196
C A S E T E A C H I N G N O T E S
1. Introduction
The well-known LEGO Group had ongoing success led by the Christiansen family from its
beginning to the 1990s. After looking at the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses the
company has always set ambitious growth objectives. These caused the company to overstretch
2. Position of the case
The case has been designed to explore the issues introduced in Chapter 1 of Exploring Strategy
and to illustrate some of the fundamental concepts and frameworks in the strategy field rather
3. Learning objectives
The primary learning objective is to introduce students to strategic themes and to enable them to
identify and analyse such strategic themes as well as to reflect on their application through a
case study. In particular, it can be used to illustrate the following issues from the text:
197
4. Teaching scheme
As an introductory case, LEGO lends itself to various treatments. Its length means it would be a
good vehicle for plenary discussion because everybody would quickly share the same
5. Questions for discussion
The following questions can be used as basis for discussion:
1. Explain how the development of strategy at the LEGO Group reflects the key characteristics of
strategic management outlined in Section 1.2 and the Exploring Strategy model (Figure 1.3).
6. Case analysis
1. Explain how the development of strategy at the LEGO Group reflects the key characteristics
of strategic management outlined in Section 1.2 and the Exploring Strategy model
(Figure 1.3).
198
Strategy is concerned with:
The long-term direction of an organisation
The case can be very clearly related to these characteristics:
The initial ambitions of the LEGO Group to grow were based on expectations, on analysing
the environment, which required significant commitment of resources, and would affect the
In this way, the case clearly underpins the fact that strategic decisions are likely to be:
Complex
2. What features of the external environment have influenced strategy development at the
LEGO Group?
Possible issues for discussion:
The expected changes in the market environment back in 1994
199
3. What strategic capabilities (i.e. resources and competences) of the LEGO Group have
enabled them to establish their successful position in the global toy market?
One key issue in answering this question is how to identify such resources and competencies
are there any contingent or special items which give the LEGO Group a distinctive advantage?
The case provides evidence that both physical, non-physical and relational resources and
competences are important:
The strong brand of the LEGO Group
As such the question opens up the identification and analysis of resources and competencies.
4. What alternative strategies were open to the LEGO Group in 2004? Why do you think the
group chose the course they did?
Although the case provides a description of what actually happened, this question aims to
address the students abilities to generate options which is one of the cornerstones of the
200
5. Looking at the LEGO Group today how would you approach strategy development to
ensure success for the company in the future?
For this question there is of course no simple answer just as it reflects the nature of strategy!
One possible way to address the question is to put the strategy lenses into action. The starting
point could be to focus on what is important for the organisation control, innovation,
involvement in the organisation of external alliance partners, etc. What if any kind of change is