Overview
1. Platforms and Mergers
Marshall Van Alstyne, Geoffrey Parker, and Sangeet Choudary believe that Platform strategies are transforming corporate competition.
Does the company you work for have a Platform strategy or a Pipeline strategy? How does this choice affect your company’s competitive advantage? Support your answer with specific examples.
Which strategy do you predict the company you work for will be using in the next five years? Do you believe your company’s competitive advantage would be significantly enhanced, if one strategy were chosen over the other?
Do you believe over the next five years that your company’s mix of resources and capabilities would significantly change, if one strategy were chosen over the other?
What is your personal preference of either Platform strategy or Pipeline strategy for the company you work for? Support your answer.
2. Management of Innovation, Think Through Strategy – Local Government
Our authors believe the key to successful innovation is not Resource Allocation. Rather, it is creating a Structure and an Organizational Climate conducive to innovation.
The structure may be thought of as the Innovation Value Chain. The Innovation Value Chain is comprised of: Idea Generation (in-house idea generation, cross-pollination, external sourcing); Conversion (selection, development); and Diffusion (spread of the idea).
Do you agree with the above statements regarding innovation and its value chain? Why or why not?
Do you believe the local government is particularly innovative?
If so, do you think a local government have a structure or organizational climate similar to the innovation value chain above?
If not, do you believe it could create a structure and organizational climate, more conducive to innovation, with its current resources and organizational structure? Or would modifications be required?
3. Global Strategies and the Multinational Corporation
Does your company actively engage in Foreign Trade (the sale and shipment of goods and services created in one country to another country) or in Foreign Direct Investment (the building or acquiring of productive assets in another country)?
If so, what competitive advantages does your company gain from this engagement? What potential disadvantages, hindrances, or restrictions are inherent in this engagement?
If not, would it be feasible for your company to engage in Foreign Trade or Foreign Direct Investment? Would any alarm bells go off in your mind if your company were to announce its pending foray into one of these areas?
Would an inter-state engagement be more feasible than an international one? If so, what inherent differences between an international engagement and an inter-state engagement would make the inter-state engagement more competitively attractive?
Has your company’s competitive advantage been significantly affected by Covid-19 or by the war in Ukraine? Is your company’s competitive advantage particularly susceptible to significant changes in the international business climate? Why or why not