A Guide to Case Analysis

I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why
and When; And How and Where and Who.

— Rudyard Kipling
 In most courses in business, students use cases about actual companies to practice strategic
analysis and to gain some experience in the tasks of crafting and implementing strategy. A case sets
forth, in a factual manner, the events and organizational circumstances surrounding a particular
managerial situation. It puts readers at the scene of the action and familiarizes them with all the
relevant circumstances. A case on strategic management can concern a whole industry, a single
organization, or some part of an organization; the organization involved can be either profit seeking
or not-for-profit. The essence of the student’s role in case analysis is to diagnose and size up the
situation described in the case and then to recommend appropriate action steps.

Why Use Cases?

A student of business with tact

Absorbed many answers he lacked.
But acquiring a job, He said with a sob, “How does one fit answer to fact?”

What is a Case Study? 

A case study is a description of an actual administrative situation involving a decision to be made or

a problem to be solved. It can a real situation that actually happened just as described, or portions
have been disguised for reasons of privacy. Most case studies are written in such a way that the
reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the
problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to
leave the situation as it is and do nothing. 

The Case Method as a Learning Tool 

The case method of analysis is a learning tool in which students and Instructors participate in direct
discussion of case studies, as opposed to the lecture method, where the Instructor speaks and
students listen and take notes. In the case method, students teach themselves, with the Instructor
being an active guide, rather than just a talking head delivering content. The focus is on students
learning through their joint, co-operative effort. 

Assigned cases are first prepared by students, and this preparation forms the basis for class
discussion under the direction of the Instructor. Students learn, often unconsciously, how to
evaluate a problem, how to make decisions, and how to orally argue a point of view. Using this
method, they also learn how to think in terms of the problems faced by an administrator. In courses
that use the case method extensively, a significant part of the student's evaluation may rest with
classroom participation in case discussions, with another substantial portion resting on written
case analyses. For these reasons, using the case method tends to be very intensive for both students
and Instructor. 
Case studies are used extensively throughout most business programs at the university level, and
The F.C. Manning School of Business Administration is no exception. As you will be using case
studies in many of the courses over the next four years, it is important that you get off to a good
start by learning the proper way to approach and complete them. 

How to do a Case Study 

While there is no one definitive "Case Method" or approach, there are common steps that most
approaches recommend be followed in tackling a case study. It is inevitable that different
Instructors will tell you to do things differently, this is part of life and will also be part of working
for others. This variety is beneficial since it will show you different ways of approaching decision
making. What follows is intended to be a rather general approach, portions of which have been
taken from an excellent book entitled, Learning with Cases, by Erskine, Leenders, & Mauffette-
Leenders, published by the Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario,
1997. 

Beforehand (usually a week before), you will get:

1. the case study,

2. (often) some guiding questions that will need to be answered, and
3. (sometimes) some reading assignments that have some relevance to the case subject.

Your work in completing the case can be divided up into three components:

1. what you do to prepare before the class discussion,

2. what takes place in the class discussion of the case, and
3. anything required after the class discussion has taken place.

For maximum effectiveness, it is essential that you do all three components. Here are the
subcomponents, in order. We will discuss them in more detail shortly.

1. Before the class discussion:

1. Read the reading assignments (if any)
2. Use the Short Cycle Process to familiarize yourself with the case.
3. Use the Long Cycle Process to analyze the case
4. Usually there will be group meetings to discuss your ideas.
5. Write up the case (if required)
2. In the class discussion:
1. Someone will start the discussion, usually at the prompting of the Instructor.
2. Listen carefully and take notes. Pay close attention to assumptions. Insist that they
are clearly stated.
3. Take part in the discussion. Your contribution is important, and is likely a part of
your evaluation for the course.
 3. After the class discussion:
1. Review ASAP after the class. Note what the key concept was and how the case fits
into the course.

Preparing A Case Study 

It helps to have a system when sitting down to prepare a case study as the amount of information
and issues to be resolved can initially seem quite overwhelming. The following is a good way to
start. 

Step 1: The Short Cycle Process

1. Quickly read the case. If it is a long case, at this stage you may want to read only the first few
and last paragraphs. You should then be able to
2. Answer the following questions:
1. Who is the decision maker in this case, and what is their position and
responsibilities?
2. What appears to be the issue (of concern, problem, challenge, or opportunity) and
its significance for the organization?
3. Why has the issue arisen and why is the decision maker involved now?
4. When does the decision maker have to decide, resolve, act or dispose of the issue?
What is the urgency to the situation?
3. Take a look at the Exhibits to see what numbers have been provided.
4. Review the case subtitles to see what areas are covered in more depth.
5. Review the case questions if they have been provided. This may give you some clues are
what the main issues are to be resolved.

You should now be familiar with what the case study is about, and are ready to begin the process of
analyzing it. You are not done yet! Many students mistakenly believe that this is all the preparation
needed for a class discussion of a case study. If this was the extent of your preparation, your ability
to contribute to the discussion would likely be limited to the first one quarter of the class time
allotted. You need to go further to prepare the case, using the next step. One of the primary reasons
for doing the short cycle process is to give you an indication of how much work will need to be done
to prepare the case study properly. 

Step 2: The Long Cycle Process 

At this point, the task consists of two parts:

1. A detailed reading of the case, and then

2. Analyzing the case.

When you are doing the detailed reading of the case study, look for the following sections:
 1. Opening paragraph: introduces the situation.
2. Background information: industry, organization, products, history, competition, financial
information, and anything else of significance.
3. Specific (functional) area of interest: marketing, finance, operations, human resources, or
integrated.
4. The specific problem or decision(s) to be made.
5. Alternatives open to the decision maker, which may or may not be stated in the case.
6. Conclusion: sets up the task, any constraints or limitations, and the urgency of the situation.

Most, but not all case studies will follow this format. The purpose here is to thoroughly understand
the situation and the decisions that will need to be made. Take your time, make notes, and keep
focussed on your objectives. 

Analyzing the case should take the following steps:

1. Defining the issue(s)

2. Analyzing the case data
3. Generating alternatives
4. Selecting decision criteria
5. Analyzing and evaluating alternatives
6. Selecting the preferred alternative
7. Developing an action/implementation plan

Defining the issue(s)/Problem Statement 

The problem statement should be a clear, concise statement of exactly what needs to be addressed.
This is not easy to write! The work that you did in the short cycle process answered the basic
questions. Now it is time to decide what the main issues to be addressed are going to be in much
more detail. Asking yourself the following questions may help:

1. What appears to be the problem(s) here?

2. How do I know that this is a problem? Note that by asking this question, you will be helping
to differentiate the symptoms of the problem from the problem itself. Example: while
declining sales or unhappy employees are a problem to most companies, they are in
fact, symptoms of underlying problems which need to addressed.
3. What are the immediate issues that need to be addressed? This helps to differentiate
between issues that can be resolved within the context of the case, and those that are bigger
issues that needed to addressed at a another time (preferably by someone else!).
4. Differentiate between importance and urgency for the issues identified. Some issues may
appear to be urgent, but upon closer examination are relatively unimportant, while others
may be far more important (relative to solving our problem) than urgent. You want to deal
with important issues in order of urgency to keep focussed on your objective. Important
issues are those that have a significanteffect on:
 1. profitability,
2. strategic direction of the company,
3. source of competitive advantage,
4. morale of the company's employees, and/or
5. customer satisfaction.

The problem statement may be framed as a question, eg: What should Joe do? or How can Mr Smith
improve market share? Usually the problem statement has to be re-written several times during the
analysis of a case, as you peel back the layers of symptoms or causation. 

Analyzing Case Data 

In analyzing the case data, you are trying to answer the following:

1. Why or how did these issues arise? You are trying to determine cause and effect for the
problems identified. You cannot solve a problem that you cannot determine the cause of! It
may be helpful to think of the organization in question as consisting of the following
components:
1. resources, such as materials, equipment, or supplies, and
2. people who transform these resources using
3. processes, which creates something of greater value.

Now, where are the problems being caused within this framework, and why?

2. Who is affected most by this issues? You are trying to identify who are the relevant
stakeholders to the situation, and who will be affected by the decisions to be made.
3. What are the constraints and opportunities implicit to this situation? It is very rare that
resources are not a constraint, and allocations must be made on the assumption that not
enough will be available to please everyone.
4. What do the numbers tell you? You need to take a look at the numbers given in the case
study and make a judgement as to their relevance to the problem identified. Not all
numbers will be immediately useful or relevant, but you need to be careful not to overlook
anything. When deciding to analyze numbers, keep in mind why you are doing it, and what
you intend to do with the result. Use common sense and comparisons to industry standards
when making judgements as to the meaning of your answers to avoid jumping to
conclusions.

Generating Alternatives 

This section deals with different ways in which the problem can be resolved. Typically, there are
many (the joke is at least three), and being creative at this stage helps. Things to remember at this
stage are:
 1. Be realistic! While you might be able to find a dozen alternatives, keep in mind that they
should be realistic and fit within the constraints of the situation.
2. The alternatives should be mutually exclusive, that is, they cannot happen at the same time.
3. Not making a decision pending further investigation is not an acceptable decision for any
case study that you will analyze. A manager can always delay making a decision to gather
more information, which is not managing at all! The whole point to this exercise is to learn
how to make good decisions, and having imperfect information is normal for most business
decisions, not the exception.
4. Doing nothing as in not changing your strategy can be a viable alternative, provided it is
being recommended for the correct reasons, as will be discussed below.
5. Avoid the meat sandwich method of providing only two other clearly undesirable
alternatives to make one reasonable alternative look better by comparison. This will be
painfully obvious to the reader, and just shows laziness on your part in not being able to
come up with more than one decent alternative.
6. Keep in mind that any alternative chosen will need to be implemented at some point, and if
serious obstacles exist to successfully doing this, then you are the one who will look bad for
suggesting it.

Once the alternatives have been identified, a method of evaluating them and selecting the most
appropriate one needs to be used to arrive at a decision. 

Key Decision Criteria 

A very important concept to understand, they answer the question of how you are going to decide
which alternative is the best one to choose. Other than choosing randomly, we will always employ
some criteria in making any decision. Think about the last time that you make a purchase decision
for an article of clothing. Why did you choose the article that you did? The criteria that you may
have used could have been:

1. fit
2. price
3. fashion
4. colour
5. approval of friend/family
6. availability

Note that any one of these criteria could appropriately finish the sentence, the brand/style that I
choose to purchase must.... These criteria are also how you will define or determine that a successful
purchase decision has been made. For a business situation, the key decision criteria are those
things that are important to the organization making the decision, and they will be used to evaluate
the suitability of each alternative recommended. 

Key decision criteria should be:

 1. Brief, preferably in point form, such as
1. improve (or at least maintain) profitability,
2. increase sales, market share, or return on investment,
3. maintain customer satisfaction, corporate image,
4. be consistent with the corporate mission or strategy,
5. within our present (or future) resources and capabilities,
6. within acceptable risk parameters,
7. ease or speed of implementation,
8. employee morale, safety, or turnover,
9. retain flexibility, and/or
10. minimize environmental impact.
2. Measurable, at least to the point of comparison, such as alternative A will improve
profitability more that alternative B.
3. Be related to your problem statement, and alternatives. If you find that you are talking
about something else, that is a sign of a missing alternative or key decision criteria, or a
poorly formed problem statement.

Students tend to find the concept of key decision criteria very confusing, so you will probably find
that you re-write them several times as you analyze the case. They are similar to constraints or
limitations, but are used to evaluate alternatives. 

Evaluation of Alternatives 

If you have done the above properly, this should be straightforward. You measure the alternatives
against each key decision criteria. Often you can set up a simple table with key decision criteria as
columns and alternatives as rows, and write this section based on the table. Each alternative must
be compared to each criteria and its suitability ranked in some way, such as met/not met, or in
relation to the other alternatives, such as better than, or highest. This will be important to selecting
an alternative. Another method that can be used is to list the advantages and disadvantages
(pros/cons) of each alternative, and then discussing the short and long term implications of
choosing each. Note that this implies that you have already predicted the most likely outcome of
each of the alternatives. Some students find it helpful to consider three different levels of outcome,
such as best, worst, and most likely, as another way of evaluating alternatives. 

Recommendation 

You must have one! Business people are decision-makers; this is your opportunity to practice
making decisions. Give a justification for your decision (use the KDC's). Check to make sure that it is
one (and only one) of your Alternatives and that it does resolve what you defined as the Problem. 

Structure of the Written Report 

Different Instructors will require different formats for case reports, but they should all have
roughly the same general content. For this course, the report should have the following sections in
this order:

1. Title page
2. Table of contents
3. Executive summary
4. Problem (Issue) statement
5. Data analysis
6. Key Decision Criteria
7. Alternatives analysis
8. Recommendations
9. Action and Implementation Plan
10. Exhibits

Notes on Written Reports: 

Always remember that you will be judged by the quality of your work, which includes your written
work such as case study reports. Sloppy, dis-organized, poor quality work will say more about you
than you probably want said! To ensure the quality of your written work, keep the following in
mind when writing your report:

1. Proof-read your work! Not just on the screen while you write it, but the hard copy after it is
printed. Fix the errors before submitting.
2. Use spell checker to eliminate spelling errors
3. Use grammar checking to avoid common grammatical errors such as run on sentences.
4. Note that restating of case facts is not included in the format of the case report, nor is it
considered part of analysis. Anyone reading your report will be familiar with the case, and
you need only to mention facts that are relevant to (and support) your analysis or
recommendation as you need them.
5. If you are going to include exhibits (particularly numbers) in your report, you will need to
refer to them within the body of your report, not just tack them on at the end! This
reference should be in the form of supporting conclusions that you are making in your
analysis. The reader should not have to guess why particular exhibits have been included,
nor what they mean. If you do not plan to refer to them, then leave them out.
6. Write in a formal manner suitable for scholarly work, rather than a letter to a friend.
7. Common sense and logical thinking can do wonders for your evaluation!
8. You should expect that the computer lab's printer will not be functioning in the twelve
hours prior to your deadline for submission. Plan for it!
9. Proof-read your work! Have someone else read it too! (particularly if English is not your
first language)