Guidelines for Case Study Analysis

Case study analysis is an integral part of a course in strategic management.

The main purposes of using case studies are:

cases provide you, the student, with experience of organizational problems that you probably
have not had the opportunity to experience firsthand. In a relatively short period of time, you
will have the chance to appreciate and analyze the problems faced by many different
companies and to understand how managers tried to deal with them;

cases illustrate the theory and content of strategic management-that is, all the information
presented to you in the class presentations; the meaning and implications of this information
are made clearer when they are applied to case studies; the theory and concepts help reveal
what is going on in the companies studied and allow you to evaluate the solutions that
specific companies adopted to deal with their problems.
To analyze a case study, you must examine closely the issues confronting the company. Most often
you will need to read the case several timesonce to grasp the overall picture of what is happening to
the company and then to discover and grasp the specific problems.
Generally, detailed analysis of a case study should include the following areas:
1. The history, development, and growth of the company over time.
2. The situation analysis of the company: external environment analysis (macro and industry)
and internal environment analysis; the situation analysis should reveal: opportunities and
threats for the company, industry key success factors, competitive situation and the
competitive position of the company, industry attractiveness, strengths and weaknesses,
sources of competitive advantage for the company; should be used tools such are: strategic
group map, competitive five forces model, competitive profile matrix, external factors
evaluation matrix, internal factors evaluation matrix, SWOT matrix.
3. The strategies used by the company; assessment of the strategies performance underlying the
need for strategy adjustments/corrections if required -, in the light of new situational
conditions identified in the situational analysis.
4. Recommendations for improvement and their arguments.

When evaluating a case, it is important to be systematic. Analyze the case in a logical fashion,
beginning with the situational analysis and identification of industry key success factors , external
opportunities and threats and internal strengths and weaknesses (which are factors that underlies the
bases of strategies), and finally identification of source of competitive advantage Move on to assess
the value of a companys current strategies. Ask yourself whether the companys current strategies
make sense given its situational analysis and SWOT factors, as these factors are the underlying bases
of a companys strategies. If they do not, what changes need to be made? What are your
recommendations? Above all, link any strategic recommendations you may make to the SWOT
factors, industry key success factors and companys sources of competitive advantage. State explicitly
how the strategies you identify take advantage of the companys strengths to exploit environmental
opportunities, how they rectify the companys weaknesses, and how they counter environmental
threats. Also, do not forget to outline what needs to be done to implement your recommendations.
Follow the course presentations!