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Case Studies

3. How to approach a case study

3.9. D. Key decision criteria

How you are going to decide which alternative is the best one to choose? Other than choosing randomly, you must always employ some criteria in making any decision. Think about the last time that you make a purchase decision for an article of clothing. Why did you choose the article that you did? The criteria that you may have used could have been:

  • Ø Fit
  • Ø Price
  • Ø Fashion
  • Ø Colour
  • Ø Approval of friend/family
  • Ø Availability.

Note that any one of these criteria could appropriately finish the sentence; the brand/style that I choose to purchase must.... These criteria are also how you will define or determine that a successful purchase decision has been made. For a business situation, the key decision criteria are those things that are important to the organisation making the decision, and they will be used to evaluate the suitability of each alternative recommended.

Key decision criteria should be:

  1. Brief, preferably in point form, such as

v  improve (or at least maintain) profitability,

v  increase sales, market share, or return on investment,

v  maintain customer satisfaction, corporate image,

v  be consistent with the corporate mission or strategy,

vwithin our present (or future) resources and capabilities,

v  within acceptable risk parameters,

v  ease or speed of implementation,

v  employee morale, safety, or turnover,

v  retain flexibility, and/or

v  minimise environmental impact.

  1. Measurable, at least to the point of comparison, such as alternative A will improve profitability more than alternative B.
  2. Be related to your problem statement, and alternatives. If you find that you are talking about something else, that is a sign of a missing alternative or key decision criteria, or a poorly formed problem statement.

Students tend to find the concept of key decision criteria very confusing, so you will probably find that you re­write them several times, as you analyse the case. They are similar to constraints or limitations, but are used to evaluate alternatives.