Competitive Marketing Strategy Interview Preparation Guide
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Competitive Strategy Marketing Interview Questions And Answers will Guide you that five forces analysis is a framework for the industry analysis and business strategy development. It uses concepts developed in Industrial Organization (IO) economics to derive five forces which determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market. Learn more about Competitive Marketing Strategy or get preparation of Competitive Marketing Strategy Job Interview with this Guide.

34 Competitive Strategy Questions and Answers:

Table of Contents

Competitive Strategy Interview Questions and Answers
Competitive Strategy Interview Questions and Answers

1 :: The first approach of any competitor analysis is to establish is what?

1. Who are the competitors?
2. Evaluate and qualify the threat posed by each of the competitors.
3. How many competitors there are?
4. All of the above
5. None of the above

Answer: Who are the competitors?

2 :: When adopting a market perspective, the competition is defined as task competition whereby companies are trying to satisfy customer or customer group, needs and wants. Which of the following illustrate a company adopting a market perspective identification of competitors?

1. Heineken views Coors as its competition.
2. Heineken views the entire social drinking market to identify its competitors.
3. Heineken views Carlsberg as its competition.
4. Heineken views Smirnoff Ice as its competition.

Answer: Heineken views the entire social drinking market to identify its competitors.

3 :: Competitive advantage is gained through the offering customers greater value. How can this be achieved?

1. Offering lower prices
2. Improving the quality of the product or service
3. Offering innovative qualities to the product
4. Providing more benefits that will justify higher prices
5. All of the above

Answer: All of the above

4 :: Most companies will compete with those competitors that resemble them the most, for example, Peugeot/Citroen competes against Renault rather than against Ferrari. There are several strategic benefits to the existence of competitors. What are these benefits?

1. May assist in the legitimization of new technology
2. May share cost of market and product development
3. May help increase total demand from the market
4. May lead to the development of more product differentiation
5. All of the above

Answer: All of the above

5 :: When discussing the 8Cs framework for mergers and acquisitions, which of the following is not a component of the criteria-

1. Competitors
2. Challengers
3. Collaborators
4. Customers
5. Commodities

Answer: Collaborators

7 :: Which of the following are mechanisms to expanding the total market?

1. New uses for existing products
2. More over all general usage of product
3. New users for existing products
4. All of the above
5. None of the above

Answer: All of the above

8 :: A runner-up firm in an industry that is fighting hard to increase market share, is referred to as?

1. Market leader
2. Market follower
3. Market nicher
4. Market challenger

Answer: Market challenger

9 :: Which of the following competitive positioning strategies is a losing strategy?

1. Middle-of-the-roader
2. Dissemination
3. Overall cost leadership
4. Differentiation

Answer: Middle-of-the-roader

10 :: What is competitor myopia?

1. Company is focused only on the one major competitor.
2. Company is too focused on the major competitors.
3. Immediate competition blinds a company to latent competitors who can destroy the old ways of doing business.
4. All of the above
5. None of the above

Answer: Immediate competition blinds a company to latent competitors who can destroy the old ways of doing business.

11 :: Determining what drives competitor behavior is based upon establishing which of the following-

1. Determining the competitor profit levels
2. Satisfying profit goals versus maximizing profit goals
3. Defining the competitor's objectives
4. Short-term profits versus long-term profits

Answer: Defining the competitor's objectives

12 :: Competition can be viewed from different aspects. When an industry is defined as the set of all sellers of a product or service, this is referred to as what-

1. A customer perspective
2. A market perspective
3. An industry perspective
4. A competitive perspective

Answer: A market perspective

13 :: For some products, competitive pressure may keep margins tight. To increase profit the organization may do which of the following-

1. Reduce marketing expenditure; reduce costs.
2. Reduce marketing expenditure; increase the price.
3. Reduce marketing expenditure; increase the price.
4. Reduce costs; increase output.
5. Increase the price; reduce costs.

Answer: Reduce costs; increase output

14 :: Price sensitivity can be a meaningful way of doing which of the following between groups of customers.

1. Diffusing
2. Differentiating
3. Dividing
4. Distributing
5. Diverging

Answer: Differentiating

16 :: Marketers would use which pricing strategy to overcome a competitor that they felt did not have sufficient resources to sustain a price war.

1. Market skimming
2. Market penetration
3. Discounts and allowances
4. Product line pricing
5. Optional-product pricing
6. By-product pricing

Answer: Market penetration

17 :: Like Amazon.com and egg, the Internet bank, most e-commerce operations offer prices well below those in the high street or mall and are making huge losses. What are the Internet businesses hoping to achieve with their aggressive pricing and is their price advantage likely to be maintained? Which of the following statements are correct and relevant to this pricing strategy?

1. Start-up costs, which involve heavy promotion in conventional media, are likely to depress profits for the first ten years.
2. Internet companies are hoping to achieve economies of scale, since the marginal cost of an increase in business is small.
3. All of the above
4. None of the above

Answer: All of the above

18 :: Define a penetration pricing strategy.

1. Strategy used to gain as much sales volume as possible as quickly as possible through undercutting competitors' prices.
2. Strategy used to maximize profit.
3. Strategy used to gain as many consumers as possible in the launch phase.
4. All of the above
5. None of the above

Answer: Strategy used to gain as much sales volume as possible as quickly as possible through undercutting competitors' prices.

19 :: A marketing managers pricing decisions are often influenced by the competitions pricing and their marketing strategies. Which of the following need to be considered when determining price?

1. The extent to which competitors are trying to focus the consumer's attention on price
2. The perceived similarity between the products in terms of non-price based features, benefits and additional services.
3. The desired market positioning
4. The price sensitivity of the target segment
5. The number of competitors
6. All of the above

Answer: All of the above

20 :: What are sources of information when gathering market intelligence about competitors?

1. Personal experience
2. Customers
3. Suppliers and wholesalers
4. Secondary data
5. All of the above

Answer: All of the above

23 :: The process of identifying key competitors, assessing their objectives, strategies, strengths and weaknesses, reaction patterns and selection of which competitors to attack is part of what process?

1. Application of the GE Model
2. Competitor strength analysis
3. Application of the Ansoff Model
4. Competitor analysis
5. Porter's Analysis

Answer: Competitor analysis

24 :: Volvo views Mercedes as prominent competitor, but does not view Rolls Royce as a competitor as these companies operate in different target markets. What type of competition does this represent?

1. Product competition
2. Product and service competition
3. Product phase competition
4. Product category competition

Answer: Product category competition

25 :: An industry is defined as which of the following-

1. Group of firms developing similar products
2. A group of firms that operate in a specific field of expertise
3. Group of firms that offer products that are close substitutes for each other
4. All of the above
5. None of the above

Answer: Group of firms that offer products that are close substitutes for each other