STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT (MGT431) GUIDELINES FOR THE WRITTEN STANDARDIZED CASE ANALYSIS Overview and Background The introduction of your paper should...

objectives you have outlined in the previous section of your paper.

The final section of your paper should consist of a set of specific recommendations that will implement the strategy or strategies you have selected.  Your recommendations should follow directly from your analysis.  If they come as a surprise because they are logically inconsistent with or not related to the preceding analysis, the effect of your discussion is weakened and your grade will reflect the disconnection.

Obviously, any recommendations for action should offer a reasonable prospect of success.  Be sure that the company is financially able to carry out what you recommend.  In addition, your recommendations need to be workable in terms of acceptance by the persons involved, the organization’s competence to implement them and prevailing market and environmental constraints.  Unless for some reason you feel justifiably compelled to do so, do not qualify or hedge on the actions that you believe should be taken.  Commit yourself to a specific plan of action.

Furthermore, state your recommendations in sufficient detail to be meaningful.  Avoid using panaceas or platitudes such as “the organization should implement modern planning techniques” or “the company should be more aggressive in their marketing approach.”  State specifically what you feel should be done and make your recommendations operational.

Finally, you need to indicate who will be involved in the implementation of your plan.  In addition, you should also stipulate a timetable for initiating actions, indicate priorities, and suggest who should be responsible for doing what; this will serve as a control mechanism by which you can insure that the organization is “on track” in implementing your selected strategy or strategies.

Appendices should be attached to your paper as necessary.  Any information that is referred to in the text but is too lengthy to be included in the body of the paper should be incorporated as an appendix to your paper.  For example, although you will fully discuss the financial position of the firm in the “Internal Analysis” section of your paper, the actual financial ratios can be presented in a chart in the appendix of your paper.  There is no limit to the number of appendices you may include- -feel free to present any relevant information that you have not included in the text (because of length restrictions) in the appendix of your paper.  However, do not reproduce material that comes directly from the written case itself, unless you have restructured the data or analyzed it in some way to provide support for the narrative sections of your paper.

Based the specifics of each case, some of the above sections may not contain very detailed information, as others might.  Each case is unique and must be analyzed based on the information given in the case.  Speculation is acceptable as long as it is backed up with data which would lead a prudent person to consider things the same way you did.