A Guide To Case Analysis
A Guide To Case Analysis
A Guide To Case Analysis
I kept 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
Introduction:
In most courses in strategic management students use cases about actual companies to practice strategic analysis and gain experience in the task 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 essence of the students role in case analysis is to diagnose and size up the situation described in the case and then to recommend appropriate action steps.
there is no peeking back of a book if you have chosen the best thing to do and no one to for provably correct answers. The best test of whether management action is right or wrong is results. If the result of an action turn out to be good, the decision to take it may be presumed right. If not, then the action chosen was wrong in the sense that it didnt work out Hence, the important thing for you to understand about analyzing cases is that the managerial exercise of identifying, diagnosing, and recommending is aimed at building your skills of business judgment.
case assigned is strategy related and present you with an opportunity to usefully apply what you have learned 6. Develop an appropriate action plan and set of recommendations. Diagnosis divorced from action is sterile. The test of a manager is always to convert sound analysis into sound actions actions that will provide results. Hence the final and most telling step in preparing a case is to develop an action plan for management that lays out a set of specific recommendations on what to do. Bear in mind that proposing realistic workable solutions is more preferable to casually tossing top-of-your-head suggestions. Be prepared to argue why your recommendations are more attractive than other courses of action that are open
5. A series of slides containing your recommendations and supporting arguments and reasoning for each recommendations one slide for each recommendation and associated reasoning has lot of merit