A Guide to Case Analysis
Hult International Business School
Professor Jim Prost
San Francisco Campus

The purpose of this guide is to help you maximize your learning when using case studies. It outlines some key issues that will help you learn from the case analysis method.

In most graduate courses, students use cases from actual companies to practice strategic analysis and to gain some experience in the task of creating and implementing strategy. A case describes, in a factual manner, the events and organizational circumstances surrounding a particular managerial problem. It’s as if the reader is inside the organization (at the time the case was written) and has most, if not all, relevant information, facts, and circumstances.

The student’s role in case analysis is to diagnose and evaluate the situation described in the case. You then develop recommendations, supporting arguments, and the appropriate action steps that should be taken to rectify the problem presented in the case.

After reading this guide, you will be able to:

* Understand what a case study is * Appreciate the benefits of using case studies in the learning of strategic management and how their use can help develop your managerial skills * Use the key steps in analyzing case studies * Apply theoretical concepts and frameworks to the case material

The case approach to strategic analysis is an exercise in “learning by doing.” Because cases provide you with detailed information about conditions and problems of different industries and companies, your task of analyzing organization after organization and situation after situation has the double benefit of increasing your analytical skills and demonstrates the ways companies and managers actually do things. Case analysis helps substitute for on-the-job experience by:

1. Giving you broader exposure to a variety of