Explain international strategy, competencies, and international competitive advantage.

International strategy is concerned with the way in which firms make fundamental choices about developing and deploying scarce resources internationally. The goal of international strategy is to create a competitive advantage that is sustainable over time. To do this, the international company should try to develop skills, or competencies, that are valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate and that the organization is able to exploit fully.

Describe the steps in the global strategic planning process.

Global strategic planning provides a formal structure in which managers (1) analyze the company's external environment, (2) analyze the company's internal environment, (3) define the company's business and mission, (4) set corporate objectives, (5) quantify goals, (6) formulate strategies, and (7) make tactical plans.

Explain the purpose of mission statements, vision statements, values statements, objectives, quantified goals, and strategies.

Statements of the corporate mission, vision, and values communicate to the firm's stakeholders what the company is and where it is going, as well as the values to be upheld among the organization's members in their behaviors. A firm's objectives direct its course of action, and its strategies enable management to reach its objectives.

Describe the methods of and new directions in strategic planning.

Strategic planning is traditionally done either in a top-down, bottom-up, or iterative process. Operating managers, rather than dedicated staff planners, now have assumed a primary role in planning. Firms use less structured formats and much shorter documents. Managers are more concerned with issues, strategies, and implementation.

Explain home replication, multidomestic, regional, global, and transnational strategies and when to use them.

When developing and assessing strategic alternatives, companies competing in international markets confront two opposing forces: reduction of costs and adaptation to local markets. As a result, companies basically have five different strategies that they can use for competing internationally: home replication, multidomestic, global, transnational, and regional. (Regional strategies are included because, as some researchers have argued, considering them is of value since few firms are truly global in their scope and operations.) The most appropriate strategy, overall and for various activities in the value chain, depends on the amount of pressure the company faces in terms of adapting to local markets and achieving cost reductions. Each of these five strategies has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Describe the sources of competitive information.

Sources of competitive information are within the firm, published material, suppliers/customers, competitors' employees, and direct observation or analysis of physical evidence.

Discuss the importance of industrial espionage.

Industrial espionage is costing domestic and international companies billions of dollars annually in lost sales and may even put a company's long-term competitiveness and survival at risk. The threat of espionage is increasing, particularly as information and knowledge increasingly represent the foundation for companies' competitiveness.