Strategic Choice and Evaluation

Question 1: Factors in the remote environment informing decision making 

These factors include the monetary variables, the technological, social, demographics and the political factors ( Kuratko, 2016) . Monetary variables include the GDP, where the higher the GDP, the higher are the rates of viability of carrying out business in the remote business environment. The technological factors include the levels of innovation, where higher levels mean availability of business opportunities in the environment. On the other hand, political factors deal with laws that affect the economy of the remote environment. Strict monetary policies hinder business growth. 

The most important factor is determined by the nature of the industry. For instance, the economic factors are most important when considering investing in the financial sector such as expanding in the banking industry ( Vijayan et al., 2016) . On the other hand, investing in MNCs depend on the social and political structures, where advancing in this industry requires a politically stable remote environment. 

Question 2: Competitive Forces Shaping the Industry Environmental Dynamics 

The first factor is the bargaining power of suppliers. In this where the higher the bargaining power of suppliers, the lower it is for an industry to adapt, while the lower the bargaining power of suppliers, the easier it is for a business enterprise to choose from the existing suppliers ( Lin et al., 2015) . The next force is the threats of new entrants, where the lower the threats, the easier it is for an incumbent business to monopolize the market, while higher threats of entry mean it is easy for new companies to enter the market and offer considerable competition ( Kuratko, 2016) . The next force is the competition from substitutes, where the higher the threat levels, the higher the levels of rivalry, while lower forces will mean that the existing products in the industry are standard in the market. On the other hand, if the bargaining power of buyers is high, it means that the buyers can choose from existing products and thus, they can dictate the prices in the market, which works to the disadvantage of the business enterprise ( Kuratko, 2016) . High levels of rivalry as competitive forces mean that the highly competitive business is sustainable, while those that are not competitive may become extinct from the market. 

Question 3: Characteristics of Enterprise Competitive Position 

The competitive position of a business enterprise defines the levels of performance of the business in comparison to the competitors. For instance, the market niche and the levels of profitability may be signs of a good competitive position ( Kuratko, 2016) . On the other hand, the customer profiling analysis helps in showing the response of the consumers towards the goods and services. For instance, the number of customer visits, their comments, and rating of products may help in showing their responses to the goods in the business environment. Consequently, human resource availability defines the amount of labor force that is available for use. 

Question 4: Using SWOT in Analyzing Enterprise Capabilities 

SWOT analysis has process limitations that impact on the potential assessment of the performance of a business firm. For instance, it may be poor in control quality, where it can depict a poor system of industrial relations ( Vijayan et al., 2016) . SWOT analysis has other process limitations such as subjectivity and lack of a framework for finding solutions to the identified problems. In this case, the process is subject to bias, where an entrepreneurial may be biased in evaluating the product, where he may overestimate the strengths and weaknesses depending on the passion he has created with the product ( Kuratko, 2016) . The process also lists the strengths and weaknesses of the external business environment, while it lacks a framework for prioritization of these possible strengths and weaknesses, which may negatively impact the process of decision making. 

Question 5: How Value Chain Analysis Builds a Competitive Advantage 

Value chain analysis is a tool for development of strategies, where it is used to analyze the internal activities of the firm ( Lin et al., 2015) . The primary goal of value chain analysis is to measure the most valuable activities regarding costs and levels of profitability. Value chain analysis can aid the firm to know which goods should be improved in the provision of competitive advantage. For instance, a business firm can use value chain analysis to differentiate its line of products based on the customer needs ( Kuratko, 2016) . It can also know how to maintain the cash cow products in the market, which is a competitive strategy. For example, a business company can decide to use the approach in exploring ways of adding value to a product such as marketing. 

Question 6: Analyzing customer needs in shaping an efficient value chain 

The value chain is vital as a tool for understanding the nature of products and services in a business firm ( Taylor, 2017) . It shows the most valuable goods and services that a business firm has, while it can help in making the right decisions on how to add value to the existing products and services. Analysis of customer needs helps in shaping an effective value chain as it aids in making the production decisions ( Kuratko, 2016) . Once the management understands the customer needs, it can align the system of production to meet the consumer needs. Analyzing customer needs may also help the company to understand the perception of customers on the existing goods and services, where it can know the most efficient value-added strategies. Analysis of customer needs may also help the business company to understand the most valuable products and those that may require improvement. 

Question 7: Low-cost leadership 

Low-cost leadership is a business strategy that is used to describe how a business company gains a competitive policy by ensuring that it limits its operations to the lowest costs in the industry ( Vijayan et al., 2016) . In most cases where business companies may need high sales volumes, the low-cost leadership strategy may pose a disadvantage. In this case, markets that are highly fragmented and those that involve high levels of brand loyalty do not offer an opportunity that attracts a large customer segment ( Kuratko, 2016) . The companies may also lose out on the market share as it tries to minimize costs of innovation in production. It is impossible to have a differentiation orientation and low-cost orientation at the same time since product differentiation is a definitive form of increasing the cost of production, which works against the fundamental principles of low-cost production. 

Question 8: The Portfolio Approach 

The portfolio approach involves allocating capital across the portfolio of the business company to stimulate growth. It has different strengths and limitations. The primary strength of the approach is that allocation of the capital across the portfolio of a business company aids in the growth of investments ( Vijayan et al., 2016) . The approach is also viable as it helps in optimizing the return on investment. On the contrary, the approach involves creating a line of divide between the products and services of a company into different categories representing the business portfolio. The process of categorization can lead to subjective decisions on how to create the line of divide. For instance, if candy and fruits and different products, a grocery may lack a model of placement of candied fruits in the appropriate category ( Kuratko, 2016) . Consequently, the corporate parent role helps the remote strategic business units in improving performance in the sense that it supports the business units to acquire a core competence regarding having traditional technical know-how. In this case, the competencies of the parent business organizations and the relationship between the parent and its business units create value for the whole business enterprise. 

References 

Kuratko, D. F. (2016). Different entrepreneurial ventures for greater societal value: A portfolio approach to assist public policy.  The Antitrust Bulletin ,  61 (4), 546-560. 

Lin, Y. T., Chun, H. C., & Chuang, S. H. (2015, July). Explore the Development of Social Enterprises in Taiwan from the Dynamic Capabilities Approach. In  Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS), 2015 9th International Conference on  (pp. 502-505). IEEE. 

Taylor, P. (2017). The Globalization of Service Work: Analysing the 12 Transnational Call Centre Value Chain.  Working life: Renewing labour process analysis , 244. 

Vijayan, G., Kamarulzaman, N. H., Mukherjee, A., & Vaiappuri, S. K. (2016). Strategic value creation in a supply chain. In  Handbook of research on global supply chain management (pp. 186-204). IGI Global.