Just sat down for a nice practice exam on this section. *SLAP* 61% I echo all the staments on the generic business strategies stuff. I bombed all the vignettes on this…terrible. Oh yeah, on that vignette that pinkman posted awhile ago I went 2/6. Right about average. 
Is it http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,691223,691315#msg-691315? I didn’t join the conversation at that time, but I did this vignette on my own and thought their question was a bit questionable… their definition of scope was pretty much geographic/location based, and gave no consideration about product variety, for example, the part on Aerospace and Defense, its pretty easy to see its differentiation, but then wrt to the scope, they pretty much said b/c it has sales in 32 countries, its not a focuser, even though it only has 3 segments in the industry. I suppose you can make an assumption that the Aerospace and Defense only consists of 3 segments, otherwise, the fact that it operates in 32 countries does not make it a broard market player. I thought the Home Depot example in the CFAI text was clearer than this, Home Depot is a focuser in the retailer business focusing in home renovation products, the fact that Home Depot has a load of stores in both US and Canada does not make it a broad market player (like Walmart).
liaaba Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is it > http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,69 > 1223,691315#msg-691315? > > I didn’t join the conversation at that time, but I > did this vignette on my own and thought their > question was a bit questionable… > > their definition of scope was pretty much > geographic/location based, and gave no > consideration about product variety, for example, > the part on Aerospace and Defense, its pretty easy > to see its differentiation, but then wrt to the > scope, they pretty much said b/c it has sales in > 32 countries, its not a focuser, even though it > only has 3 segments in the industry. I suppose > you can make an assumption that the Aerospace and > Defense only consists of 3 segments, otherwise, > the fact that it operates in 32 countries does not > make it a broard market player. I thought the > Home Depot example in the CFAI text was clearer > than this, Home Depot is a focuser in the retailer > business focusing in home renovation products, the > fact that Home Depot has a load of stores in both > US and Canada does not make it a broad market > player (like Walmart). This was the exact problem I had with it. You described it perfectly. Now I don’t know how to attack these things.
I mean, by now, schweser has pretty much proven to me that they are extremely error prone, so while they serve as good practice material, I wouldn’t use their material as the official be all end all version… I’m sure on the actual exam, they would have better quality questions than this as far as these questions go, its usually pretty easy to identify if they’re differentiation or cost, then scope might be a bit tricky, but I would go back to the home depot example, I think the key is to understand whether the strategy is trying to appeal to all consumers in the target market or a subset of them, and go from there…back to the Aerospace and Defense example, if the 3 segments they operate in cover every consumer in the Aerospace and Defense market, then sure, they’re broad market player, but that doesn’t seem like a reasonable assumption to me, though I’m not an expert in the Aerospace and Defense industry, so…
I missed that post the first time around and just got 2/6 on them. Just another thing to add to my list of stuff I do not yet really understand.
I bombed this vignette too and someone who fare equally poorly advised me to check out the actual CFAI text. He said that they cover it pretty clearly and concisely and after reading it the logic behind the vignette question solutions made more sense. This is assuming that you have only covered schweser material. I have seen many instances where CFAI material is glossed over in the schweser text, but covered more thoroughly in their practice questions- inspiring one to maybe reinforce w/ the actual text.
These are a PITA. One of the schweser mocks has a whole vignette with 6 different fake companies, followed by 6 straight questions asking _______'s competitive strategy is best described as: Like you can assess that with diligence based on three sentences per company. Anyway, I mentioned in another post, we probably will be asked this, once maybe twice but in a straightforward clear question. But 6 questions?? I can’t imagine 5% of the exam being about judging a company’s competitive strategy based on a short paragraph. I kinda expect something like this: MWVT Co.'s board has decided that they want to employ a cost leadership competitive strategy. Slouiscar suggests they scrap their efforts to sell pop rocks, soda and gummi bears and instead concentrate their advertising and distribution resources on selling chewing gum because that product has the lowest fixed and variable costs. liaaba suggests they instead invest in a new machine that would allow them to significantly reduce fixed production costs for pop rocks, soda and gummi bears. Which statement would assist in achieving the boards decision… slouiscar? — liaaba?? A.) Yes – Yes B.) Yes – No C.) No – Yes D.) No – No
C
How do you refresh this thread, read that all, and answer correctly, all in under 2 minutes? Seriously, at this point I am convinced maratikus knows how to divide by zero.
First of all slouis, I am glad to see that you are forward thinking enough to recognize the company was mine. This shows great promise for you as an analyst. I hope the questions will be like yours. Maybe pink and zim could jump in and let us know for sure. Oh yeah…C.
I said it earlier…he is everywhere.
C…Maratikus’s real job is AF monitoring and posting lol
We should be a good maratikus=Chuck Norris thread going.
actually I was preparing for testing a basic portfolio risk model today. Now I need to write Matlab code and test my model.
Sounds lucrative 