The Business Case Study.
The Group Business and Design Project is one of the key activities of Bath’s engineering degree program. This is my 8th year being involved and it’s an honour to be involved in the teaching of this unit.
Praise for the case study:
“Ed’s unit has been exemplary - his mix of lectures, Q&As and website notes has made it really clear what's expected in the business case assessment.”
“The case study has been my favourite part, I loved the freedom it gave me, so refreshing”
“The business case study is a really interesting and enjoyable introduction to a lot of business concepts.”
“Business aspects of the course were well taught and submissions were clear and support was provided.”
"Ed's Q&A sessions were incredibly helpful and well structured as well as his business content”
”The assignment was well structured, delivered and really felt like it contributed to my learning whilst also being valuable.”
“The business element was really well put together, with thorough guidance and helpful Q&A sessions so I felt confident that I knew what was expected of me for his assessments.”
“The case study has been my favourite part of my degree so far!”
There are three goals to the business case study:
Introduce you to ideas around business, market research, product and corporate strategy
Help prepare you for the commercial viability reviews later in your projects
Feed your curiosity on how businesses really function
The Rules:
Pick any (current) business / organisation and answer 5 research questions (or 3 for electrical students, electrical students must pick a company related to their project. (Please also avoid sports clubs like football teams, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.)
Attend (if you want) the online Q&A sessions to ask any questions you may have
Browse the extensive library of past submissions for inspiration and guidance on how to do it well
After submitting, provide anonymous and constructive feedback to 3 other submissions (randomly generated through a peer-feedback portal on moodle). This enables you all to receive wide ranging and extensive feedback quickly after submission. In the past it has proven very informative and helpful. Failure to provide feedback may incur a penalty as practising the giving of feedback is an important part of business practise.
How it works:
You are asked to investigate and analyse a real and current business / organisation of your choice. Exploring, describing and critically reviewing in detail: what it does, the reasons why it does it, how it does it and with what strategy. You will then be asked to make recommendations, with justifications for improvements or changes to what you have researched.
For many of you, this format mirrors aspects of your business report submissions later in the semester so should be a helpful practise to get you in the right mind-set for that..
The business can be of any size, may be somewhere you’ve worked, public or private, large or small. Pick whatever business you find interesting.
Lecture Dates:
Kick off Session: Wednesday 5th February - 12:15 EB1.1
Kick Off Lecture Slides [Download]
1st Q&A session (date change): Thursday 13th Feb - Online 15:15
Business Strategy: Monday 17th Feb - 14:15 CB1.10
2nd Q&A session: Thursday 20th Feb - Online 10:15
3rd Q&A session: Thursday 27th Feb - Online 10:15
4th Q&A (short) session: Thursday 6th March - Online 10:15
Deadlines:
Elec Department BEng Deadline: 21st February 16:00
Mech Department BEng Deadline: 7th March 16:00
Elec & Mech Department MEng Deadline: 7th March 16:00
EIP Deadline: 31st March - 16:00
Submission Portals will be on your respective Moodle Pages
Question 1 - WHAT [10 marks]
Describe the organisation, the core activities and any additional services it provides. You can choose a whole company or a sub-division of a large company if you think it can be treated as a distinct entity.
Extra Resources:
Question 2 - WHY [25 Marks]
What does the market they operate in look like?
Guidance Notes: Who is their target customer, what attributes defines this group? Can the market be segmented, what useful insights come from this? How do they compare against the competition or alternatives? How large is the market, what are the spending habits of customers etc… There is a huge amount of things you can talk about here. Keep it relevant to your discussion.
Extra Resources:
Question 3 - HOW [10 Marks]
What do you think is their business model?
Guidance Notes: You’ve explained what they do, but how do they actually make money? How do they find and engage with their customers… Any important costs, sales approaches, relationships etc… The ‘Business Model Canvas’ may be a helpful guide (google the term and lots of great advice on it will come up). Not all of it is relevant to every organisation but it’s a great place to start if you’re stuck.
Extra Resources:
Questions to be Answered:
When writing your answer make sure each part is clearly labelled.
Elec department BEng students with Melusine, stop here & see below. Everyone else continue…
Question 4 - STRATEGY [15 Marks]
What do you think is their strategy? (Electrical BEng students do not answer questions 4 and 5)
Guidance Notes: What guides their decision making process? How has this changed over time? Who / what steers the strategy? What is the purpose behind the actions? Is there a precedence? What are the critical factors or resources that might be key to their approach? What is the problem facing them they are trying to overcome? Etc…
For strategy to be effective it’s important to have 1 clear focus. If you have a list of strategies it’s likely none of them will work. Distil your research down to one clear grand objective or challenge that they are looking to tackle. All their actions and policies should be directed at this.
Extra Resources:
Question 5 - CRITIQUE [40 Marks]
What would you do differently / improve and why?
Guidance Notes: How might you grow the business? Improve profitability? Change to address a future trend you worry might impact them? Etc… As stated above, there are no right or wrong answers. Good scores are awarded to answers that are believable, credible, and sound like they would work. To do this, they need to be clearly articulated and supported by good research and analysis. Notice the high number of marks, this is where we expect you to really bring your own thinking, critical appraisal and thorough justification to the exercise.
Extra Resources:
There is a firm 10 page limit (excluding references and a title page). For guidance only, the expectation is this should be around 2,000 words, some previous submissions had a 2,000 (+/- 10%) word limit. Going over the page limit will incur a strong penalty.
(Please do not include a contents page, appendices or an abstract / executive summary they will not be read and may push you over the page limit).
Each of the 5 questions in your report must be labelled appropriately so I can clearly see which work relates to which question.
I don’t mind what fonts, font size, line spacing or anything else you use, as long as I can clearly understand it, you’re free to present it how ever you want. (Think objective ease of understanding rather than subjective artistic ‘prettiness’). I will be reading and assessing these quickly, so a solid page of size 8 font will not make my life easier and important elements of your work may unfortunately not stand out and get my attention. Please make it easy to digest and understand.
Submission Portals will be on your respective Moodle Pages
Deliverables:
Every student will be required to complete this assessment by submitting their reports in PDF format. The report must be prepared individually and submitted as a single document. Submission will be using online portals on Moodle and scanned for plagiarism in the usual way. I also have detailed knowledge of past submissions so previous work is purely for inspiration rather than as a source of material.
Differences for BEng students in the Elec department:
(Sorry just because they are different and it gets super confusing)
5 Page submission (not 10), same rules apply. I’ve been told that in your course handbook it also says there’s a word limit of 1,250 words. Sorry I didn’t write this, do check with Melusine if that’s a limit or just guidance as to what the expectation is.
Pick a company / organisation that is related to your project
Only do questions 1, 2, & 3…. they are worth slightly different amounts to the Mech students:
Q1 WHAT - 20%
Q2 WHY - 50%
Q3 HOW - 30%
There’s no peer-feedback portal for you, Melusine is hoping to mark and feedback in the usual way.
If in doubt ask your unit convenor Melusine, she knows everything.
Archived Past Examples:
To help inspire and guide you, some case studies examples from previous years are available below for your interest. They are not here for you to copy, your research and work must be your own. We will of course be scanning all submissions for plagiarism and I have a good working knowledge of past submissions.
Please do not do the same company as one on examples shared here. That’s obviously cheating.
Marking Guidance:
Presentation of your answers is very important, a clear, well researched but concise and easy to understand answer will score more highly than one that is hard to follow or full of unnecessary / waffling repetitive text.
Pick a current business / company / charity / organisation of your choice and answer the questions asked above (remember in business, there are no right or wrong answers, only well researched and believable answers vs unclear and not believable). You do not need to be exhaustive with your answers, a focus on less things but done to a deeper depth will score more highly than shallow box ticking or superficial fact regurgitation.
Best marks will be awarded to those students who generate their own interesting research or insights and can explain it clearly with an easy to follow narrative. If published information already exists on the company’s strategy, for example, make your references clear and critically review their approach and decisions.
This is not a maths assignment, there is no right or wrong answer here, only believable arguments or not believable arguments. So there are no marks for whether the strategy is their real one or not, marks are awarded for critically reviewing whether you think their strategy (what you think it could be based on their actions and policies) makes sense and your evidence to support that. This is important for those students who have privileged access to a company or wish to study their family business for example. There is no right or wrong, just well argued vs glossed over.
Who Marks What?:
Every Mech Eng department case study is marked by me. I believe this is the best way to ensure a fair and level playing field across the entire year group. But as a result it does take time and you won’t be receiving marks before the end of term. If you have any concerns or worries, fears or anxieties, do please get in touch. However due to the large number of students all doing this task at the same time, it is impossible to get you thorough feedback from me quickly. So, I only give feedback if you ask for it (please give me a chance to begin marking rather than the very next day!) This allows me to give detailed feedback for those of you who are interested. But we also run a peer-feedback system (see below) so that everyone get’s a range of thoughts on your work quickly. It’s worked really well the last few years so please give it a try if this peer feedback idea is new to you.
For EEE and IMEE students doing projects with Melusine as your unit convenor, in the Elec Department (BEng & MEng), your project supervisors will mark your case studies. This is because you have to write your reports around organisations related to your projects and they know those best.
Peer-Feedback:
For all MEng students (apart from those on the EIP) we’ll be operating a ‘peer-feedback’ model which has worked very well the last few years and gets you a range of thoughts very quickly on how you can improve. You are all very smart people and are definitely qualified to make constructive feedback on each others work. Practise doing this before the deadline, help each other to submit your best possible work!
After submission all students (except the EIP due to timing and moodle complications) will be randomly and anonymously assigned 3 other case studies to review and provide feedback on. Failure to provide constructive feedback may incur a penalty on your own submission. (Sorry I hate to do this, but unless there is a stick of some sort, no one takes part).
Regardless of what Hollywood might suggest, business is a team sport. You must help and support your classmates if you want to achieve a top score. Reading and assessing the work of others is also a fantastic way to learn. So I consider this to be part of the teaching of this activity.
Peer-feedback comments from your classmates will not influence the marks awarded. If you do not want to receive feedback then do not submit it into the peer-feedback portal. However whether you submit work or not, you are expected to review the work that you are assigned in a polite and timely fashion.
Feedback portal opens at the same time as the submission portal (but for complicated Moodle reasons is a separate system).
Confidential Information:
If your case study is on a company whose information is private, a family business for example. Please email me with your submission making this clear (include CONFIDENTIAL in the file name). I will ensure your work is not shared do not upload your work to the peer-feedback portal. You will still need to provide feedback for others though.
Late Submissions & Extensions:
Any late submissions will be treated in accordance with the usual university rules, but extensions may also miss the opportunity for receiving peer-feedback as your work will not be in the portal in time. That depends on how long the extension is, but don’t worry I can give you feedback if you ask.
Support & Guidance:
Assignments with no right answer.
One of the biggest frustrations of any engineering student is a problem without a single solution…
Assignments with no right answer do not make them impossible or pointless. It’s just a different way of thinking. As an engineer there are good ways and bad ways to do things. If I asked 100 engineers to design a bridge, they may all look similar, we get a range of solutions.
It’s the same in business, except business is all built on probabilities. Nothing is certain and just because something worked one time doesn’t mean it will next time. If I asked 100 business people to come up with a plan of what we should do, the plan that is most likely to work is the one we should take (most of the time).
General Tips & Advice:
It’s easy to think that for any assignment, if you just get the right answer you’ll be judged on that. But for an assignment where there is no right answer, such as “Write a business plan for X” or “Propose a Strategy for company Y” or “Design a new Z”… the temptation is to think that the system is too subjective to ever get a good score.
The important thing to know and realise is that if the assignment is open ended without a single correct answer, then you will not be judged on your answer alone, but on the rigour and method that went into forming it.
The more specific the better
For example, lets say you’re asked to conduct some market research on a company that makes swimming hats (but it could be anything). One approach would be to google swimming hats, write down a few alternative brands as a look into the competitors and then find a market analysis report in the library and show that the sports goods market is work billions and growing by 7.2% a year.
All vaguely interesting and relevant, but hardly rigorous or insightful. The data is also too broad and superficial to be useful for any further discussions.
A better approach would be to perhaps explore some of the reasons why people would wear a swimming hat and then find corresponding statistics to see if those reasons are likely to increase or not (number of swimming races and events, growth in outdoor swimming etc…)? You can then use this specific data to base a strategy on. For example would a growth in the number of outdoor swimming enthusiasts make a market for a warmer thermal swimming hats more appealing? Thus showing the market potential for a range of related products, with a single logical story and relevant data.
Shouldn’t I do both?
If you have the space, a mix of top level data and specific sources would be good. But if space is short, focus on the local, the specific and narrower-the-better data sources.
You can never do everything, better to pick the most interesting elements and show them to a good depth than be spread too thin and come across as superficial. Work smarter rather than harder.
Triangulate your Sources and Build a Case
If no credible single source is available then use multiple sources and see if they converge to a single solution? It’s always a good idea to make sure you’re not seeing conclusions, causations or implications that don’t exist. So if lots of different sources are all pointing at the same thing it adds credibility to your work and the result.
Even if the perfect source is just waiting for you, remember, I’m not marking if you’re right or wrong, I’m assessing the quality of your research. So find a second and third source to check it’s legitimacy and reinforce your message.
Compare, Compare & Compare Again!
You can assume the reader is informed, so I don’t need the really obvious stuff explained, but I won’t know everything about your chosen industry, if you’re trying to make a point, make sure you’ve given sufficient context to the problem and therefore the solution. The best way to do this is through comparison to others. Statements left without context are not rigorous or defendable, they are blind stabs in the dark, even if right.
Always remember I’m not judging if you’re right, I’m judging how good your research and depth of thinking is!
Comparison is an easy shortcut to good credibility
Comparisons are a great way to give your research depth, context and meaning.
Business Model Canvas as a worked example.
The business model canvas is often used as a way of addressing the HOW question when explaining a companies business model. The problem with it is it’s a tool like any other. Just showing me you used a tool doesn’t impress. What I want to see are your conclusions and implications that came out of using this tool.
So don’t just present data in isolation. Give it context, give it a comparison.
Below are two business model canvases, one a ‘complete’ version of Tesla, trying to tick every box and say as much as possible. The other a comparison of key differentiators between Tesla and a leading competitor VW. The comparison one is so much richer and more valuable to the reader whereas the first is vague and non-specific.
Some interesting facts and figures here, but the good stuff is lost within all the noise of the trivial stuff.
Tesla red vs VW blue, (some) key differentiators and differences between the two companies.
Real worked student examples with comments & feedback:
High Quality Example:
High quality means 65+ not 85+, to get a mark in the 70s and above you have to have done something exceptional, not just follow an implied check list from this example. If you look at the impressive examples I’ve highlighted below, you see they do it differently to this one. There are lots of ways to achieve great marks. It’s based on the strength of your argumentation and research.
Cover Page
Good clear start.
A very good first impression.
Whilst no marks are attributed to presentation for this assignment, we always have to assess material quickly. If the material is presented well it should be easy to read, easy to digest and therefore easy to understand and mark.
Good work can be let down by poor presentation but good presentation alone will not lift poor work.
This report covers a wide variety of material with great context and all hanging together on a single clear message.
** Warning… this assignment did include an appendix, because at the time they were allowed to do so. So any comments in my feedback to this should be ignored. To try and make it simpler I deleted their appendix but forgot some of my comments. Sorry for the confusion, you are not allowed an appendix.**
In summary this report is an excellent review and critique of the industry and company, it is clear a huge amount of effort has gone into every part of it, with that effort clearly focused on value adding content.
The references are extensive but also of a very high quality and relevant to the the discussion without being overly repetitive just to pad the references out.
It’s common for students to want to use an appendix as a dumping ground for everything as a way of communicating effort. One of the challenges of these assignments is to only show important high quality work. Fluff, padding and filler is not only unnecessary but can also confuse your message and negatively affect your mark.
For that reason appendices are not allowed as an extra to the page limit, only references (and a title page) are ‘free’ to the page limit.
Middle Quality Example:
Cover Page & First Impressions
Cover page is clearly trying to follow the colours themes of the target business MG Motors. All looks fine, I know straight away this is going to be a report about a car company even if I didn’t recognise the MG logo.
A contents page would have been nice to make sure I know what’s coming next.
Worth noting that this is the same word count as the previous ‘high quality example’, this report is far from bad, but little things and more attention to the research quality and message delivery could have lifted it much higher.
Some presentation elements have been attempted but are artistic in nature rather than trying to make the report easier to understand as a result they should have been avoided.
In summary this report is has lots of reasonable suggestions and thoughts but fails to justify them or present strong evidence and context for them.
The message is unclear and unconvincing, but it feels like the author does know what they are talking about, they’ve just struggled to communicate it clearly.
The references are of mixed quality and very few if any effective comparisons have been made between MG and other car companies in a similar situation which is a missed opportunity.
So whilst not a bad report, it could have been greatly improved.
Poor Quality Example:
Cover Page & First Impressions
Cover page looks like a draft with incomplete notes and subtitles.
In summary this work is clearly rushed, with many incomplete or poorly made arguments. Some evidence has been faked and / or is wrong or plagiarised from online sources.
Tools are presented but then not explained or used appropriately, for more advice on how to best use tools in assignments like this, further guidance on that can be found here.
Some past submissions that I thought were very impressive:
Some of these had different rules when they submitted, different page limits or they were allowed an appendix etc… check your submission meets the current rules rather than how these ones were done! Please avoid doing these ones again, with over 300 million businesses worldwide (over 3 million in the UK), you shouldn’t be short of choice. Quality of content is what gets you the marks, but good presentation helps me not miss anything important.
Just in case there is anyone reading this not a student on my course, these are student reports and not official research from the University of Bath. These are the work and opinions of the student and not necessarily endorsed or supported by myself or the University. The work may contain errors or inconsistencies and should not be used for anything other than that which it is intended.
FAQ
Q1: I can’t find any data on this company online. Is it going to be bad report? Should I choose someone else? Will it affect my mark? (or some variation of this…)
Absolutely not. I’m not particularly interested in you finding the “right answer” online somewhere, the detailed specifics, precise figures or correct numbers etc… that’s really not the point. The point of the exercise is to form an interesting argument, an interesting piece of research. To do that you need to assess a market (and the organisation within it) as a whole. So if you’re doing a start-up with no published figures of any type. You can still show that these are the competitors, these are the customers. Their offerings are like this, there preferences seem to be like that, here are the overlaps, this is where my organisation fits in. From this information on the market size and this information on how many customers they are claiming to have, I estimate their current turnover to be this. From the market trends X, Y and Z it looks to be that the market outlook for this company is this. etc etc etc.
The problem with finding the answer online somewhere is you tend to stop doing any further thinking…. the market growth is (apparently according to some nameless analyst somewhere) 10% a year. So what? What does that mean for our company? Just because the coffee industry as a whole is growing (just to refer to my favourite example), does that mean our local coffee shop will see a rise in customer numbers?
I tend to prefer reports where the data isn’t sitting there in front of you, because then you have to read around the subject, triangulate an answer, form your own argument for what might be going on. It’s a gift for you to demonstrate your ability.
Q2: Can I do the same company as my friend?
Yes, I can’t stop you all doing the same company if you want, but obviously they’ll be compared and scanned for plagiarism.
Elec students, because your selection is already narrow due to it having to be an organisation related to your projects, try to do a range of companies related to your projects rather than all doing the same one. If you have any questions on this, please speak to Melusine.
Q3: Help! I just don’t know where to start, I’ve got a company in mind but I can’t find anything about them online, they don’t say what their strategy is or anything…
You’re not going to find anything credible online about their strategy, they’re not going to publish it publicly and smaller companies probably haven’t even thought about it. It’s very common for companies not to have coherent strategy, they’re just fire fighting day to day… So don't even bother looking.
You've got to work it out... (remember this is a gift! Because showing me how you worked it out is how you convert data and information into insight and wisdom, and insight and wisdom is where you get the top marks).
So thinking about our chosen company, let’s paint the picture (or draw a map, I love images and diagrams):
who are the competitors?
what are the alternatives?
what are the options?
where does your company fit in this picture?
what attracts customers to them?
how are they different?
how is the market changing?
what's happening in the sector?
are there any new entrants recently?
are any established players leaving?
are things looking good or bad? (a shrinking market is not always a problem, and sometimes a rising tide misses your ship!)
what do their customers look like?
what do typical customers look like (do they serve the mainstream or a niche within the customer market?)
are these changing over time?
etc etc etc...
Given all this (and more) what is the biggest challenge facing the company? It could be a shrinking marketplace, it could be cheap but high quality stuff coming in from china. What would keep the owners of this business awake at night with worry? All business owners are different, some may not be driven by money, some small businesses might be quality of life. A friend of mine who owns a shop in Bath recently closed on Sundays. Not a great decision financially but he’s got young children and he wanted to spend at least one day a week with them. Plus it was always hard to find staff on a Sunday.
Now, with all this background context (Q2 and Q3 material) look at what they're doing... what actions are they taking…. maybe they give away expensive stuff (expensive to you, presumably not expensive to them), maybe they have loyalty programs, maybe they are publicly trying something different, opening a new location, doing adverts in a magazine rather than online, maintain or don’t maintain a social media presence etc...
Cluster these actions together and do they make a pattern? Does that pattern point to the problem you think is the biggest threat or does it point to something else? If it points to something else then maybe their strategy is old and needs updating to this new threat. Or maybe you're wrong and what it's pointing to is the bigger challenge.
You've got to form the picture rather than find it.
More info on strategy can be found here.
Q4: How do I reference something that I can’t link to on the internet?
References existed long before the internet did. It is simply a statement of where your information came from. If I chose too, I should be able to challenge your references and say, give me references [1] [4] and [23] and you could perhaps show me transcripts of conversations, or contact details of the people themselves or other books or some other non-online content. Whatever it may be.
Q5: There seems to be a lot of overlap with what I’m saying in each section, what’s the difference between Q3 HOW and Q4 STRATEGY?
You’re telling a story about a business, so of course you’re going to talk about similar things throughout. But it’s important not to waste time and space repeating yourself. So each question has a different flavour to them.
WHAT is likely to be quite factual, data on what they do.
Example: Tesla make these electric cars…
WHY is then more about who else does something similar, what the customers might be after and how different products compare.
Example: Tesla target a premium customer who is looking for high performance with a slick iphone-like appearance. Audi’s electric E-Tron range is also targeting premium customers but using their considerable automotive heritage to make electric cars that resemble a familiar fossil fuel car aesthetic…
HOW is about the specifics of how they make money, don’t talk about every little thing, especially if it’s common practise. Focus on the important details that are different between them and the competition.
Example: Tesla sell direct to customers through an extensive range of their own stores. This is very unusual from car companies and so strong is the vehicle dealer lobby, that they were actually able to make it illegal for car companies to sell direct in some US states. This however has not stopped them elsewhere and they cite a number of advantages to this approach…
STRATEGY is about why do they do all this the way they do, what problem are they trying to solve, or what issue are they trying to prevent happening?
Example: Tesla is reaching peak EV sales, anyone who was likely to buy a Tesla probably already has one, So Tesla are trying to diversify their offerings with the electric Semi and Cybertruck. Further differentiating themselves from the competition as being a Californian spirited tech company rather than a traditional fossil fuel car company of old.
CRITIQUE What would I do differently?
Example: The decline in Elon Musk’s recent popularity is a threat to their growth with a growing number of people associating with the tagline of “never a Tesla” as a result of his personal misadventures. I believe they should appoint a new CEO and distance themselves from him.