Caste Study Guide Line

How to Analyze and Write a Strategic Marketing Case

Why are we analyzing cases?

The case method is a teaching technique designed to improve your critical thinking and communication skills. The case method requires that you develop a logical decision process to wrestle with loosely structured problems/opportunities much like situations you will or have faced in the real world. Cases and case teachers are vague. Your critical thinking and communication skills reduce vagueness.

Although cases are abstractions of reality, simplifications of the real world, they are real. So within the confines of the case, you deal with reality - reality that is just as “real world” as any complex problem facing any marketing professional. Complexity means that problems/opportunities are interrelated and dynamic, they are vague; therefore, you will never be able to predict with certainty the outcome. The concepts and analytical techniques are precise; use them to reduce the vagueness, the complexity, of the problem/opportunity.

In analyzing cases, the goal is to appreciate the complexity, the vagueness, of most marketing decisions; to use marketing concepts to define problems/opportunities; and to analyze the outcomes of alternative solutions. There is no one correct answer to a case; there are correct and incorrect ways to apply the analysis framework and relevant marketing concepts and arrive at a reasonable solution.

The role of the professor

The professor serves as a moderator of the student discussion of the case. Specifically, I will make sure that everyone is contributing to the discussion. I will ask occasional questions to encourage discussion or to question the logic used to develop arguments and alternative solutions. If needed, I will also clarify marketing concepts and their use in the marketing planning process. I may also summarize and organize student responses, perhaps by writing key points on the board. In general, my role is not to...