CIMA E3 - Strategic Management Question Tutorial : CIMAPRO15-E03-X1-ENG

STU is a hospital that is wholly funded by its national government. In the last five years it has seen its funding cut by over 30% due to budgetary pressure on the government, caused by a global recession. As a result, the senior management team of STU has had to make some very difficult decisions about prioritizing how it spends the funds it receives from the government. Its main strategies have been to reduce the number of administration staff and nursing staff by 20%, in order to reduce its costs. It has also stopped providing a number of services to patients, including its counselling services and its physiotherapy unit.
Which of the following strategies has STU adopted to manage its reduced funding? (Choose all that apply.)

• A. Turnaround
• B. Divestment
• C. Retrenchment
• D. Liquidation
• E. Facilitation

A leading retail chain is undertaking environmental scanning as it is concerned that it is becoming uncompetitive and profits have started to fall. The Board of Directors is concerned that it will need to have a viable strategy to present to its shareholders at the next annual general meeting, in order to prevent shareholders' protests.
The company has been reluctant in the past to offer an Internet shopping service. It now believes, however, that by offering this service and introducing customer relationship marketing (CRM), this will produce a strategy that will help it to improve its competitiveness.
Which of the following statements apply to CRM? (Choose all that apply.)

• A. The company must be prepared to take customers' needs into account and be able to meet these needs.
• B. In mature markets, existing customers provide the most likely source of future earnings.
• C. The CRM process needs to include increasing the range of products that will be offered to customers.
• D. CRM is about marketing to customers to obtain their loyalty, so customer research is not needed.
• E. CRM utilizes marketing resources to retain, rather than simply attract new customers.

RST is a company specializing in the production of wood-based products. RST has decided to introduce a fully integrated Information System across all divisions in order to improve knowledge sharing throughout the business and enhance customer relationship management.
RST is expecting resistance to the integrated Information System from it's staff who are key to the business and would be difficult to replace. Staff have a good understanding of why the new system and knowledge sharing is needed and how the system will work but many staff are not happy about the potential changes to their working conditions.
Which of the following change leadership styles, as outlined by Kotter and Schlesinger, would be most appropriate for RST to adopt?

• A. Education
• B. Manipulation
• C. Negotiation
• D. Coercion

DRAG DROP
YZ is a family-run business which manufactures and sells confectionery, employing almost 100 staff. It operates 10 shops in small towns in the north of country P.
Sales of YZ's products have decreased over the last 4 years due to competition from large supermarkets, internet shopping and a general economic downturn, which has hit the north of country P especially hard.
YZ's managing director has recently retired and the board decided to fill the vacancy with an external appointment. The new managing director plans to invest in new manufacturing technology, which would cut staffing levels by 15% and reduce wastage, allowing YZ to lower its prices. YZ's staff are very unhappy about these proposals, feeling that they will destroy YZ's family tradition and reputation that has developed over many years.
Select the correct descriptor for each of the forces for change below:
Select and Place:

Correct

QWE is a private company belonging to a famous former sports professional. It operates gyms and fitness clubs across its home country. Each gym or fitness club is treated as a profit center and the manager of each center is paid bonuses based on its financial performance.
QWE introduced multidimensional performance measures into its management control systems 3 years ago.
These measure competitiveness, financial performance, capacity utilization, innovation and the flexibility of its centers to cope with changing demands.
The managers of QWE's centers have been leaving at a very high rate over the last 2 years. They have claimed that the measures are too open to interpretation and when they think they are improving their center's performance they are told they are doing the wrong things. They also complain that the managers in the centers near big cities find it much easier to reach their targets than the managers of other centers.
According to Fitzgerald and Moon's Building Block model, where does the problem lie?

• A. Dimensions and Rewards
• B. Dimensions and Standards
• C. Standards, Dimensions and Rewards
• D. Standards and Rewards