Strategic Moves in Competitive Environments

The assignment asks students to analyze the strategies of three different companies: Live Nation, Kaiser Permanente, and two other companies that have entered into outsourcing agreements with firms providing specialized services. The companies' strategic moves include horizontal mergers and acquisitions, vertical integration, and outsourcing. Students are required to discuss how these moves have strengthened their competitive positions, achieved advantages based on timing, and potentially threatened or enhanced their capabilities.

week 6 questions:
ASSURANCE OF LEARNING EXERCISES
1. Live Nation operates music venues, provides management services to music artists, and promotes
more than 22,000 live music events annually. The company merged with Ticketmaster and acquired
concert and festival promoters in the United States, Australia, and Great Britain. How has the company
used horizontal mergers and acquisitions to strengthen its competitive position? Are these moves
primarily offensive or defensive? Has either Live Nation or Ticketmaster achieved any type of advantage
based on the timing of its strategic moves? LO 1, LO 2, LO 3 tho20598_ch06_144-173.indd 171 8/28/14
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2. Kaiser Permanente, a standout among managed health care systems, has become a model of how to
deliver good health care cost-effectively. Illustration Capsule 6.4 describes how Kaiser Permanente has
made vertical integration a central part of its strategy. What value chain segments has Kaiser
Permanente chosen to enter and perform internally? How has vertical integration aided the organization
in building competitive advantage? Has vertical integration strengthened its market position? Explain
why or why not.
3. Perform an Internet search to identify at least two companies in different industries that have entered
into outsourcing agreements with firms with specialized services. In addition, describe what value chain
activities the companies have chosen to outsource. Do any of these outsourcing agreements seem likely
to threaten any of the companies’ competitive capabilities?
4. Using your university library’s subscription to LexisNexis, EBSCO, or a similar database, find two
examples of how companies have relied on strategic alliances or joint ventures to substitute for
horizontal or vertical integration.