Chapters 9 - 10
Corporate Level Strategy
Foods
Business Level
Strategies
How are we going
to compete and
gain a competitive
advantage in
each of our
businesses?
Quaker North America
Quaker Oats
Cap’n Crunch cereal
Life cereal
Quisp cereal
King Vitaman cereal
Mother’s cereal
Quaker rice cakes and granola bars
Rice-A-Roni side dishes
Near East couscous/pilafs
Aunt Jemima mixes & syrups
Quaker grits
Snack Foods
Beverages
Foods
Corporate Level Strategy
1) What businesses do we want to compete in?
2) How do manage effectively across businesses
Goals of Corporate Strategy
Moves to enter new businesses
Boosting combined performance of the
businesses
Capturing synergies and turning them into
competitive advantages
Establishing investment priorities and
steering resources into business units
4 Corporate Level Strategies
•
•
•
•
1) Vertical Integration
2) Strategic Outsourcing
3) Horizontal Integration
4) Diversification – two or more different
businesses with distinct operations
1) Vertical Integration

Forward or backwards



Benefits





Full integration
Taper integration
Build barriers to entry
Facilitates investment in specialized assets
Protecting product quality
Improved scheduling
Risks



Costs
Rapid technological changes
Demand predictability
Alternatives to Vertical Integration
Competitive bidding
 Long term contracts or strategic alliances

Form of Relationship
Vertical
Integration
Hybrid &
Contracts/Alliances
Markets &
Competitive Bidding
2) Outsourcing
Cost reduction and differentiation
 Hold-ups, scheduling and hallowing out

3) Horizontal Integration

Acquiring or merging with industry
competitors
Reduce cost and economies of scale
 Increasing value through wider product line
or product bundling
 Manage industry rivalry
 Decrease buyer and supplier power

4) How to Diversify?
1) Internal Development - corporate
entrepreneurship or internal venturing
able to appropriate a larger portion of wealth
 avoids complexities of multiple partners
 time consuming and requires diversity of
organizational capabilities

4) How to Diversify?
2) Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures
 entering a new market via the combination of
complementary resources - do more together
 cost reduction & sharing
 development/diffusion of technology
Problems
 appropriate partners - skills and compatibility
 trust and commitment
 communication
4) How to Diversify?
3) Mergers & Acquisition
Acquisitions
Reasons of Acquisitions
Problems with Acquisitions
Increase Market Power
Integration of two firms
Overcome Entry Barriers
Overpayment/Debt
Increased Speed
Overestimation of Synergy
Lower Risk
Overdiversification
Avoid Competition
Managerial energy absorption
Results
Poor
Performance
Become too large
Substitute for innovation
Who Wins?
Acquired Firm
Shareholders
Failures of Acquisitions
30 - 40% average acquisition premium
Acquiring firm’s value drops 4% in the 3 months
following acquisitions
30 - 50% of acquisitions are later divested
Acquirers underperform S&P by 14%, peers by
4%
3 month performance before and after
 30% substantial losses, 20% some losses,
33% marginal returns, 17% substantial
returns
Why, then, do executives acquire?
Often, for personal reasons
Firm size and executive compensation are
related
When do executives loss their jobs?
1) Acquired - larger firms harder to acquire
 2) Performing poorly - employment risk is
reduced as returns are less volatile

Levels of Diversification
Related Diversification - entering product markets
that share some resource or capability
requirements with the current business –
horizontal relationships across businesses synergies
Advantages of related diversification include:
 Leveraging Core Competencies
 Sharing Activities
 Market Power
Levels of Diversification (cont.)
Unrelated Diversification - few similarities in the
resources and capabilities required among the
firm’s businesses
Conglomerate Diversification - no relatedness
between businesses
When/Why to Diversify?
To create shareholder value
Porter’s Three Point Test
1) Attractiveness Test
2) Cost of Entry Test
3) Better off Test
Should pass all 3
Portfolio analysis
 BCG Growth-Share Matrix
 question marks, dogs, cash cows, stars
 GE- Nine Cell Matrix
Boston Consulting Group Matrix
Relative Market Share
Cash
Cows
Dogs
Growth
Rate
Stars
Question
Marks
BCG Matrix for PepsiCo - Early 1990s
Relative Market Share
Growth
Rate
High
Taco
Bell
Pizza
Hut
10%
Frito
Lay
Low
KFC
High
Soft
Drinks
1.0
Low
BCG Matrix for PepsiCo - Early 1990s
Relative Market Share
Growth
Rate
High
Pizza
Hut
Taco
Bell
Frito
Lay
5%
KFC
Soft
Drinks
Low
High
.75
Low
GE 9 Cell Matrix
High
Attractiveness
High
Competitive Strengths
Low
Invest
Grow
Hold
Harvest
Divest
Low
GE 9 Cell Matrix for Pepsico
High
Competitive Strengths
High
Attractiveness
Snack Foods
Low
Soft Drinks
Low