Student Case Study Analysis

What is Case Study Analysis ? 

Case Study analysis is an integral part of a course in Strategic Management.  The Purpose of a Case Study is to provide students with experience of the Strategic Management Problems that actual organizations face. 

A Case Study Presents an account of what happened to a business or industry over a number of years. It chronicles the events that managers had to deal with, such as changes in the competitive environment, and charts the managers response, which usually involved changing the business or corporate level strategy.

Cases prove valuable in a strategic management course for several reasons.

First,

Cases provide you, the student, with experience of organizational problems that you probably have not had the opportunity in experience firsthand.

Second,

Cases illustrate the theory and content of strategic management.  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 studies and allow you to evaluate the solutions that specific companies adopted to deal with their problems.

Third,

Case studies provide you with the opportunity to participate in class and to gain experience in presenting your ideas to others.   Thus you will experience in the classroom the actual process of strategic management, and this will serve you well in your Future Career.

Analyzing a Case Study

The Purpose of the case study is to let you apply the concepts of strategic management when you analyze the issues facing a specific company.  To analyze a case study, therefore, you must examine closely the issues confronting the company.  Most often you will need to read the case several times-once to grasp the overall picture of what is happening to the company and then several times more to discover and grasp the specific problems.

Generally, detailed analysis of a case study should include eight areas :

1. The history, development, and growth of the company over time,
 

2. The identification of the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses,


3. The nature of the external environment surrounding the company,
 

4. A SWOT Analysis,


5. The kind of corporate level strategy that the company is pursuing,


6. The nature of the company’s business level strategy,


7. The company’s structure and control systems and how they match its strategy,


8. Recommendations.