Altis Case Study

Introduction

Case studies bring real-world situations into the classroom. They are designed to immerse you into a situation and put you in the position of making some decisions. Management is about decision-making and case studies are a good way of assessing your comfort level with making decisions with limited information and under pressure. You need to think carefully about risks, costs, returns and timing.

Your first reaction after reading a case study might be a feeling of being overwhelmed. After reading the case again you might start to wonder whether there is enough information to make a decision. Don’t despair. Cases are written to give you a real sense of the information available to the people in the case and why decisions need to be made quickly. There are no right or wrong answers to case studies. They are an opportunity to apply what you’ve learned in this class and previous classes, use critical thinking and demonstrate your analytical and decision-making skills.

Some advice for tackling this case study: 1) Read the case thoroughly, including the appendices/exhibits which contain many details necessary to make your arguments; 2) identify the central business issues from the more trivial ones; 3) identify overarching strategies rather than details; 4) identify the constraints of the situation; 5) identify all the possible courses of action; 6) evaluate each of the alternatives in light of the available information in the case and 7) make recommendations based on your evaluation. You do not need to do any research beyond the information included in the case study – please do not add information about the company outside the case study. More general information on how to approach a case study is available from these websites:

Details

Reflecting on the material we have covered this semester:

1. Download and read the Altis case study (under Course Content->Week12). Read it again and take notes based on the advice above.
2. Write a paper, at least 6 pages but no longer than 8 pages, answering the following questions:
   • What are your recommendations for the company? Please compare all the options open to the company using quantitative and qualitative details from the case study and evaluate their advantages and disadvantages before making your recommendation. Think about costs, possible risks, and the return on investment (ROI).
   • What are your recommendations regarding Altis’s plan to expand to an overseas market? Please compare all the options open to the company using quantitative and qualitative details from the case study (do not overlook the exhibits) and evaluate their advantages and disadvantages before making your recommendation.
   • How would you justify your recommendations to would-be investors in the company? Identify the details from the case that investors are most likely to be interested in. Propose additional recommendations Altis could make entice more potential investors.
   • What is/are your recommendation(s) regarding Altis’s long-term strategic direction? What could the company look like in 10 years from the time of the case study? Describe the current strategies the company could pursue now, that could influence its future directions.
3. Edit your paper – you do not need to reiterate the scenario, or facts from the case study unless you are using them to support your argument; please make sure that you clearly answer each of the questions – you will not get any credit for details not relevant to these questions; please support your arguments with quantitative and qualitative information from the case, do not overlook the exhibits at the end and be prepared to analyze numbers into other key parameters; do not jump to conclusions – think about the ladder of inference; don’t forget to thinking about the business concepts we have learned about this semester and the distinction between sound business decisions and keeping one set of stakeholders “happy”! Please remember to use the assignment format as described in the syllabus and APA style.

Grading Rubric

What: 1 case study assignment posted in your Assignments Folder. The paper should be no more than 8 pages in length and use APA format. Your response to each question should be clear and in the form of prose.