Excelsior Business Policy case study.

[swisha2k]

does anyone on the board have a draft or sample case study that I could take a gander at?

[joel66]

I found this template http://www.infotech.com/MRArchive/docs/M...wnload.doc that looks good. I typed sample business case template.

make sure you follow the Syllabus to include the following information within your case study as each is graded one to five.

1. Strategic Direction: Mission, Vision, Goals and Objectives
2. Macro Environment: Political, Economic, Social, Technological
3. Industry Environment (5 force analysis)
4. Competitor Analysis (Positioning)
5. Opportunities and Threats
6. Internal Environment (Finance, Marketing, Operations, Human Resources, the value chain, etc…)
7. What is the firm’s distinctive competence & competitive advantage?
8. Strengths and Weaknesses
9. What is the central problem or strategic issue?
10. Summarize your findings in a SWOT table
11. What are the strategic options based upon SWOT analysis?
12. What are your final recommendations?
13. What are some actions they need to take to implement and evaluate those recommendations?

Of course, prior to doing this, you need to turn in an outline. I did mine in APA format. I had the cover page and pages 2 and 3 contained the following headings:

I: Executive Summary

II: Industry and business

III: Main character

IV: Relevant theory

V: Envisioned case issue(s)

VI: Synopsis of the case

Here is a link to another one called Yahoo Case Study that dshlvrsn showed me. Yahoo Case Analysis - Technology, Business, and google Of course, that's way over the top, but you can get an idea on what information to include in yours.

[dshlvrsn]

Also - pay close attention the little feedback that the professor does give.

Make sure that you are selecting things that are in the textbook and give a brief reason why. ie applying a portfolio analysis because the company is comprised of multiple business units vs the single product models. Make sure that your bibliography shows that you've studied the company (I recommend that you do a little research first before declaring your case and find one that file 10K reports - They give you almost everything you need for the case study, Bios threats, background etc.) and that you've studied the concepts applied. For instanced I dug into SWOT analysis and Porter's five and went into depth with those. I also bought the four page laminated card from the EC bookstore when I started the course. I used that as a guideline going through my paper.

This is the first assignment that actually made me miss being part of a B&M class.