National University of Singapore

NUS Business School

BMA 5013_F1 Corporate Strategy

Semester 1, 2012

Instructor: Sai Yayavaram

MRB, #06-46

6516 3154

Textbook and Reading Material

§  Grant, Robert M. Contemporary Strategy Analysis, Seventh Edition (Wiley).

§  Additional readings are available on Library E-Reserves through IVLE.

§  We will use several Harvard and Ivey cases and five cases from Singh, K., Pangarkar, N., & Heracleous, L. Business Strategy in Asia: A Casebook (Cengage, 2010) (SPH). The method for procuring these cases will be discussed during the first class.

Course Description

Perspective

This course is about the creation and maintenance of a long-term vision for the organization. This means that it is concerned with both the determination of strategic direction and the management of the strategic process. As such, it deals with the analytical, behavioral, and creative aspects of business simultaneously. Our perspective in this course is that of the general manager whose responsibility is the long-term health of the entire firm or a multi-functional unit (e.g., a major division of a corporation). The key tasks involved in general management include the detection of and adaptation to environmental change; the procurement and allocation of resources; the integration of activities across subparts of the organizations; and, at the most senior levels, the determination of purpose and the setting of corporate direction.

General Managers, from our perspective, are managers who are in the position to make strategic decisions for the firm. Note that such managers are not "generalists" in the sense that they need to know a little bit of everything, but not very much of anything. To be effective, general managers need to have in-depth understanding of the generic problems in all the relevant functional areas. Furthermore, they must be able to deal with problems and issues at the level of the total enterprise and its relationships with relevant external environments.

Functional specialists can benefit from the general management perspective even though they may not be general managers. Every function's actions should be coordinated with the overall needs of the business. In fact, functional specialists are the people on whom general managers must rely to implement their strategies. Since such functional managers can be subject to suboptimizing pressure, they too need to understand the general manager's perspective.

Components of the Course

The pervasive concept in this course is that of strategy. We will start our study of strategy at the business level and examine the challenges of managing a firm competing in a single industry. An integral part of this study will be an exploration of the components of strategy and how they vary among settings and situations. In most large and medium-sized firms, corporate strategy is different from business strategy because of the multiplicity of businesses in which the firm is involved. We will explore the differences in corporate and business-level (or divisional-level) strategies and the requirements each places on managers at different levels in the firm. At each level, competitive strategy issues will be considered.

Successful general managers are highly competent in problem identification and analysis and have a strong action orientation. One purpose of this course is to provide an environment that will allow you to hone these skills, while at the same time gain a conceptual understanding of the strategic manager's task. While few people start their careers as general managers, this course should benefit virtually all students for several reasons. First, ongoing trends in the corporate world towards “flatter”, less hierarchical organizations have resulted in strategic decisions being made at even lower hierarchical levels, often by relatively junior people. Second, a number of factors, including technological change and the shift to global markets, have forced established firms to become increasingly innovative and entrepreneurial, and such initiatives often spring from lower level organizational ranks. Third, functional specialists such as professionals in MSIS, marketing, and finance are the people whom general managers rely both to implement a firm’s existing strategy and collect the information needed to update and revise it. Since functional managers are often under pressure to fix problems in their own areas without regard to the overall business, it is critical that they develop a keen awareness and appreciation of the challenges facing the firm as a whole.

Strategic management is more than analysis. To be sure, strategic analysis is an important part of this course, and we will explore and apply several analytical techniques for positioning a firm or a business unit within a competitive environment. But, strategic analyses are complicated by the trade-offs inherent in any situation. These trade-offs reflect the fact that organizations consist of many players with multiple, competing objectives. When dealing with these tradeoffs, general managers must confront the judgmental issues involved in establishing organizational purpose and balancing economic and noneconomic objectives. To the extent possible, in each class we will attempt to balance these tradeoffs and to test our ideas about the appropriate relationships among them.

Finally, strategic management requires moving beyond analysis and trade-offs into the realm of strategic action. Once the analytical problem of selecting a business or corporate strategy has been dealt with, we should know what to do. Knowing how to execute the selected strategy is essential to success. To the extent possible in each case, we will concern ourselves with the various combinations of systems (for example, information, control, reward, etc.), organization structures, and people necessary to execute a given strategy. We will test our ideas about the relationships between strategy and these other elements as we proceed through the course.

General Flow of the Course

The assignments are detailed in a later section. Please read through them to get an idea of the specific content of the course and each class meeting. In general, we will start with single-business or dominant-business companies and proceed to multiple-business companies. Similarly, we will begin with basic techniques of analysis and then expand and modify them to fit a range of situations. We will examine many sectors of the economy (for example consumer products, service businesses, and hi-tech). As we proceed through the course, the classes and cases used in them will "build" on each other in such a way that the knowledge and skills gained in analyzing one session can be used in subsequent cases. Throughout the course we will maintain our concern with both analysis and implementation.

Course Objectives

1.  Development and reinforcement of a general management point of view -- the capacity to view the firm from an overall perspective, in the context of its environment.

2.  Development of an understanding of fundamental concepts in strategic management: the role of the general manager, the levels and components of strategy, competitive analysis, and organizational evolution.

3.  Development of those skills and knowledge peculiar to general management and the general manager's job that have not been covered in previous functional courses.

4.  Synthesis of the knowledge gained in previous courses and understanding what part of that knowledge is useful to general managers.

5.  Development of an awareness of the various impacts of external environmental forces on business and corporate strategy.

6.  Practice in distinguishing between basic causes of business problems and attendant symptoms.

7.  Practice in working out business strategies and implementation plans.

8.  Development of habits of orderly, analytical thinking and skill in reporting conclusions effectively in both written and oral form.

9.  Familiarity with some of the practical realities of running different types of businesses.

Performance Measures and Feedback

Grading Policies

Your grade for the course will be based on the following components:

35% Class participation (inclusive of online quizzes)

15% Short group presentation

20% Written mid-term case analysis – individual assignment

30% Group Project

Class Participation

The quality of the sessions, in a course such as this, is highly dependent on your involvement and participation. These marks are given for both attending the session, and proactively and vocally participating in the discussions. Opportunities for more informal online interaction (the IVLE online forum) will also be made available. You are required to take an online quiz on IVLE before each class (starting from session 2). The online quiz will be based on the assigned textbook chapter and case. Your class participation grade will also depend on your performance in these online quizzes.

Short group presentation

Each group is expected to make a short presentation on an assigned topic. You are encouraged to get in touch with the instructor if you need any clarifications or suggestions on preparing for the topic. You can also choose another topic (that is appropriate for the class in which you are slotted to present) after getting approval from the instructor. The presentation should not exceed fifteen minutes. Submit a hard copy of your slides before your presentation and post a copy on IVLE as well.

Mid-Term Individual Case Analysis

The mid-term case analysis is an individual assignment. Only the course text and other course reading materials should be used to prepare for the case analysis. In preparing the paper, you may of course use exhibits to support your arguments or conclusions. The results of the application of various analytical tools, for example, are appropriate for exhibits. You may use as many exhibits as you deem necessary. Be sure to refer to each exhibit in the relevant places in the paper. Your analysis, exclusive of exhibits, should not exceed 5 pages (double-spaced, 12 font size and 1 inch margin on all sides). Papers should be submitted without folders, cover sheets, or any other incidental pages. Please submit a soft copy on IVLE as well. The case will be handed to you during the class on September 14th and your paper is due by 30 September, 5 PM.

Group Project

There will be two components to the Group Project: a written submission and a presentation. Each group member’s contribution will be taken into account, through peer review, before the group’s marks are apportioned to each individual group member.

Students are required to form a group of 4-5 to analyze one of the following aspects of a selected company:

1.  Business Strategy

2.  Corporate strategy

3.  Globalization strategy

4.  Technology strategy

5.  Organization structure and control

The paper can be written on the basis of 1) findings of personal interviews of senior managers and information gathered from secondary sources; or 2) information from secondary sources only. You are strongly encouraged to use primary sources (i.e., talk to managers) for this project. If you are planning to do a report based only on secondary sources, please let the instructor know in advance. Additional details will be made available on IVLE.

The maximum length of the group paper is 15 pages (double-spaced, 12 font size and 1 inch margin on all sides) excluding references, tables and charts. The group paper is due on 4th November, 5 PM, and the presentations are to be made during the classes held in sessions 13 and 14. All students are expected to attend the presentations irrespective of whether their group is making the presentation.

Other Administrative Details

Since faculty members tend to have somewhat different expectations as to class behavior and course norms, I'd like to outline a few of my expectations concerning such matters.

1.  I plan to be prepared for every class and I expect you to do the same. Since I frequently call on individuals whose hands are not raised, you should let me know before the start of the class if some emergency has made it impossible for you to be prepared adequately for that class.

2.  I consider attendance at every class to be very important. Please schedule other activities at times other than those during which this class meets. In the event that you do have to miss a class during the semester, I would appreciate it if you would let me know in advance of that class.

3.  I will be happy to discuss the course, your progress, or any other issues of interest to you on an individual basis.

4.  Given the importance of this course, I will do everything that I can to use class time effectively and ask that you do the same. This will include arriving, starting, and ending on time.

5.  Group work is acceptable and strongly encouraged for purposes of case preparation for classroom discussion.

6.  Laptops, smart phones, and other electronic devices may not be used in class.

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BMA 5013_F1 - Class Outline

Date /
Course Plan
/
Article/ Case
/
Suggested Topics for Student Presentations
Session 1 / Course Introduction
The Concept of Strategy (Grant, Ch. 1) / What is Strategy (Porter)
Session 2 /
Industry Competitive Analysis
(Grant, Ch. 3) / The five forces that shape competitive strategy (Porter)
IOI Group from Malaysia
Session 3 / Organizational Resources & Capabilities(Grant, Ch. 5 & Ch. 6) / Harlequin Enterprises: The Mira Decision / How FC Barcelona’s resources and capabilities contribute to its performance
Session 4 / Competitive Dynamics & Sustaining Competitive Advantage
(Grant, Ch. 4 & Ch. 8) / Matching Dell / Dell’s recent performance
Session 5 / Cost Leadership Differentiation Advantage
(Grant, Ch. 9 & Ch. 10) / South Beauty Group: In Quest of a ‘Beautiful’ Growth Story / Sheng Siong - Cost leadership strategies in retailing in Singapore/ Uniqlo’s competitive advantage
Session 6 / Technology and Innovation Management
(Grant, Ch. 12) / 3M Optical systems / Emergence of Facebook Groupon
Session 7 / The Scope of the Firm: Diversification & Portfolio Planning
(Grant, Ch. 16) / Why focused strategies may be wrong for emerging markets (Khanna & Palepu)
Sony Corporation (A) – The vision of tomorrow (SP&H)
Sony Corporation (B) – Back to the future (SP&H) / Diversification in emerging markets
Session 8 / The Scope of the Firm: Vertical Integration
(Grant, Ch. 14) / Mini cases (to be distributed in the class)
Session 9 / The Scope of the Firm: Alliances & Acquisitions / When to ally and when to acquire (Dyer, Kale & Singh)
Tata Motors (A): Acquisition of Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company (SP&H)Tata Motors (B): Integration of Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company (SP&H) / Alliances in the airline industry
Session 10 / Global Strategy / P&G Japan: The SK-II globalization project / Singapore’s national competitive advantage
Session 11 / Organization Structure & Strategy Implementation
(Grant, Ch. 7 & Ch. 17) / Singapore Airlines: Aligning Strategy and Organization (SP&H) / Sony vs. Samsung – Differences in Organization Structure
Session 12 / Integrated Case
Session 13 & 14 / Project Presentations

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