ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS - Perdue Chicken

1. What three things impress you most about this company? 2. What is the company's strategy? 3. What are the primary components of Perdue Farms'approach to strategy implementation? 4. How would you describe the company's culture? 5. What accounts most for the company's success - its strategy, its approach to strategy implementation, or its leadership? 6. What problems does the company have? What challenges confront Jim Perdue? What should he spend most of his time working on?

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS - Lincoln Electric

1. Now that Lincoln Electric is a public company, does Lincoln's top management have a duty to maximize shareholder wealth? Is paying such large year-end bonuses to employees consistent with maximizing shareholder wealth? Who fared better in 1995employees or shareholders? 2. What accounts for the high levels of worker productivity at Lincoln Electric? 3. Is Lincoln Electric's incentive compensation system strategy-supportive? Why or why not? 4. What are the benefits and risks of Lincoln's "promotion from within" policy? 5. What do you see as Lincoln Electric's resource strengths, organizational capabilities, and competencies? Do they constitute a competitive advantage? How easy would it be for competitors (or any other company) to try to copy or imitate these strengths and capabilities? 6. What is your assessment of the recent changes in strategy at Lincoln Electric? Do you foresee any problems in implementing and executing any of these changes? 7. What changes would you recommend in Lincoln's strategy or in its strategy implementation approaches?

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS PepsiCo

1. What type of corporate diversification strategy is PepsiCo employing? What are the key elements of PepsiCos corporate strategy? Briefly identify the business strategies that PepsiCo is using in each of its consumer business segments Pepsi soft drinks, Frito-Lay, KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. 2. What is your assessment of the attractiveness of the industries that PepsiCo has diversified into? 3. What is your assessment of the competitive strength of PepsiCos business units? 4. What does a BCG matrix of PepsiCos North American business portfolio look like? What do we learn from this matrix? 5. What does the 9-cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix revel about the companys domestic portfolio? What strategic conclusions can you draw from this portfolio matrix analysis of PepsiCo?

6. Does PepsiCos portfolio exhibit good strategic fit? What value chain match-ups among the businesses in PepsiCos portfolio? What opportunities for skills transfer, cost sharing or brand sharing do you see? 7. What strategic recommendations would you make to Roger Enrico? What moves should PepsiCo make next?