Choose a company to research. The company can be either a publicly-traded company or privately-owned, perhaps a company you are familiar with (but not your current employer). The key elements in choosing a good company for your case study are:
1) Is the company relatively easy to research? Is there plenty of available information on the inner-workings of the firm?
2) Is it a company youre interested in and/or do you like their product or service? (This will make it more fun.)
3) Is the company newsworthy? (Perhaps theyve had a stunning failure, legal issue or maybe they recently created a killer product everyone wants.)
Once you have picked a company, post your company to the final case study paper discussion forum week 4. No two students can pick the same company and approval will be given on a first come-first assigned basis.
Note that for a large, multi-line or multi-product company, you may want to choose a single business line within the firm for your analysis. For example, with Apple, you would concentrate on their iPhone business only or with Google/Alphabet you would concentrate on just their driverless car project. You will find it much easier to focus your business analysis on one business line within a large diversified company.
Your final case study paper should be 6-8 pages and will consist of 5 sections (each about 1.5-2.0 pages).
The first section should be an overview of the company:
What does the company do?
What product or service does it offer?
Where is it located?
Who are its main competitors?
What is the market structure (e.g. pure competition, monopoly, oligopoly, etc.)?
How is it regulated?
This first section should provide a background or base-line understanding of the company in support of the rest of the paper.
For the remaining four sections, should include the following:
A demand analysis illustrating the most applicable terms, concepts, or ideas in Chapter 3 to include the following consumer behavior (purchasing power and substitution effect), targeting, switching cost, positioning, price elasticity of demand (demand determinants), interpreting income and advertising elasticity.
A pricing analysis illustrating the most applicable terms, concepts, or ideas in Chapter 14 to include the following value in use/value based pricing (product specifications, ease of use, service frequency, change order responsiveness, loyalty programs, and empathy in order processing), couponing, bundling, price discrimination, and price skimming versus full-cost pricing.
A What they got wrong analysis detailing a strategy mistake using the course concepts.
A What they got right analysis detailing a strategy win using the course concepts.
If you are having trouble addressing or finding enough information for any of the sections above, you can augment your analysis by articulating what you think the company should do. For example, if you cant find any information on your companys value based pricing, explain how you would price the product or service and why. This is Organizational (managerial) Economics; make some decisions on behalf of your company and support them using concepts and ideas from the course!
The goal of this paper is to illustrate that you understand the concepts covered in this course and that you can apply them to a real company.
Remember to document or source borrowed research using the standard APA citation style. Extensive quoting is not necessary (and not additive to your grade). Reference the source, but, to the extent possible, explain the concept or strategy in your own words. For example, if you find a great article on your companys pricing strategy, explain the article and concepts in your own words and source it. Do not cut and paste long passages of text.
The paper should be 6-8 pages (or more) double-spaced, size 12 font Times New Roman, Calibri, or Cambria
