How to Analyze a Case for a High School Case Competition | HSACC

Summary

Bridget leads an interactive workshop on analyzing a business case when information is incomplete and time is limited. Using a hypothetical coffee chain with 100 locations—about half of which are losing money—she demonstrates how to move from an instinctive answer to a recommendation supported by structured reasoning.

The central lesson is that the right decision is not automatically to close or fix every loss-making location. The answer depends on why the locations are losing money, whether the causes can be addressed, and how significant the losses are relative to the business overall. A strong case analysis makes uncertainties explicit, prioritizes the most important questions, and defends its recommendation against plausible counterarguments.

Methodology and Lessons

• Start by defining the decision. The initial question is whether the chain should close its unprofitable locations or try to improve them. With little information, participants initially tend to answer, “It depends”—a reasonable response that needs to be made more specific.

• Build an issue tree to break down the problem. Identify the major questions that could explain the losses:

  • Are the losses widespread or location-specific? Consider geography, local traffic, competition, and customer base.
  • Is the problem revenue or cost? Examine how much each location brings in and what it spends.
  • What is driving the problem? Look for internal factors, such as operations or customer service, and external or structural factors, such as market conditions.
  • Is the problem fixable? Distinguish between issues the company can change and conditions it may not be able to control.

• Prioritize rather than investigate everything shallowly. In a real engagement with only one week, it is necessary to choose which issue to examine first. This is forced prioritization, not a failure to consider other factors. A focused analysis of one or two important drivers is stronger than a superficial review of every possible issue. If other factors are set aside, say so explicitly.

• Use reasonable estimates when data is unavailable. The workshop estimates a location’s performance using deliberately simple assumptions:

  • 200 customers per day
  • $5 spent per customer
  • About $1,000 in daily revenue
  • About $360,000 in annual revenue
  • About $420,000 in annual costs
  • An estimated annual loss of $60,000 per location, or about $6 million across 100 locations

These figures are illustrative, not exact. Their purpose is to provide a logical starting point. Bridget emphasizes that judges are evaluating the reasoning behind assumptions, not just whether an estimate is precisely correct.

• Put losses in context. A $6 million loss could be manageable for a company with substantial revenue, but potentially urgent for a much smaller business. The same loss can imply very different levels of risk depending on the company’s overall financial scale. The workshop later discusses a hypothetical chain with $50 million in revenue and a $6 million loss; participants disagree about whether to fix the stores, close them, or investigate further.

• Make a clear recommendation and defend it. A good presentation should:

  • State a firm recommendation, even if it is conditional on particular findings.
  • Show the logic that led to it.
  • Explain what evidence or assumptions support it.
  • Address the strongest counterargument and the unintended consequences of the recommendation.

• Weigh the costs and risks of both action and inaction. Participants raise concerns such as:

  • Fixing stores may require costly training or other investments.
  • Closing stores may involve closure expenses or contractual obligations.
  • Closing too quickly could eliminate locations that might recover or damage the brand.
  • Keeping structurally unprofitable stores open could deepen losses.
  • Market-wide problems may require a different response than issues specific to the company or individual stores.

• Stay focused on the case question. A distinctive perspective can be valuable, but the final presentation should remain centered on a clear recommendation and its supporting logic rather than drifting too far from the main problem. The workshop also notes that the side taken matters less than the quality of the reasoning and presentation.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Bridget — Workshop presenter. She introduces herself as a partnerships manager and program/product director at Ladder Internships and a Johns Hopkins alum. She teaches the case-analysis framework and facilitates the discussion.
• Student participants — Several attendees contribute reasoning and questions. Names that are reasonably clear in the subtitles include Prince, Patricio, Sharia, Jesse, Himanchu, Abby, and David. Other student speakers are unnamed or difficult to identify from the auto-generated captions.