Research Guides: Case Competitions: Case Analysis

Introduction to Case Analysis & Critical Thinking

Whether you are competing in a case competition or participating in case studies in your courses, you might be wondering how to approach this process. This video by Professor Zoe Mayhook provides an introduction to the case analysis and critical thinking, and includes the following concepts:

Short history of the case method (0:19)
Business case types (1:05)
Business case characteristics (1:45)
Case analysis process (2:08-16:43)
- SWOT Analysis (4:41)
- Porter's Five Forces (6:36)
- Timeline Analysis (10:12)
- Financial Analysis (10:42)
- Case & Effect Analysis (14:36)
Concluding thoughts (16:44)

Case Analysis

The SWOT Analysis is the process of identifying internal and external factors that affect the competitive positioning of a company. The SWOT mnemonic stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, which helps individuals identify and succinctly organize information so that their decisions and recommendations leverage a company’s strengths and opportunities, while also overcoming their weaknesses and possible threats. Sample SWOT Analyses can be found through the following resources.

NOTE: Copy and pasting a published SWOT analysis is plagiarism. They offer a good starting point, but conducting a SWOT analysis for your assignments, case studies, and case competitions should be your own work.

Business Source Complete
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In the advanced search, select "SWOT Analysis" under publication type. Then add a company name in the search field. Business Source complete also includes company profiles, trade publications, industry profiles, market profiles, and other information that can inform you external and internal analysis.
Business Insights: Global This link opens in a new window
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Provides detailed global company and industry profiles including SWOT reports, market share reports, and financial reports. Contains thousands of company histories and industry essays, case studies, scholarly journals, and business news for deep research coverage of global economies.

Learn more about SWOT Analysis

When conducting an industry analysis, it may be useful to consider Porter's Five Forces model. This model helps individuals look at competitive forces within an industry, which can help inform a company’s business strategy. Porter's five forces includes:

Competitive Rivalry
Threat of New Entry
Threat of Substitutes
Supplier Power
Buyer Power

Many business databases a Purdue carry industry reports that can help is your analysis. IBISWorld Industry reports is a useful first step, and provides information that utilizes the Porter's Five Forces Model. To learn how to use IBISWorld for Porter's Five Forces research, check out the following article: Using Porter's Fives Forces to Develop Business Strategies (2020). IBISWorld.

IBISWorld Industry Reports
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Data-driven reports on industries. Each report is approximately 30-40 pages in length, providing an authoritative overview of trends, competitive forces, statistics, top companies, and more.
Plunkett Research
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Aggregates industry reports, company profiles, and job-seeker resources.
D&B Hoovers
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Aggregates company profiles, business news, and industry reports.
Business Source Complete
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An all-purpose, vast business database with thousands of full-text academic journals and mainstream publications. Also includes thousands of case studies, SWOT analyses, industry reports, and a selection of brief company profiles.
Bizminer
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Choose from two main categories. Industry Financial Analysis provides financial ratios and data for industry segments with sales class filters. Industry Market Profile offers demographics, competitors, market volume, and more for the entire US, states, counties, zip codes, cities, and customizable market radius.

Current Industrial Reports (Census)
The CIR program provides statistics primarily for production and shipments, but data on inventories, orders, and consumption are collected in a number of surveys. These surveys also measure manufacturing activity in important commodity areas such as textile and apparel, chemicals, primary metals, computer and electronic components, industrial equipment, and consumer goods.

Financial ratios allow provide useful insights, and can be divided into five different classes.

Profitability Ratios
Liquidity Ratios
Activity Ratios
Leverage Ratios
Market Value Ratios

Check out the following resources to learn more about financial ratios:

Financial Ratios for Executives by Michael Rist; Albert J. Pizzica; Penhagenco LLC
Publication Date: 2015
Financial Ratios for Executives is written specifically with today's global executive in mind. It makes financial ratios easy to understand and use effectively. This short book will prove invaluable to both financial and non-financial executives looking for easy, intuitive methods to assess corporate health and assist in strategic decision making. Financial Ratios for Executives contains over 100 financial ratios and other useful calculations.
Financial Ratios by Sandeep Goel
Publication Date: 2015
This book aims to not only develop an understanding of the concepts of financial ratios but also to provide the students a practical insight into the application of financial ratios for decision making and control. It analyzes the financial statements of corporate enterprises in India in diverse sectors with the help of financial ratios in order to facilitate the learning process.

S&P Capital IQ This link opens in a new window
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In-depth financial/valuation data resource, including information on equities, credit ratings, transactions, and more. Explore pricing across markets including indices, commodities, and more. Use hundreds of data points to generate lists of companies, markets, or executives. Includes an Excel plug-in for data analysis, and the S&P Market Intelligence platform to find sector-specific financial data, research, and news.
Mergent Online
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Company financial statements, ratios, and other quantitative data. Other information includes but is not limited to SEC filings, analyst reports, executive/board biographies and compensation details, and historical daily stock pricing back to 1925.
PrivCo
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A premier source for business and financial data on over 300,000 major, non-publicly traded corporations, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies.
Key Business Ratios (D&B)
Examine industry benchmarks compiled from D&B's database of public and private companies, featuring 14 key business ratios. Choose a one-year or three-year set of ratios for public and private companies in 800 lines of business.
Bizminer
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Choose from two main categories. Industry Financial Analysis provides financial ratios and data for industry segments with sales class filters. Industry Market Profile offers demographics, competitors, market volume, and more for the entire US, states, counties, zip codes, cities, and customizable market radius.

Websites

Cascade | Conducting A Strategic Analysis + 8 of the Best Tools to Use
Provides background on the strategic management cycle and describe different strategic analysis tools that can be employed.
ASQ | The 7 Basic Quality Tools for Process Improvement
List of analysis tools including check sheets, control charts, histograms, pareto chart, scatter diagrams, and stratification.
ASQ | Fishbone Diagram
This cause analysis tool is considered one of the seven basic quality tools. The fishbone diagram identifies many possible causes for an effect or problem. It can be used to structure a brainstorming session. It immediately sorts ideas into useful categories.
CFI | PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL Analysis is a strategic framework used to evaluate the external environment of a business by breaking down the opportunities and risks into Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors.
HBS | What is Value Chain Analysis?
Value chain analysis is a means of evaluating each of the activities in a company’s value chain to understand where opportunities for improvement lie. Conducting a value chain analysis prompts you to consider how each step adds or subtracts value from your final product or service. This, in turn, can help you realize some form of competitive advantage.
Microsoft Office | Timeline Templates
Conduct a timeline analysis with these free templates provided by Microsoft Office.