SPP Innovation & Growth Strategy 2 â Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which growth framework categorizes a company's options along two axesâmarkets and productsâinto four strategic choices?
- Porter's Five Forces
- Ansoff Matrix (Correct answer)
- BCG Growth-Share Matrix
- McKinsey 7-S Framework
Correct answer: Ansoff Matrix
The Ansoff Matrix plots existing/new products against existing/new markets to reveal four strategies: market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification.
Question 2: A company leverages its existing technology to serve an entirely new customer segment it has never targeted before. This is an example of which Ansoff quadrant?
- Market penetration
- Product development
- Market development (Correct answer)
- Diversification
Correct answer: Market development
Market development takes an existing product or capability into a new market segment or geography.
Question 3: The 'Jobs-to-be-Done' (JTBD) theory, popularized by Clayton Christensen, focuses innovation on which core concept?
- Competitor feature benchmarking
- Customer demographic profiles
- The functional and emotional progress customers seek (Correct answer)
- Total addressable market sizing
Correct answer: The functional and emotional progress customers seek
JTBD frames innovation around the progressâfunctional, social, or emotionalâa customer 'hires' a product to achieve.
Question 4: Which stage of the Stage-Gate innovation process is primarily focused on detailed business and financial analysis before heavy resource commitment?
- Scoping
- Business Case (Correct answer)
- Development
- Testing & Validation
Correct answer: Business Case
The Business Case stage (Gate 2/Stage 2) involves a deep-dive financial, risk, and market feasibility study before full development begins.
Question 5: An organization that consistently reallocates capital from declining units to high-growth opportunities is practicing which strategic discipline?
- Zero-based budgeting
- Dynamic resource reallocation (Correct answer)
- Activity-based costing
- Capital rationing
Correct answer: Dynamic resource reallocation
Dynamic resource reallocation deliberately shifts budget, talent, and assets toward higher-return opportunities rather than defaulting to prior-year allocations.
Question 6: In open innovation, which mechanism involves a company posting a problem externally and rewarding outside solvers with a prize?
- Corporate venture capital
- Hackathon
- Innovation tournament/challenge (Correct answer)
- Licensing agreement
Correct answer: Innovation tournament/challenge
Innovation tournaments or challenges (e.g., InnoCentive, HeroX) broadcast unsolved problems and offer prizes to external solvers, crowdsourcing solutions.
Question 7: Which concept describes the tendency of incumbent firms to focus excessively on sustaining innovations for current customers, leaving them vulnerable to disruptive entrants?
- Innovator's Dilemma (Correct answer)
- Blue Ocean trap
- First-mover disadvantage
- Capability gap
Correct answer: Innovator's Dilemma
Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma explains why well-managed companies lose to disruptors: rational focus on profitable customers blinds them to low-end or new-market entrants.
SPP Innovation & Growth Strategy 2
Which growth framework categorizes a company's options along two axesâmarkets and productsâinto four strategic choices?