Marketing Administration Business Case Study

adhere to the following order (each step must be its own section with its own heading):
a. Situation Analysis
b. Assumptions
c. Problem Statement
d. Alternatives Generation (minimum of 4)
e. Evaluative Criteria (minimum of 3)
f. Evaluation of Alternatives (relative to the evaluative criteria)
g. Recommendation
h. Implementation
i. Evaluation & Control
9. Specifically regarding the Problem Definition:
a. Be very clear and to the point in your Definition. Do not ramble and do not offer
a double-barrel definition (i.e., a definition that contains more than one issue). If
you provide a Problem Definition that contains multiple issues, you are defining
symptoms, not the Problem.
b. Do not necessarily place a negative connotation upon the term “Problem” in this
context. While the circumstances in your case may be negative, in some cases, the
“Problem” is actually an opportunity, an objective, or some other positive issue.
c. Let me stress a point that your text authors make in Appendix A. The most
important word in case analysis is “Why.” Keep asking that question when you are
considering the Problem. Essentially, once you feel you must answer that question
with something such as “that’s just the way it is,” then you’ve very likely defined
the problem, or come very, very close to it.
d. Just to illustrate the usefulness of asking “Why” when defining the problem, a silly,
but true case occurred in the early 1990’s in Washington, D.C.
i. The stones around the Jefferson Memorial were deteriorating very rapidly.
ii. Someone was smart enough to ask “Why?”
iii. The rapid deterioration was due to the overly-frequent washing of the
stones.
iv. Why were we washing the stones so often?
v. Pigeons were leaving a huge quantity of “droppings” on the stones. For
health, safety, and cosmetic reasons, the stones thus had to be frequently
washed.
vi. Why so many droppings?

MKT 513: Marketing Administration
vii. The pigeons were there to eat the excess population of spiders.
viii. Why so many spiders?
ix. They were there to eat the huge population of moths.
x. Why so many moths?
xi. Someone was turning the lights on 2 hours prior to dusk (which just happens
to be the prime breeding time for moths). This was the ACTUAL problem.
xii. Turning the lights on 2 hours later (at dusk), reduced the number of moths.
xiii. Fewer moths led to fewer spiders.
xiv. Without such a large food supply, fewer pigeons left fewer droppings on
the stones.
xv. Fewer droppings on the stones allowed the stones to be washed less
frequently.
xvi. Less frequent washing slowed the deterioration of the stones.
xvii. So, the solution to the issue of rapidly deteriorating stones at the Memorial
to our 3rd president (and author of the Declaration of Independence), was to
flip a light switch on at the proper time of day!