Tips on How to Analyze a Case
Tips on How to Analyze a Case
An Introduction to the Case Method
For many of you, this will be the first course using cases that you have ever taken. The fact that this form of learning is new to you will naturally cause you some concern, and early on, some difficulty. Your casebook has a number of articles as well as ten “stories” about companies called cases. These cases give you the chance to look at the present situation facing an organization, and after a systematic analysis, make recommendations that will produce a change in the results or outcomes. While you cannot be certain what that outcome will be, through the discussion and critique of your suggestions by fellow students and your professor, projections can be made about the foundation for the probable success of your recommendations.
In this course you will have the opportunity, through cases, to see how well you can assess and address a marketing issue or problem. The role of the case course is to provide you with the opportunity to utilize the knowledge you have gained to this point to evaluate and make recommendations to enhance the performance of real organizations. This is not a substitute for real world experience in a job with an organization, but it is the type of learning that helps prepare you to begin using the business knowledge you have acquired.
Analysis Frameworks
Because the process of learning through case analysis may be new to you, we will devote much of this discussion to providing you with a framework to use in analyzing the cases found in your casebook. Such a framework is useful not only in analyzing cases in casebooks, but also in considering business situations described in publications such as The Wall Street Journal,
Business Week, Fortune, and Forbes. In reality, most articles about companies in magazines and newspapers are mini-cases. The cases in your text tell stories, including facts, opinions, projections, results, expectations, plans,
An Introduction to the Case Method
For many of you, this will be the first course using cases that you have ever taken. The fact that this form of learning is new to you will naturally cause you some concern, and early on, some difficulty. Your casebook has a number of articles as well as ten “stories” about companies called cases. These cases give you the chance to look at the present situation facing an organization, and after a systematic analysis, make recommendations that will produce a change in the results or outcomes. While you cannot be certain what that outcome will be, through the discussion and critique of your suggestions by fellow students and your professor, projections can be made about the foundation for the probable success of your recommendations.
In this course you will have the opportunity, through cases, to see how well you can assess and address a marketing issue or problem. The role of the case course is to provide you with the opportunity to utilize the knowledge you have gained to this point to evaluate and make recommendations to enhance the performance of real organizations. This is not a substitute for real world experience in a job with an organization, but it is the type of learning that helps prepare you to begin using the business knowledge you have acquired.
Analysis Frameworks
Because the process of learning through case analysis may be new to you, we will devote much of this discussion to providing you with a framework to use in analyzing the cases found in your casebook. Such a framework is useful not only in analyzing cases in casebooks, but also in considering business situations described in publications such as The Wall Street Journal,
Business Week, Fortune, and Forbes. In reality, most articles about companies in magazines and newspapers are mini-cases. The cases in your text tell stories, including facts, opinions, projections, results, expectations, plans,