What's the best way to turn business challenges into strategic opportunities? With a structured case study, consultants and project teams can follow every decision making point from discovery to outcome. What's more, successful case studies can be shown to future clients to prove your impressive track record.
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This Case Study Template walks you through the key topics that makes a compelling case study. It includes slides on client needs gap analysis, SWOT, Porter's five forces, industry analysis canvas, stakeholder communications, issue tree, team contribution, competitive analysis, and many more.
In almost all cases, stakeholder needs can constrain potential solutions. But rather than seeing that as a limitation, use it to your advantage as a way to narrow down the focus. Use this gap analysis graph to compare the stakeholder or client's current status, and where it aims to be in the future. (Slide 4)
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In this hypothetical scenario, technology advances at a much faster pace than the business's productivity. The gap between the two implies performance potential that the business can still capture, with the right strategy that is.
Before any grand schemes for the future, first take a comprehensive look at the status quo. Specifically, current strengths and weaknesses that the business has, as well as any opportunity to capitalize on and any threats to watch out for.
These SWOT Analysis slides provide enough space to dig just a little deeper on any details the presenter needs to emphasize. Plus, it never hurts to supplement words with data. Near the right, plot any relevant metrics to prove the insights on the left. (Slides 7-10)
Now it's time to take a big step back and focus on the macro factors. No business exists in a vacuum, and industry and market changes can become either assistance or resistance. Porter's Five Forces is one of the most tried-and-true frameworks to help managers and analysts understand how a firm is positioned in its industry.
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The five forces are already written out on the slide for you: supplier power, competitive rivalry, threat of new entry, buyer power, and threat of substitution. To use this slide, list out the elements that fall under each force. (Slide 15)
Another method of industry analysis is the strategy canvas, inspired by the Blue Ocean framework. This canvas plots the offering values of key competing factors of industry players on average, and of the firm you're strategizing for. (Slide 14)
It's important to understand which of these factors has the industry been competing on for a long time. Because those are the efforts you'd want to "eliminate" or "reduce". On the other hand, differentiate yourself in underserved areas. Allocate more resources to "raise" or "create" more values in these factors.
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So what about actually solving the problem at hand? Many business problems are not only complex but also turn out to be the symptom rather than the root problem. This issue true visually organizes the thought process behind each problem. Instead of jumping between ideas in your own head, share this slide with your team mates and client to make sense of the ideas pipeline. To make it even simpler, each layer of the diagram can be presented as a "yes"/"no" problem until action items can be suggested in the end. (Slide 18)
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Realistically, it's impossible to make everybody happy all of the time. So pick your battle. An essential part of a business case is to synergize the solution proposal with stakeholder demands. But not all stakeholders have equal footing.
This stakeholder matrix develops a communciations plan by categorizing and prioritizing stakeholders based on decision power and interest in the project. For example, those with both high power and high interest need to be closely engaged and updated to ensure buyins. On the other hand, those who have little power and interest can just be passively monitored with little effort. Under each stakeholder category, list any individual names, titles, or entities that apply. (Slide 20)
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The assembly of a business case's project team is not only crucial for operational purposes, but also for skillsets and capabilities. The credentials and credibility of the team members are especially important when the case study is presented as a way to recruit future clients.
Use this slide to showcase the your team players complement each other with their areas of expertise and task assignment. This way, stakeholders and clients can better understand how the work is being done and what each member brings to the table. (Slide 21)
Last but not least, be sure to summarize the outcome of the case study. Hopefully your strategies lead to positive returns. But if not, this is a also a chance to conduct a post-mortem to understand what can be improved next time.
Numbers speak volumes. So don't just say that your ideas were successful, actually show it with metrics such as financial impact, KPIs and deliverables, Net Promoter Score, just to name a few. (Slides 29-32)
