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The purpose of this paper is to present a new and comprehensive business strategy matrix which can be used to create competitive advantage for the value chain of every business unit of any firm.

This paper reviews the key findings of several well-known papers within the value chain literature and then adds several new conceptual insights to step by step create a logically developed, business strategy matrix featuring four strategy choices.

This paper presents the four business strategy choices of competitive value chains, based on the business strategies of innovative quality, lean cost, agile delivery and attentive service.

A future research implication of this paper is to empirically test the financial benefits for producers of custom products, of applying agile delivery as a key business strategy.

This paper provides the senior management of each business unit of any firm, with a clear guide to defining an optimal business strategy.

This paper is intended to advance the practice of business strategy by senior management, to enhance customer value across all business units.

This paper expands upon existing business strategy models by providing a comprehensive business strategy matrix, which can be applied to all possible business units. It does this by building upon current best practice to demonstrate that next to innovative quality, lean cost and attentive service strategies, an agile delivery strategy is required in the case of custom products.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study of the top listed property companies in Asia based on capital market value on internet business strategy, and to examine the relationship between top companies and the internet business strategy index.

Data for the research were collected from the top 30 property companies in Asia through their web sites. The services and information offered in these web sites are discussed and used to describe the growth of internet usage in the real estate business.

From the findings, most companies in Asia realised the importance of the internet as a marketing tool. This has been proved from the good average score of the internet business strategy attributes. The results indicated that top property companies in Asia implemented good internet business strategy.

The research is based on a study from the top 30 companies in Asia based on market capital values as at 30 June 2009. Only three countries were selected in this study: Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

This paper examines the practice of property companies in Asia of using the internet as a marketing tool in property business in order to enhance the marketing strategy in this borderless world. The findings provided some insight and guidelines for the industry as well as academics on the use of information and communication technology in the property business.

The purpose of this exploratory research paper is to present a strategic profiling managerial framework that enables businesses to show visually the level of internal strategic fit in their organisation. Using this framework, service operations managers are able to understand the level of fit that exists, how it is created and identify actions for improving it.

Case‐based research was conducted in eight service organisations to investigate their level of internal fit and the corresponding characteristics of their market, operating strategy and service delivery system. Based on these findings, a strategic profiling framework was developed.

The strategic profiling framework allows a service organisation to compare the characteristics of its market, operating strategy and service delivery system and determine the level of internal strategic fit. This enables it to see more clearly where conflicts exist and to start to understand the steps required to improve the level of fit in its organisation.

The research used the Heskett strategic service vision and Hill's order‐winner and qualifier technique to investigate the level of internal fit. It looked at how they can be applied and the insights they reveal rather than whether the elements they contain are correct. The research focused on developing and presenting a method of visualizing internal fit, rather than investigating the link between fit and performance. The strategic profiling framework developed needs to be tested on a wider sample of organisations to see whether high‐fit profiles have high performance and whether the insights it reveals are true for other businesses.

Service organisations can use the strategic profiling framework to understand their level of internal strategic fit, and why it exists, in order to understand how to improve it.

The strategic profiling framework presented in this paper starts to address the gap in the literature around research into the field of internal strategic fit. It also meets the need for more management tools to help businesses develop strategies and understand the level of fit they create.

If strategic planning systems have failed it is because managers have failed to adapt them to the changed contexts of their businesses. Four distinct contexts are identified: Pioneer, Expand, Reorient, and Dominate. These labels are chosen to indicate the primary challenge for the business unit in each of these contexts. The contexts vary in their risk and in the adaptation and/or integration orientation that they demand of the strategic planning system. Four key elements of the strategic planning system: direction of goal setting, time‐spending patterns in planning, the relative importance of the strategic budget, and the linkage between the financial plan and the budgets, are identified. Each can be manipulated to adapt the system to suit the firm′s business context.

At The Dow Chemical Company, Intellectual Assets are regarded as knowledge with a value and are a key factor in creating wealth for the company. These Intellectual Assets include patents, trade secrets, trademarks and know‐how. The company has devised a six‐step Intellectual Asset model which involves strategy setting; identification and classification of existing Intellectual Assets; valuing these assets; deciding whether to invest in new knowledge through the development or purchase of technology and skills; and assembling the Intellectual Assets into Knowledge Portfolios for each global Dow business. This process is repeated on a regular basis. This paper discusses how the methodology has been developed and implemented at Dow, including the company’s approach to creating a Global Intellectual Asset Technology Centre and multi‐functional and multi‐geographic Intellectual Asset teams. Tools and techniques developed for measuring the company’s Intellectual Assets are generic and may be appropriately applied to any organization.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficiency and satisfaction of electronic records management systems (ERMS), which has been of interest to archivists and records managers, in electronic government (e‐government) agencies in Taiwan.

Using the measures from information systems (ISs) success model, this study applies data envelopment analysis to measure the relative efficiency and satisfaction in different types of e‐government agencies. After conducting a large‐scale survey of e‐government agencies in Taiwan, a matrix of efficiency and satisfaction is developed.

Research results show that the efficiency of ERMS in central agencies exceeds that in local agencies, and the efficiency in upper level agencies exceeds that in lower level agencies. The efficiency in business agencies exceeds that in administration agencies and public schools. Additionally, ERMS user's satisfaction in e‐government agencies is linearly related to ERMS efficiency.

Owing to the budget limits, only a one‐shot survey is conducted, thus the comparison between ex‐ante and ex‐post measurement could not be performed.

The business‐related reasons are more critical in implementing ERMS than the compliance‐related ones.

This paper proposes a mathematical modeling tool for assessing ISs in e‐government.

With the rise in environmental concerns among the stakeholders of businesses, firms are responding with strategic environmental marketing activities designed to meet the growing demand for environmentally friendly processes, products and packaging. Part of an ongoing major research project being undertaken in Bradford Management Centre, empirically analyses the development of environmentally conscious product strategies (ECPS) in the broader framework of strategic environmental marketing. A multi‐case study approach is applied and qualitative methods are used for the data collection in the UK and Germany. The data collected are analysed in terms of strategies (corporate and product level) and structure and processes (internal and external). Suggests that companies in the UK have started internalizing the ecological externalities into their product strategies and a few of them have actually achieved success. Identifies and discusses key factors for the achievement of both environmental and commercial success of ECPS.

This chapter discusses the evolvement of the sustainability concept and its importance in the strategic management context. First, the authors review the development of the concept over the last century and presents the most commonly used sustainability definitions. Then, the three pillars of sustainability (economic, natural and social) are reviewed, highlighting the sustainability aspect of each pillar individually and the problems of their non-substitutability, irreversibility and non-linearity. Based on the literature review, this chapter discusses the main motives for integration of sustainability concept into the overall strategy of the company, namely compliance with regulation, response to public concern, expected competitive advantage and top management commitment. Furthermore, important distinctions between reactive and proactive approaches are presented, and the results and benefits (such as cost reductions, differentiation and added value) of proactive approaches to corporate sustainability are analyzed. Nevertheless, such benefits can only be achieved if corporate sustainability is understood and treated as a holistic concept, which is deeply embedded in the company’s strategy and is approached proactively from the interdisciplinary viewpoint, looking at all three dimensions simultaneously.

Undergraduate.

This case deals with a Zambian entrepreneur named Frank Ngambi who had developed several lodges in Ndola and Lusaka, Zambia. His original intention had been to build lodges that would provide inexpensive lodging for domestic travelers. That strategy had succeeded, and the lodges had been so successful that Frank had been able to increase the size of his lodges in both cities. However, by the summer of 2015, Frank had decided to seek the patronage of international travelers. He knew that this change in strategy would be difficult to achieve. After analyzing one of his competitors, the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka, he realized that he needed to increase his product offerings and also offer outstanding customer service. One problem in attaining that goal was the fact that there was very little training for human resources involved in the hospitality industry in Ndola where two of his lodges were located. Another problem he faced was figuring out how to market his lodges to international travelers, as he had never sought that segment of the market before.

At the conclusion of the case discussion, the student should be able to apply Michael Porter’s General Business-Level Strategy to the present and anticipated strategies for the FATMOLS Lodges; to identify tactics that would apply to a low cost leadership strategy; to identify tactics that would apply to a differentiation strategy; to discuss reasons tourism has increased in Zambia in the twenty-first century; to analyze the financial strategy used in developing the FATMOLS Lodges; and to develop a plan for moving a company from a low-cost leadership strategy to one of differentiation.

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CSS 11: Strategy.

The purpose of this study is threefold: to use an innovative metafrontier‐to‐data‐envelopment analysis (MDEA) model incorporating multiple outputs and inputs – including the item revenue, gross profit, food costs, time‐driven labor costs, and other operating expenses (OOEs) – to distinguish four quadrants based on efficiency and profit to offer different strategies to the restaurateur under study; to compare the proficiency levels of the different meal categories of the à la carte and combo set menus using the metatechnology ratio (MTR) via the MDEA; and to use slack‐based analyses with simulation to improve the financial performance of a teppanyaki‐style restaurant.

Six months of point of sale (POS) data are obtained from a teppanyaki‐style restaurant. The proposed inputs are categorized into total food costs, total labor cost, the number of processes, and OOEs. Two outputs (total revenue and gross profit) are used to assess the efficiency of the menu items. The MTR is used to differentiate the proficiency level of the heterogeneous meal categories and to create four quadrants based on the efficiency index and financial performance.

The MTR is lower for the combo set category than for the à la carte category. Four quadrants are obtained based on the efficiency and financial performance to provide further menu suggestions. The MDEA analysis yields menu suggestions that could enhance the overall efficiency and profitability of the menu items. A simulation using these two models is conducted and shows that the restaurant profitability would be 22 percent greater using the MDEA than using the menu engineering model.

Because there are no publicly listed teppanyaki‐style restaurants in Taiwan and it is difficult to find the same menu in different restaurants, this study consists of only a single restaurant, and the results may not be generalizable to other types of restaurants.

This paper contributes to menu analysis by establishing an efficiency index and using financial performance as criteria for determining which menu items to improve in a teppanyaki‐style restaurant. The MTR of the metafrontier model can differentiate the proficiency level of the heterogeneous categories, such as à la carte and combo set menus. This paper offers empirical results pertaining to the classification of menu items and describes a slack‐based analysis for improving menu items.