STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT TERMS ASSIGNMENT 1 1.

entry barriers
Barriers to entry are designed to block potential entrants from entering a market profitably. They seek to protect the monopoly power of existing (incumbent) firms in an industry and therefore maintain supernormal (monopoly) profits in the long run. Barriers to entry have the effect of making a market less contestable

2. forward integration
A business strategy that involves a form of vertical integration whereby activities are expanded to include control of the direct distribution of its products. A good example of forward integration is when a farmer sells his/her crops at the local market rather than to a distribution center.

3. backward integration
The process of backward integration usually begins when a company becomes aware that the product of service line offered by one of the companys vendors is especially attractive. This attraction may be built on the fact that the products that are currently purchased have worked out very well, and are helping to improve the quality and bottom line.

4. core-competency Core competency lead to the development of core products. Core

competencies are what give a company one or morecompetitive advantages, in creating and delivering value to its customers in its chosen field. Also called core capabilitiesor distinctive competencies.

In general, an organization's distinctive competency is the set of strengths, characterictics and qualities including skills, technologies, or resources that distinguish it from competitors. When the strength provides superior and unique customer value and is difficult to imitate then the distinctive competence creates a sustainable competitive advantage.

5. distinctive competency

6. competitive advantage
Competitive advantages give a company an edge over its rivals and an ability to generate greater value for the firm and its shareholders. The more sustainable the competitive advantage, the more difficult it is for competitors to neutralize the advantage.

7. sustained competitive advantage

Sustainable competitive advantage is the focal point of your corporate strategy. It allows the maintenance and improvement of your enterprise's competitive position in the market. It is an advantage that enables business to survive against its competition over a long period of time.

8. Mission
A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company and organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a sense of direction, and guide decision-making.

9. vision 10. consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal.

11. contingency plan

A contingency plan is a plan devised for a specific situation when things could go wrong. Contingency plans are often devised by governments or businesses who want to be prepared for anything that could happen.

12. critical success factor

Critical success factor (CSF) is the term for an element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. It is a critical factor or activity required for ensuring the success of a company or an organization.

13.niche marketing
A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing; therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact.

14. Differentiation
Differentiation is the process of distinguishing a product or offering from others, to make it more attractive to a particulartarget market. This involves differentiating it from competitors' products as well as a firm's own product offerings.

15.differentiation strategy
Approach under which a firm aims to develop and marketunique products for different customer segments. Usuallyemployed where a firm has clear competitive advantages, and can sustain an expensive advertising campaign. It is one of three generic marketing strategies (see focus strategy and low cost strategy for the other two) that can be adopted by any firm.

16. harvest and divest

divest
To sell off. Often referred to in the context of a company selling off divisions that are either a poor fit within the overall corporate strategy, or showing poor financial performance. Read more: http://www.investorwords.com/1507/divest.html#ixzz1TrY4301N

17.economies of scale
The increase in efficiency of production as the number of goods being produced increases. Typically, a company that achieves economies of scale lowers the average cost per unit through increased production since fixed costs are shared over an increased number of goods.

18.experience curve
The pattern of falling costs as production of a particular product or service increases, because the company learns more about it, workers become more skilful etc

Graph that depicts the 'experience effect' (increases inproductivity) as reflected in reduced average and marginal costs. Unlike the learning curve, an experience curve takesinto account both fixed and variable costs. a graph showing the relationship between the cumulative amount of products produced and the production cost per unit

19.cost-strategy 20.porters strategy 21.fragmented industry

An industry in which no single enterprise has large enoughshare of the market to be able to influence the industry'sdirection

22.inbound logistic
The activities of receiving, storing, and disseminating incoming goods or material for use.

23.joint venture
The cooperation of two or more individuals or businesses in which each agrees to share profit, loss and control in a specific enterprise A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time

24.matrix organization
Matrix management is a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments. For example, all engineers may be in one engineering department and report to an engineering manager, but these same engineers may be assigned to different projects and report to a project manager while working on that project. Therefore, each engineer may have to work under several managers to get their job done An organizational structure that facilitates

the horizontal flow of skills and information. It is used mainly in themanagement of large projects or product developmentprocesses, drawing employees from

different functionaldisciplines for assignment to a team without removing them from their respective positions.

25. Outsourcing
Outsourcing is an effective cost-saving strategy when used properly. It is sometimes more affordable to purchase a good from companies with comparative advantages than it is to produce the good internally. An example of a manufacturing company outsourcing would be Dell buying some of its computer components from another manufacturer in order to save on production costs. Alternatively, businesses may decide to outsource book-keeping duties to independent accounting firms, as it may be cheaper than retaining an in-house accountant

26.strategic alliance 27.portfolio approach 28.product lifecycle analysis 29.retrenchment 30.situational analysis 31.strategic business units 32.swot 33.switching cost 34.tqm