Reference no: EM133379767

Case Study: One of the best ways to understand a marketing problem is to look at an actual marketing situation involving a decision to be made or a problem to be solved. Case studies allow us to review a scenario or situation that occurred and analyze both the problems faced by the managers of the firm and potential solutions. Case studies allow you to take the place of the manager, whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem.

Often, there will be more than one right answer, although some will be "more right" than others. In other studies, there will be no good outcomes - all the options will have some negative impact on the firm. You may find yourself needing to make hard choices. We all dislike the option of firing staff or closing a factory, although that may be the best solution to the firm's problems. While you are encouraged to always apply the principle of "doing well by doing good," you are also expected to make the correct managerial decision. Occasionally, the right decision is to do nothing. The firm is just fine and no action is required. This is rare, as, in general, it defeats the purpose of an academic case study. Should you choose this option in your case analysis, you must make an exceptionally strong case for doing so, as managers rarely get paid for doing nothing. If your solution or analysis seems too complex -- it probably is.

Questions:

Case Background
Describe the case facts and background. This should include information about the firm; however, do not simply duplicate what is in the case itself. As things change quickly in business, you may wish to check the current status of the firm and briefly discuss the most current information.
Key Issues
What are the key marketing or business issues in the case? These might be problems, opportunities, or challenges the firm is facing. Typically, there will be two to four of these, and you should briefly describe each. You may wish to cite information from the case to support your contention that these are key issues. You will need to consider whether the issues are independent or interdependent. If the former, you may treat the solutions as important to that issue alone. If the issues are interdependent, you may need to consider how the solutions you describe below impact more than one issue or problem.
Analysis of Alternative Solutions
For the issues you identified above, you must identify potential solutions and analyze each of them. In analyzing the case data, you are trying to answer the following:
Why or how did these issues arise?
Who is affected most by these issues?
What are the constraints and opportunities implicit to this situation?
What do the numbers tell you? You need to take a look at the numbers given in the case study and make a judgment as to their relevance to the problem identified
Key Decision Criteria
Answer the question of how you are going to decide which alternative is the best one to choose. These criteria will help you define or determine that a successful decision has been made. For a business situation, the key decision criteria are those things that are important to the organization making the decision, and they will be used to evaluate the suitability of each alternative recommended.