Practicing Strategy

Companion activities for Crafting Strategy · Kendall Hunt, 2024 · Get the book

Take a case off the shelf and work it like a strategist.

Fourteen labs built on Crafting Strategy: Becoming a Strategist Through Case Activity Practice, each tied to the book’s chapters and cases. Every lab has a free way in; an instructor’s class link opens the rest.

Start free

No account and no code. New here? Start with the ferry line, then open any of these. Swipe for more.

The labs

In chapter order. Start where your instructor points you, or anywhere that interests you.

Chapters 1 and 12

The Case Studio

See the book as a map, then prepare any of its 22 cases the way a strategist does: size it up, read it once with tagged notes, and write an integrated case brief.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Case Studio Try free: Try the ferry-line case free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Why strategic management now
  • The book as a map
  • Your first concept map
  • The case method and your seat
  • The size-up and one careful read
  • The seven stages of case analysis
  • The case workbench every book case, with your tagged notes in the margin
  • The Integrated Case Brief a team brief on any of the 22 cases, printed in the Consultant or Researcher order

Chapter 2

The Strategic Leadership Lab

Lead a strategy, not just plan one: read how leaders shape culture, test whether a bold move is measured, and make choices at a table whose rules are published.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Strategic Leadership Lab Try free: Try the ski resort free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Leaders shape culture
  • What strategic leadership is
  • Mindset and the bold move that is measured
  • Two mindsets
  • Five views of strategy: Mintzberg’s 5 Ps
  • Planning, scenarios, and emergence
  • Strategic intent: five roles
  • The dominant coalition and the interplay
  • Success, failure, and what to learn from them
  • The leadership table its rules shown first, a hypothesis before every move, and no score
  • The Leadership Brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 3

The Performance Lab

Tell whether a firm’s advantage is real: compute its measures from labeled statements, see what each can and can’t show, and steer by a scorecard.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Performance Lab Try free: Try the bakery chains free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Competitive advantage and its three forms
  • Five ways to see advantage
  • Accounting profitability
  • Shareholder value creation
  • EVA, read through brand value
  • The balanced scorecard
  • The triple bottom line
  • The seven diagnostic questions
  • The metrics dashboard each measure computed from labeled statements, and never added up
  • The “Is the Advantage Real?” brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 4

The External Analysis Lab

Scan the two rings around a firm, map its rivals into strategic groups, and run the chapter’s external analysis on a real case.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the External Analysis Lab Try free: Try the e-bike makers free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • The two rings
  • STEEPLE: the seven outside factors
  • Respond or shape?
  • The task environment
  • Strategic groups
  • The structured process
  • The rivals map a worked map, then build and check your own
  • The External Analysis Brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 5

The Internal Analysis Lab

Look inside the firm: resources and capabilities, VRIO/N, the value chain, and how its activities fit together.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Internal Analysis Lab Try free: Try Tillbrook free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Resources and capabilities
  • VRIO/N
  • The value chain
  • Activity systems
  • The five-step internal analysis worked examples: Apple, Toyota
  • Capstone cases and Going further your instructor chooses

Chapter 6

The Business Model Lab

Read a business model as a set of hypotheses, fill the canvas, and diagnose where a model clashes.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Business Model Lab Try free: Try Hollisford and Fennick free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Business models as hypotheses
  • Product or service orientation
  • Seven types of business model
  • Marketplace or platform?
  • Gather evidence before you label
  • The Business Model Canvas
  • The canvas as a diagnostic and the Lean Canvas
  • The Business Model Diagnosis Brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 7

The Generic Strategies Lab

Name the value drivers behind each generic strategy, plot firms on a strategy canvas, and judge whether their choices hold together.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Generic Strategies Lab Try free: Try the four gyms free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Generic strategies as trade-offs
  • The three generic strategies
  • The value drivers of differentiation
  • The value drivers of cost leadership
  • Focus, and which strategy is exposed
  • The strategy canvas
  • Reading the canvas and the nine steps for evaluating strategy alignment
  • The Strategy Alignment Brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 8

The Innovation Lab

Plan how an innovation will spread: who adopts and when, crossing the chasm, and testing a Blue Ocean move.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Innovation Lab Try free: Try Tilthwise free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Types of innovation
  • Diffusion and adoption
  • Crossing the chasm
  • The industry lifecycle
  • Reorganizing the value chain
  • Entrepreneurial thinking
  • Blue Ocean Strategy and its five risks
  • The seven-step innovation inquiry capstone cases and Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 9

The Organization Design Lab

Diagnose whether an organization’s structure, culture, and controls fit the strategy it must carry out, and plan the change.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Organization Design Lab Try free: Try the sign-and-print firm free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Design as a hypothesis about fit
  • Five structures and their trade-offs
  • Structure and innovation
  • Culture: catalyst or inertia
  • The language of change
  • Controls and rewards
  • Types of change and the change plan
  • The org chart builder with a fit dial that gives no score
  • The Organization Diagnosis a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 10

The Corporate Strategy Lab

Decide which way a company should grow, and how to get the capability it lacks: build it, borrow it, or buy it.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the Corporate Strategy Lab Try free: Try the scale maker free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Which way to grow
  • Vertical integration
  • Related and unrelated diversification
  • The six criteria
  • Testable consequence chains
  • Portfolio management and divestment
  • Resource management
  • The build, borrow, or buy route worked, guided, and when money is tight
  • The Growth Path Brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Chapter 11

The International Strategy Lab

Decide whether, where, and how a firm should go abroad: how far the market really is, what to keep the same, and whether the firm is ready.

Free sampler · lab opens with a class link

Open the International Strategy Lab Try free: Try the tea company free
What’s inside

What’s inside

  • Why compete internationally
  • Three approaches and their trade-offs
  • Six reasons for strategy change
  • The Diamond
  • Standardize or localize, and entry modes
  • Operations and leadership
  • Readiness
  • The distance explorer each band rated with evidence, and never added up
  • The Market-Readiness Brief a team brief on a capstone case; Going further: your instructor chooses

Teaching with Crafting Strategy?

Adopt the book and your students get all fourteen labs. Instructor access comes from Kendall Hunt when you adopt. Try any sampler above to see what your students will do.

  • A class link for every lab. It opens the full activity for your students, with no student accounts.
  • An instructor guide for each activity.
  • A Class Dashboard in eleven labs.
  • Lab capstones on the book’s own cases. All 22 are indexed below, each with the labs that use it.
  • Nothing to collect. What students do is saved only in their own browser.
See the book at Kendall Hunt Instructor access

The book’s cases

All 22 of the book’s cases, by chapter. Choose a spine to see every activity that uses it. Chipotle and Apple are open to everyone; the rest open with your class link. Swipe the shelf to see them all.

2f Apple, Inc.: Pricing the iPhone

Chapter 2 · open to everyone · used in 4 activities

3f Adidas and Kanye West

Chapter 3 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

4f Microsoft Corp., OpenAI, and ChatGPT

Chapter 4 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

4i American Airlines: Return to Profitability

Chapter 4 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

5f Moderna Corporate Espionage

Chapter 5 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

9f Amazon.com: Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

Chapter 9 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

10f Ring Security Camera

Chapter 10 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

11f DHL

Chapter 11 · opens with your class link · used in 4 activities

11i The NBA and the Hong Kong Protests: Managing Reputation in a Multipolar World

Chapter 11 · opens with your class link · used in 3 activities

Lab capstone cases open with your class link; without one, the lab opens its free sampler.