This sort of analysis is not a historical narrative. You need to look for connections, triggers, discontinuities, inventions, new entrants, and other insights and all changes that will help us learn from what might have happened in an industry. This requires studying a time span no shorter than several years and preferably covers five to ten years. You need not have a day-to-day account of what has happened in that time frame since events of strategic importance does not happen every day. In a five year time span, you will probably find several events with significant strategic importance.

What is analysis

Although analysis requires a full understanding of factual information, this mere understanding is not analysis. It requires looking at what is being analyzed through a window of selected standards using appropriate tools. In marketing we use a variety of tools like market share behavior, product life cycle (PLC,) demand characteristics, break-even analysis, financial statement and ratio analysis and so on. They all have their application areas and you should learn when and how to use these tools.

As an example, let us consider the implicit and explicit analyses we may use when buying a new hat.

1. Most of us do not know our hat size. Therefore, the best method of analysis is to try it on for size, first hand experience and actual product trial is necessary. This is explicit and very direct.
2. We may not also know how we might look wearing a certain style of hats. Again a look in the mirror, or opinions from friends may be essential before the purchase.
3. As we do this several times, we develop more convenient tools of analysis like hat sizes and styles. Now, we can look at a catalog and analyze the decision to purchase a hat simply from a photograph and a short description of it. When this happens, we will have detached the analysis from the object under consideration. Significant efficiencies and additional insights emerge as we leave an object-based, first hand experience analysis and start using tools that we have developed, and tested for this purpose.

What goes in to this report

You should try to have a similar (of course an appropriate) method of analysis and try to use the following as tools to crystallize your thought. These are areas of analysis, tools of analysis, approaches to analysis, that may or may not be useful in your case. Use them as seeds for your analytical thoughts.

1. Decide on the level of analysis. Should you include electronic distribution of music as part of the entire music industry or study it as an emerging method of distribution by itself. Should it include digital music players or should it be limited to the music sales alone. The level of analysis will focus the attention sharply on what is important without leaving important parts out.
2. Analyze customers, key market segments. Who are they, what are their characteristics, needs? How has the market been segmented, is there a better way of segmenting it?
3. Analyze markets, market definition, demand trends, PLC and identification of key success factors. Consider the growth rate of the market, primary demand behavior, time and place affects on demand.
4. Analyze major competitors, their strategy, weaknesses and problems if any, sustainable competitive advantages (SCA) that they may have and how they may have acquired it. Why?
5. Look at the past strategies of a few important competitors, what worked and what did not. Why?
6. Analyze major environmental changes, trends and opportunities and threats stemming from them. Are there any major changes pending that may affect the industry? How?
7. How does the industry look from the viewpoint of GE industry attractiveness dimension, or BCG market growth dimension?
8. If possible, interview a manager from the selected industry to get better insight into the above
9. Assume that you are advising a client who wishes to enter this market? What strategy would you use and why is this strategy important?

When writing the report, if you try to be comprehensive you will lose sight of what is ahead in favor of what was behind. Your analysis of competitors, market trends and important environmental changes should help you and your client gain better insight to your current situation. You are writing a business report, not a marketing history book.

Remember to use the proper style and format as explained in the section of this syllabus about writing.

What is a case study anyway?

All case studies have one common goal: to help learn the subject matter in hand. Therefore, you should not approach case studies as isolated assignments that you need to submit to get a passing grade. Basketball players shoot free throws during practice so that it comes easier in a game setting. Likewise, cases allow learners to practice and hone their skills in their chosen disciplines so that they can do it better in real life.

Learning changes the learner in overt and covert ways. Because of this, we do not spontaneously start exuding brilliance but our behavior, in the broadest sense of the term, changes in many important ways. Since this change takes place in the learner, it must rely on his or her mental processes. In other words, the learner must experience the phenomenon in a uniquely personal way. Many things, like riding a bike, need learning from our experiences. In a similar way, we can learn from our experiences in studying marketing cases. In normal class settings, experiencing marketing may be difficult for variety of reasons. This is where cases emerge as substitutes for real life experiences.

A well-prepared case study, as a microcosm of real life, gives the learner an opportunity to project him or herself into a situation and interact with the information and the imaginary participants in the case. From this interaction, all readers may extract slightly or substantially different learning experiences. In order for this process to be fruitful, the learner needs to treat the case as an opportunity, as a challenge rather than a chore, an assignment that must be completed, turned in and forgotten. The process of analyzing a case and discussing it with others is very much an integral part of the learning process.

How to get the most out of cases

Quite often, case studies will narrate the circumstances covering a particular period with corresponding data of different sorts. The selected case studies in a course need not be “current” to be instructional. Not every piece of information or data directly helps in understanding and analyzing the case. Separating the chaff from the wheat is an essential part of the learning process, as we must do the same in our professional lives.

Although everyone may develop his or her personal way of studying cases, some general guidelines may help the beginners. In the following section, you will find some general suggestions. You should take them as what they are: suggestions. No single analytical template will suit everyone’s or every case’s needs to arrive at intelligent conclusions. If such a template existed, every decision maker would use it to make the best decision under all circumstances. Obviously, this cannot happen.
Suggestions

In studying cases, always remember that you are learning marketing. Learning at advanced levels, as you will, requires foundation knowledge. Do not rely on your “common sense” as the sole or even most of your analysis. You need to use marketing knowledge to analyze marketing problems. Your analysis must use well-established marketing knowledge and theory glued together with logic and common sense.

• Before tackling the full case, familiarize yourself with it. Depending on the length of the case, this may require more or less time but probably not more than several minutes. Quickly skim the material to develop a general sense of the structure, the people involved, the kind of organization under study, and similar general information.
• Return to the beginning and start reading the case carefully, underlining what might be important information, and making marginal notes as necessary. Be selective in what you underline for its purpose is to attract attention to key ideas. Also important is to make connections among ideas both mentally and visually. So, draw a connecting line if some ideas are related. You may even consider writing on the connecting line the essence of the relationship as you see it.
• Try to understand who is trying to make what decision with what kind of constraints. “Who” may refer to an individual or an organization such as a company.
• Separate the symptom from the problem. Do not accept what the case presents without critically evaluating the information. If the case says, “our promotion has not created the desired result” do not immediately assume that the core decision area is “promotion.” “Promotion not working” may very well be a symptom of another or a deeper problem.
• Determine the strategic area where a decision is necessary. Your knowledge of the subject matter will be your first line of defense of attack. Although there are no “best” solutions to cases, you must firmly seat all “plausible” solutions in a body of supporting knowledge of marketing. What makes one case analysis better than another is not the “answer” or the decision but the quality of analysis-synthesis and the support given for it.
• Use appropriate tools of analysis. If the case offers relevant financial data, use financial analysis tools like financial statement analysis, financial ratios, and the like. When dealing with behavioral information, you will tap into your knowledge of consumer behavior and theories explaining behavior, and so on.
  Do not assume that you can simply use common sense for analyzing information although common sense is a desirable trait. Remember that the purpose of studying a case is to help you learn the subject, marketing. “Arm-waving” with common sense will result in, well; arm waving which is not the same as sound analysis.
• When writing the result of your analysis, do not simply rehash the information in the case. Do not include sections from the case to retell the story. Present your analysis and use the material from the case as evidence when necessary. Tell the reader what that information means, what needs to be done, and why. Focus your attention on the result of your analysis of the case rather than the material that you used. At times, you will find it necessary to point to a particular piece of information or data in the case. In such circumstances, refer to the information directly and be brief.
• Your written case report must convey your thoughts clearly. Do not leave points open for interpretation. The reader of your report may not interpret them the way you want and expect. Clearly articulate your thoughts using proper marketing and business terminology and clear English.
• Remember that there is no “correct answer” to a case. The reason for studying them is to remove the illusion that there may be a singularly correct answer to questions faced by marketers. In learning with cases, the road traveled is more important than the destination.
• Pay attention to the “road” since you will travel that many more times. Reflect on what you have done, observe what you have learned, and understand why. This is precisely the reason you study a case.