Guide to Case Analysis

The “Guide to Case Analysis” follows the last case. It contains sections on what a case is, why cases are a standard part of courses in strategy, preparing a case for class discussion, doing a written case analysis, doing an oral presentation, and using financial ratio analysis to assess a company’s financial condition. We suggest having students read this guide before the first class discussion of a case.

A number of cases have accompanying YouTube video segments which are listed in Section 3 of the Instructor’s Manual, in a separate Video Library within the Instructor’s Resources, and in the Teaching Note for each case.

THE TWO STRATEGY SIMULATION SUPPLEMENTS: THE BUSINESS STRATEGY GAME AND GLO-BUS The Business Strategy Game and GLO-BUS: Developing Winning Competitive Strategies— two competition-based strategy simulations that are delivered online and that feature automated processing and grading of performance—are being marketed by the publisher as companion supplements for use with the 23rd edition (and other texts in the field).

The Business Strategy Game is the world’s most popular strategy simulation, having been used by nearly 3,600 different instructors for courses involving close to one million students at 1,300 university campuses in 76 countries. It features global competition in the athletic footwear industry, a product/market setting familiar to students everywhere and one whose managerial challenges are easily grasped. A freshly updated and much-enhanced version of The Business Strategy Game was introduced in August 2018. GLO-BUS, a newer and somewhat simpler strategy simulation first introduced in 2004 and freshly revamped in 2016 to center on competition in two exciting product categories—wearable miniature action cameras and unmanned camera-equipped drones suitable for multiple commercial purposes, has been used by 2,100 different

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instructors for courses involving nearly 360,000 students at 800+ university campuses in 53 countries.

How the Strategy Simulations Work In both The Business Strategy Game (BSG) and GLO-BUS, class members are divided into teams of one to five persons and assigned to run a company that competes head-to-head against companies run by other class members. In both simulations, companies compete in a global market arena, selling their products in four geographic regions— Europe-Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Each management team is called upon to craft a strategy for their company and make decisions relating to production operations, workforce compensation, pricing and marketing, social responsibility/citizenship, and finance.

Company co-managers are held accountable for their decision making. Each company’s performance is scored on the basis of earnings per share, return-on-equity investment, stock price, credit rating, and image rating. Rankings of company performance, along with a wealth of industry and company statistics, are available to company co-managers after each decision round to use in making strategy adjustments and operating decisions for the next competitive round. You can be certain that the market environment, strategic issues, and operating challenges that company co- managers must contend with are very tightly linked to what your class members will be reading about in the text chapters. The circumstances that co-managers face in running their simulation company embrace the very concepts, analytical tools, and strategy options they encounter in the text chapters (this is something you can quickly confirm by skimming through some of the Exercises for Simulation Participants that appear at the end of each chapter).

We suggest that you schedule one or two practice rounds and anywhere from four to 10 regular (scored) decision rounds (more rounds are better than fewer rounds). Each decision round represents a year of company operations and will entail roughly two hours of time for company co-managers to complete. In traditional 13-week, semester-long courses, there is merit in scheduling one decision round per week. In courses that run five to 10 weeks, it is wise to schedule two

decision rounds per week for the last several weeks of the term ( sample course schedules are provided for courses of varying length and varying numbers of class meetings).

When the instructor-specified deadline for a decision round arrives, the simulation server automatically accesses the saved decision entries of each company, determines the competitiveness and buyer appeal of each company’s product offering relative to the other companies being run by students in your class, and then awards sales and market shares to the competing companies, geographic region by geographic region. The unit sales volumes awarded to each company are totally governed by

How its prices compare against the prices of rival brands. How its product quality compares against the quality of rival brands. How its product line breadth and selection compare. How its advertising effort compares. And so on, for a total of 11 competitive factors that determine unit sales and market shares.

The competitiveness and overall buyer appeal of each company’s product offering in comparison to the product offerings of rival companies is all- decisive—this algorithmic feature is what makes BSG and GLO-BUS “competition-based” strategy simulations. Once each company’s sales and market shares are awarded based on the competitiveness and buyer appeal of its respective overall product offering vis-à-vis those of rival companies, the various company and industry reports detailing the outcomes of the decision round are then generated. Company co-managers can access the results of the decision round 15 to 20 minutes after the decision deadline.

The Compelling Case for Incorporating Use of a Strategy Simulation There are three exceptionally important benefits associated with using a competition-based simulation in strategy courses taken by seniors and MBA students:

A three-pronged text-case-simulation course model delivers significantly more teaching-learning power than the traditional text-case model. Using

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both cases and a strategy simulation to drill students in thinking strategically and applying what they read in the text chapters is a stronger, more effective means of helping them connect theory with practice and develop better business judgment. What cases do that a simulation cannot is give class members broad exposure to a variety of companies and industry situations and insight into the kinds of strategy-related problems managers face. But what a competition-based strategy simulation does far better than case analysis is thrust class members squarely into an active, hands-on managerial role where they are totally responsible for assessing market conditions, determining how to respond to the actions of competitors, forging a long-term direction and strategy for their company, and making all kinds of operating decisions. Because they are held fully accountable for their decisions and their company’s performance, co- managers are strongly motivated to dig deeply into company operations, probe for ways to be more cost-efficient and competitive, and ferret out strategic moves and decisions calculated to boost company performance. Consequently, incorporating both case assignments and a strategy simulation to develop the skills of class members in thinking strategically and applying the concepts and tools of strategic analysis turns out to be more pedagogically powerful than relying solely on case assignments—there’s stronger retention of the lessons learned and better achievement of course learning objectives.

To provide you with quantitative evidence of the learning that occurs with using The Business Strategy Game or GLO-BUS, there is a built-in Learning Assurance Report showing how well each class member performs on nine skills/learning measures versus tens of thousands of students worldwide who have completed the simulation in the past 12 months. The competitive nature of a strategy simulation arouses positive energy and steps up the whole tempo of the course by a notch or two. Nothing sparks class excitement quicker or better than the concerted efforts on the part of class members at each decision round to achieve a high industry ranking and avoid the perilous consequences of being outcompeted by other class members. Students really enjoy taking on the role of a manager, running their own company, crafting strategies, making all

kinds of operating decisions, trying to outcompete rival companies, and getting immediate feedback on the resulting company performance. Lots of back-and-forth chatter occurs when the results of the latest simulation round become available and co-managers renew their quest for strategic moves and actions that will strengthen company performance. Co- managers become emotionally invested in running their company and figuring out what strategic moves to make to boost their company’s performance. Interest levels climb. All this stimulates learning and causes students to see the practical relevance of the subject matter and the benefits of taking your course.