it relate to the concepts discussed in Chapter 14?
4. When is a global strategy appropriate?
5. How are goals and strategies different?
6. Why do chief marketing officers and chief financial officers (CMOs and CFOs) seldom see eye to eye?