business case study types

How to Write a Case Study: Bookmarkable Guide & Template

Published: November 30, 2023

Earning the trust of prospective customers can be a struggle. Before you can even begin to expect to earn their business, you need to demonstrate your ability to deliver on what your product or service promises.

Sure, you could say that you're great at X or that you're way ahead of the competition when it comes to Y. But at the end of the day, what you really need to win new business is cold, hard proof.

One of the best ways to prove your worth is through a compelling case study. In fact, HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing report found that case studies are so compelling that they are the fifth most commonly used type of content used by marketers.

Below, I'll walk you through what a case study is, how to prepare for writing one, what you need to include in it, and how it can be an effective tactic. To jump to different areas of this post, click on the links below to automatically scroll.

Case Study Definition

Case study templates, how to write a case study.

• How to Format a Case Study

Business Case Study Examples

A case study is a specific challenge a business has faced, and the solution they've chosen to solve it. Case studies can vary greatly in length and focus on several details related to the initial challenge and applied solution, and can be presented in various forms like a video, white paper, blog post, etc.

In professional settings, it's common for a case study to tell the story of a successful business partnership between a vendor and a client. Perhaps the success you're highlighting is in the number of leads your client generated, customers closed, or revenue gained. Any one of these key performance indicators (KPIs) are examples of your company's services in action.

When done correctly, these examples of your work can chronicle the positive impact your business has on existing or previous customers and help you attract new clients.

Free Case Study Templates

Showcase your company's success using these three free case study templates.

• Data-Driven Case Study Template
• Product-Specific Case Study Template
• General Case Study Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why write a case study? 

I know, you’re thinking “ Okay, but why do I need to write one of these? ” The truth is that while case studies are a huge undertaking, they are powerful marketing tools that allow you to demonstrate the value of your product to potential customers using real-world examples. Here are a few reasons why you should write case studies. 

1. Explain Complex Topics or Concepts

Case studies give you the space to break down complex concepts, ideas, and strategies and show how they can be applied in a practical way. You can use real-world examples, like an existing client, and use their story to create a compelling narrative that shows how your product solved their issue and how those strategies can be repeated to help other customers get similar successful results.  

2. Show Expertise

Case studies are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on a given topic or industry. This is where you get the opportunity to show off your problem-solving skills and how you’ve generated successful outcomes for clients you’ve worked with. 

3. Build Trust and Credibility

In addition to showing off the attributes above, case studies are an excellent way to build credibility. They’re often filled with data and thoroughly researched, which shows readers you’ve done your homework. They can have confidence in the solutions you’ve presented because they’ve read through as you’ve explained the problem and outlined step-by-step what it took to solve it. All of these elements working together enable you to build trust with potential customers.

4. Create Social Proof

Using existing clients that have seen success working with your brand builds social proof . People are more likely to choose your brand if they know that others have found success working with you. Case studies do just that — putting your success on display for potential customers to see. 

All of these attributes work together to help you gain more clients. Plus you can even use quotes from customers featured in these studies and repurpose them in other marketing content. Now that you know more about the benefits of producing a case study, let’s check out how long these documents should be. 

How long should a case study be?

The length of a case study will vary depending on the complexity of the project or topic discussed. However, as a general guideline, case studies typically range from 500 to 1,500 words. 

Whatever length you choose, it should provide a clear understanding of the challenge, the solution you implemented, and the results achieved. This may be easier said than done, but it's important to strike a balance between providing enough detail to make the case study informative and concise enough to keep the reader's interest.

The primary goal here is to effectively communicate the key points and takeaways of the case study. It’s worth noting that this shouldn’t be a wall of text. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, charts, and other graphics to break up the content and make it more scannable for readers. We’ve also seen brands incorporate video elements into case studies listed on their site for a more engaging experience. 

Ultimately, the length of your case study should be determined by the amount of information necessary to convey the story and its impact without becoming too long. Next, let’s look at some templates to take the guesswork out of creating one. 

To help you arm your prospects with information they can trust, we've put together a step-by-step guide on how to create effective case studies for your business with free case study templates for creating your own.

Tell us a little about yourself below to gain access today:

And to give you more options, we’ll highlight some useful templates that serve different needs. But remember, there are endless possibilities when it comes to demonstrating the work your business has done.

1. General Case Study Template

Do you have a specific product or service that you’re trying to sell, but not enough reviews or success stories? This Product Specific case study template will help.

This template relies less on metrics, and more on highlighting the customer’s experience and satisfaction. As you follow the template instructions, you’ll be prompted to speak more about the benefits of the specific product, rather than your team’s process for working with the customer.

4. Bold Social Media Business Case Study Template

You can find templates that represent different niches, industries, or strategies that your business has found success in — like a bold social media business case study template.

In this template, you can tell the story of how your social media marketing strategy has helped you or your client through collaboration or sale of your service. Customize it to reflect the different marketing channels used in your business and show off how well your business has been able to boost traffic, engagement, follows, and more.

5. Lead Generation Business Case Study Template

It’s important to note that not every case study has to be the product of a sale or customer story, sometimes they can be informative lessons that your own business has experienced. A great example of this is the Lead Generation Business case study template.

If you’re looking to share operational successes regarding how your team has improved processes or content, you should include the stories of different team members involved, how the solution was found, and how it has made a difference in the work your business does.

Now that we’ve discussed different templates and ideas for how to use them, let’s break down how to create your own case study with one.

• Get started with case study templates.
• Determine the case study's objective.
• Establish a case study medium.
• Find the right case study candidate.
• Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.
• Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.
• Download a case study email template.
• Define the process you want to follow with the client.
• Ensure you're asking the right questions.
• Layout your case study format.
• Publish and promote your case study.

1. Get started with case study templates.

Telling your customer's story is a delicate process — you need to highlight their success while naturally incorporating your business into their story.

If you're just getting started with case studies, we recommend you download HubSpot's Case Study Templates we mentioned before to kickstart the process.

2. Determine the case study's objective.

All business case studies are designed to demonstrate the value of your services, but they can focus on several different client objectives.

Your first step when writing a case study is to determine the objective or goal of the subject you're featuring. In other words, what will the client have succeeded in doing by the end of the piece?

The client objective you focus on will depend on what you want to prove to your future customers as a result of publishing this case study.

Your case study can focus on one of the following client objectives:

• Complying with government regulation
• Lowering business costs
• Becoming profitable
• Generating more leads
• Closing on more customers
• Generating more revenue
• Expanding into a new market
• Becoming more sustainable or energy-efficient

3. Establish a case study medium.

Next, you'll determine the medium in which you'll create the case study. In other words, how will you tell this story?

Case studies don't have to be simple, written one-pagers. Using different media in your case study can allow you to promote your final piece on different channels. For example, while a written case study might just live on your website and get featured in a Facebook post, you can post an infographic case study on Pinterest and a video case study on your YouTube channel.

Here are some different case study mediums to consider:

Written Case Study

Consider writing this case study in the form of an ebook and converting it to a downloadable PDF. Then, gate the PDF behind a landing page and form for readers to fill out before downloading the piece, allowing this case study to generate leads for your business.

Video Case Study

Plan on meeting with the client and shooting an interview. Seeing the subject, in person, talk about the service you provided them can go a long way in the eyes of your potential customers.

Infographic Case Study

Use the long, vertical format of an infographic to tell your success story from top to bottom. As you progress down the infographic, emphasize major KPIs using bigger text and charts that show the successes your client has had since working with you.

Podcast Case Study

Podcasts are a platform for you to have a candid conversation with your client. This type of case study can sound more real and human to your audience — they'll know the partnership between you and your client was a genuine success.

4. Find the right case study candidate.

Writing about your previous projects requires more than picking a client and telling a story. You need permission, quotes, and a plan. To start, here are a few things to look for in potential candidates.

Product Knowledge

It helps to select a customer who's well-versed in the logistics of your product or service. That way, he or she can better speak to the value of what you offer in a way that makes sense for future customers.

Remarkable Results

Clients that have seen the best results are going to make the strongest case studies. If their own businesses have seen an exemplary ROI from your product or service, they're more likely to convey the enthusiasm that you want prospects to feel, too.

One part of this step is to choose clients who have experienced unexpected success from your product or service. When you've provided non-traditional customers — in industries that you don't usually work with, for example — with positive results, it can help to remove doubts from prospects.

Recognizable Names

While small companies can have powerful stories, bigger or more notable brands tend to lend credibility to your own. In fact, 89% of consumers say they'll buy from a brand they already recognize over a competitor, especially if they already follow them on social media.

Customers that came to you after working with a competitor help highlight your competitive advantage and might even sway decisions in your favor.

5. Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.

To get the case study candidate involved, you have to set the stage for clear and open communication. That means outlining expectations and a timeline right away — not having those is one of the biggest culprits in delayed case study creation.

Most importantly at this point, however, is getting your subject's approval. When first reaching out to your case study candidate, provide them with the case study's objective and format — both of which you will have come up with in the first two steps above.

To get this initial permission from your subject, put yourself in their shoes — what would they want out of this case study? Although you're writing this for your own company's benefit, your subject is far more interested in the benefit it has for them.

Benefits to Offer Your Case Study Candidate

Here are four potential benefits you can promise your case study candidate to gain their approval.

Brand Exposure

Explain to your subject to whom this case study will be exposed, and how this exposure can help increase their brand awareness both in and beyond their own industry. In the B2B sector, brand awareness can be hard to collect outside one's own market, making case studies particularly useful to a client looking to expand their name's reach.

Employee Exposure

Allow your subject to provide quotes with credits back to specific employees. When this is an option for them, their brand isn't the only thing expanding its reach — their employees can get their name out there, too. This presents your subject with networking and career development opportunities they might not have otherwise.

Product Discount

This is a more tangible incentive you can offer your case study candidate, especially if they're a current customer of yours. If they agree to be your subject, offer them a product discount — or a free trial of another product — as a thank-you for their help creating your case study.

Backlinks and Website Traffic

Here's a benefit that is sure to resonate with your subject's marketing team: If you publish your case study on your website, and your study links back to your subject's website — known as a "backlink" — this small gesture can give them website traffic from visitors who click through to your subject's website.

Additionally, a backlink from you increases your subject's page authority in the eyes of Google. This helps them rank more highly in search engine results and collect traffic from readers who are already looking for information about their industry.

6. Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.

So you know what you’re going to offer your candidate, it’s time that you prepare the resources needed for if and when they agree to participate, like a case study release form and success story letter.

Let's break those two down.

Case Study Release Form

This document can vary, depending on factors like the size of your business, the nature of your work, and what you intend to do with the case studies once they are completed. That said, you should typically aim to include the following in the Case Study Release Form:

• A clear explanation of why you are creating this case study and how it will be used.
• A statement defining the information and potentially trademarked information you expect to include about the company — things like names, logos, job titles, and pictures.
• An explanation of what you expect from the participant, beyond the completion of the case study. For example, is this customer willing to act as a reference or share feedback, and do you have permission to pass contact information along for these purposes?
• A note about compensation.

Success Story Letter

As noted in the sample email, this document serves as an outline for the entire case study process. Other than a brief explanation of how the customer will benefit from case study participation, you'll want to be sure to define the following steps in the Success Story Letter.

7. Download a case study email template.

While you gathered your resources, your candidate has gotten time to read over the proposal. When your candidate approves of your case study, it's time to send them a release form.

A case study release form tells you what you'll need from your chosen subject, like permission to use any brand names and share the project information publicly. Kick-off this process with an email that runs through exactly what they can expect from you, as well as what you need from them. To give you an idea of what that might look like, check out this sample email:

8. Define the process you want to follow with the client.

Before you can begin the case study, you have to have a clear outline of the case study process with your client. An example of an effective outline would include the following information.

The Acceptance

First, you'll need to receive internal approval from the company's marketing team. Once approved, the Release Form should be signed and returned to you. It's also a good time to determine a timeline that meets the needs and capabilities of both teams.

The Questionnaire

To ensure that you have a productive interview — which is one of the best ways to collect information for the case study — you'll want to ask the participant to complete a questionnaire before this conversation. That will provide your team with the necessary foundation to organize the interview, and get the most out of it.

The Interview

Once the questionnaire is completed, someone on your team should reach out to the participant to schedule a 30- to 60-minute interview, which should include a series of custom questions related to the customer's experience with your product or service.

The Draft Review

After the case study is composed, you'll want to send a draft to the customer, allowing an opportunity to give you feedback and edits.

The Final Approval

Once any necessary edits are completed, send a revised copy of the case study to the customer for final approval.

Once the case study goes live — on your website or elsewhere — it's best to contact the customer with a link to the page where the case study lives. Don't be afraid to ask your participants to share these links with their own networks, as it not only demonstrates your ability to deliver positive results and impressive growth, as well.

9. Ensure you're asking the right questions.

Before you execute the questionnaire and actual interview, make sure you're setting yourself up for success. A strong case study results from being prepared to ask the right questions. What do those look like? Here are a few examples to get you started:

• What are your goals?
• What challenges were you experiencing before purchasing our product or service?
• What made our product or service stand out against our competitors?
• What did your decision-making process look like?
• How have you benefited from using our product or service? (Where applicable, always ask for data.)

Keep in mind that the questionnaire is designed to help you gain insights into what sort of strong, success-focused questions to ask during the actual interview. And once you get to that stage, we recommend that you follow the "Golden Rule of Interviewing." Sounds fancy, right? It's actually quite simple — ask open-ended questions.

If you're looking to craft a compelling story, "yes" or "no" answers won't provide the details you need. Focus on questions that invite elaboration, such as, "Can you describe ...?" or, "Tell me about ..."

In terms of the interview structure, we recommend categorizing the questions and flowing them into six specific sections that will mirror a successful case study format. Combined, they'll allow you to gather enough information to put together a rich, comprehensive study.

Open with the customer's business.

The goal of this section is to generate a better understanding of the company's current challenges and goals, and how they fit into the landscape of their industry. Sample questions might include:

• How long have you been in business?
• How many employees do you have?
• What are some of the objectives of your department at this time?

Cite a problem or pain point.

To tell a compelling story, you need context. That helps match the customer's need with your solution. Sample questions might include:

• What challenges and objectives led you to look for a solution?
• What might have happened if you did not identify a solution?
• Did you explore other solutions before this that did not work out? If so, what happened?

Discuss the decision process.

Exploring how the customer decided to work with you helps to guide potential customers through their own decision-making processes. Sample questions might include:

• How did you hear about our product or service?
• Who was involved in the selection process?
• What was most important to you when evaluating your options?

Explain how a solution was implemented.

The focus here should be placed on the customer's experience during the onboarding process. Sample questions might include:

• How long did it take to get up and running?
• Did that meet your expectations?
• Who was involved in the process?

Explain how the solution works.

The goal of this section is to better understand how the customer is using your product or service. Sample questions might include:

• Is there a particular aspect of the product or service that you rely on most?
• Who is using the product or service?

End with the results.

In this section, you want to uncover impressive measurable outcomes — the more numbers, the better. Sample questions might include:

• How is the product or service helping you save time and increase productivity?
• In what ways does that enhance your competitive advantage?
• How much have you increased metrics X, Y, and Z?

10. Lay out your case study format.

When it comes time to take all of the information you've collected and actually turn it into something, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Where should you start? What should you include? What's the best way to structure it?

To help you get a handle on this step, it's important to first understand that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the ways you can present a case study. They can be very visual, which you'll see in some of the examples we've included below, and can sometimes be communicated mostly through video or photos, with a bit of accompanying text.

Here are the sections we suggest, which we'll cover in more detail down below:

• Title: Keep it short. Develop a succinct but interesting project name you can give the work you did with your subject.
• Subtitle: Use this copy to briefly elaborate on the accomplishment. What was done? The case study itself will explain how you got there.
• Executive Summary : A 2-4 sentence summary of the entire story. You'll want to follow it with 2-3 bullet points that display metrics showcasing success.
• About the Subject: An introduction to the person or company you served, which can be pulled from a LinkedIn Business profile or client website.
• Challenges and Objectives: A 2-3 paragraph description of the customer's challenges, before using your product or service. This section should also include the goals or objectives the customer set out to achieve.
• How Product/Service Helped: A 2-3 paragraph section that describes how your product or service provided a solution to their problem.
• Results: A 2-3 paragraph testimonial that proves how your product or service specifically benefited the person or company and helped achieve its goals. Include numbers to quantify your contributions.
• Supporting Visuals or Quotes: Pick one or two powerful quotes that you would feature at the bottom of the sections above, as well as a visual that supports the story you are telling.
• Future Plans: Everyone likes an epilogue. Comment on what's ahead for your case study subject, whether or not those plans involve you.
• Call to Action (CTA): Not every case study needs a CTA, but putting a passive one at the end of your case study can encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

When laying out your case study, focus on conveying the information you've gathered in the most clear and concise way possible. Make it easy to scan and comprehend, and be sure to provide an attractive call-to-action at the bottom — that should provide readers an opportunity to learn more about your product or service.

11. Publish and promote your case study.

Once you've completed your case study, it's time to publish and promote it. Some case study formats have pretty obvious promotional outlets — a video case study can go on YouTube, just as an infographic case study can go on Pinterest.

But there are still other ways to publish and promote your case study. Here are a couple of ideas:

Lead Gen in a Blog Post

As stated earlier in this article, written case studies make terrific lead-generators if you convert them into a downloadable format, like a PDF. To generate leads from your case study, consider writing a blog post that tells an abbreviated story of your client's success and asking readers to fill out a form with their name and email address if they'd like to read the rest in your PDF.

Then, promote this blog post on social media, through a Facebook post or a tweet.

Published as a Page on Your Website

As a growing business, you might need to display your case study out in the open to gain the trust of your target audience.

Rather than gating it behind a landing page, publish your case study to its own page on your website, and direct people here from your homepage with a "Case Studies" or "Testimonials" button along your homepage's top navigation bar.

Format for a Case Study

The traditional case study format includes the following parts: a title and subtitle, a client profile, a summary of the customer’s challenges and objectives, an account of how your solution helped, and a description of the results. You might also want to include supporting visuals and quotes, future plans, and calls-to-action.

Image Source

The title is one of the most important parts of your case study. It should draw readers in while succinctly describing the potential benefits of working with your company. To that end, your title should:

• State the name of your custome r. Right away, the reader must learn which company used your products and services. This is especially important if your customer has a recognizable brand. If you work with individuals and not companies, you may omit the name and go with professional titles: “A Marketer…”, “A CFO…”, and so forth.
• State which product your customer used . Even if you only offer one product or service, or if your company name is the same as your product name, you should still include the name of your solution. That way, readers who are not familiar with your business can become aware of what you sell.
• Allude to the results achieved . You don’t necessarily need to provide hard numbers, but the title needs to represent the benefits, quickly. That way, if a reader doesn’t stay to read, they can walk away with the most essential information: Your product works.

The example above, “Crunch Fitness Increases Leads and Signups With HubSpot,” achieves all three — without being wordy. Keeping your title short and sweet is also essential.

2. Subtitle

Your subtitle is another essential part of your case study — don’t skip it, even if you think you’ve done the work with the title. In this section, include a brief summary of the challenges your customer was facing before they began to use your products and services. Then, drive the point home by reiterating the benefits your customer experienced by working with you.

The above example reads:

“Crunch Fitness was franchising rapidly when COVID-19 forced fitness clubs around the world to close their doors. But the company stayed agile by using HubSpot to increase leads and free trial signups.”

We like that the case study team expressed the urgency of the problem — opening more locations in the midst of a pandemic — and placed the focus on the customer’s ability to stay agile.

3. Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide a snapshot of your customer, their challenges, and the benefits they enjoyed from working with you. Think it’s too much? Think again — the purpose of the case study is to emphasize, again and again, how well your product works.

The good news is that depending on your design, the executive summary can be mixed with the subtitle or with the “About the Company” section. Many times, this section doesn’t need an explicit “Executive Summary” subheading. You do need, however, to provide a convenient snapshot for readers to scan.

In the above example, ADP included information about its customer in a scannable bullet-point format, then provided two sections: “Business Challenge” and “How ADP Helped.” We love how simple and easy the format is to follow for those who are unfamiliar with ADP or its typical customer.

4. About the Company

Readers need to know and understand who your customer is. This is important for several reasons: It helps your reader potentially relate to your customer, it defines your ideal client profile (which is essential to deter poor-fit prospects who might have reached out without knowing they were a poor fit), and it gives your customer an indirect boon by subtly promoting their products and services.

Feel free to keep this section as simple as possible. You can simply copy and paste information from the company’s LinkedIn, use a quote directly from your customer, or take a more creative storytelling approach.

In the above example, HubSpot included one paragraph of description for Crunch Fitness and a few bullet points. Below, ADP tells the story of its customer using an engaging, personable technique that effectively draws readers in.

5. Challenges and Objectives

The challenges and objectives section of your case study is the place to lay out, in detail, the difficulties your customer faced prior to working with you — and what they hoped to achieve when they enlisted your help.

In this section, you can be as brief or as descriptive as you’d like, but remember: Stress the urgency of the situation. Don’t understate how much your customer needed your solution (but don’t exaggerate and lie, either). Provide contextual information as necessary. For instance, the pandemic and societal factors may have contributed to the urgency of the need.

Take the above example from design consultancy IDEO:

“Educational opportunities for adults have become difficult to access in the United States, just when they’re needed most. To counter this trend, IDEO helped the city of South Bend and the Drucker Institute launch Bendable, a community-powered platform that connects people with opportunities to learn with and from each other.”

We love how IDEO mentions the difficulties the United States faces at large, the efforts its customer is taking to address these issues, and the steps IDEO took to help.

6. How Product/Service Helped

This is where you get your product or service to shine. Cover the specific benefits that your customer enjoyed and the features they gleaned the most use out of. You can also go into detail about how you worked with and for your customer. Maybe you met several times before choosing the right solution, or you consulted with external agencies to create the best package for them.

Whatever the case may be, try to illustrate how easy and pain-free it is to work with the representatives at your company. After all, potential customers aren’t looking to just purchase a product. They’re looking for a dependable provider that will strive to exceed their expectations.

In the above example, IDEO describes how it partnered with research institutes and spoke with learners to create Bendable, a free educational platform. We love how it shows its proactivity and thoroughness. It makes potential customers feel that IDEO might do something similar for them.

The results are essential, and the best part is that you don’t need to write the entirety of the case study before sharing them. Like HubSpot, IDEO, and ADP, you can include the results right below the subtitle or executive summary. Use data and numbers to substantiate the success of your efforts, but if you don’t have numbers, you can provide quotes from your customers.

We can’t overstate the importance of the results. In fact, if you wanted to create a short case study, you could include your title, challenge, solution (how your product helped), and result.

8. Supporting Visuals or Quotes

Let your customer speak for themselves by including quotes from the representatives who directly interfaced with your company.

Visuals can also help, even if they’re stock images. On one side, they can help you convey your customer’s industry, and on the other, they can indirectly convey your successes. For instance, a picture of a happy professional — even if they’re not your customer — will communicate that your product can lead to a happy client.

In this example from IDEO, we see a man standing in a boat. IDEO’s customer is neither the man pictured nor the manufacturer of the boat, but rather Conservation International, an environmental organization. This imagery provides a visually pleasing pattern interrupt to the page, while still conveying what the case study is about.

9. Future Plans

This is optional, but including future plans can help you close on a more positive, personable note than if you were to simply include a quote or the results. In this space, you can show that your product will remain in your customer’s tech stack for years to come, or that your services will continue to be instrumental to your customer’s success.

Alternatively, if you work only on time-bound projects, you can allude to the positive impact your customer will continue to see, even after years of the end of the contract.

10. Call to Action (CTA)

Not every case study needs a CTA, but we’d still encourage it. Putting one at the end of your case study will encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

It will also make it easier for them to reach out, if they’re ready to start immediately. You don’t want to lose business just because they have to scroll all the way back up to reach out to your team.

To help you visualize this case study outline, check out the case study template below, which can also be downloaded here .

You drove the results, made the connection, set the expectations, used the questionnaire to conduct a successful interview, and boiled down your findings into a compelling story. And after all of that, you're left with a little piece of sales enabling gold — a case study.

To show you what a well-executed final product looks like, have a look at some of these marketing case study examples.

1. "Shopify Uses HubSpot CRM to Transform High Volume Sales Organization," by HubSpot

What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. This reflects a major HubSpot value, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why Shopify uses HubSpot and is accompanied by a short video and some basic statistics on the company.

Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it's elaborated upon in the additional text on the page. So, while case studies can use one or the other, don't be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project's success.

2. "New England Journal of Medicine," by Corey McPherson Nash

When branding and design studio Corey McPherson Nash showcases its work, it makes sense for it to be visual — after all, that's what they do. So in building the case study for the studio's work on the New England Journal of Medicine's integrated advertising campaign — a project that included the goal of promoting the client's digital presence — Corey McPherson Nash showed its audience what it did, rather than purely telling it.

Notice that the case study does include some light written copy — which includes the major points we've suggested — but lets the visuals do the talking, allowing users to really absorb the studio's services.

3. "Designing the Future of Urban Farming," by IDEO

Here's a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, he or she is greeted with a big, bold photo, and two very simple columns of text — "The Challenge" and "The Outcome."

Immediately, IDEO has communicated two of the case study's major pillars. And while that's great — the company created a solution for vertical farming startup INFARM's challenge — it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, those pillars are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and additional visuals.

4. "Secure Wi-Fi Wins Big for Tournament," by WatchGuard

Then, there are the cases when visuals can tell almost the entire story — when executed correctly. Network security provider WatchGuard can do that through this video, which tells the story of how its services enhanced the attendee and vendor experience at the Windmill Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

5. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Boosts Social Media Engagement and Brand Awareness with HubSpot

In the case study above , HubSpot uses photos, videos, screenshots, and helpful stats to tell the story of how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used the bot, CRM, and social media tools to gain brand awareness.

6. Small Desk Plant Business Ups Sales by 30% With Trello

This case study from Trello is straightforward and easy to understand. It begins by explaining the background of the company that decided to use it, what its goals were, and how it planned to use Trello to help them.

It then goes on to discuss how the software was implemented and what tasks and teams benefited from it. Towards the end, it explains the sales results that came from implementing the software and includes quotes from decision-makers at the company that implemented it.

7. Facebook's Mercedes Benz Success Story

Facebook's Success Stories page hosts a number of well-designed and easy-to-understand case studies that visually and editorially get to the bottom line quickly.

Each study begins with key stats that draw the reader in. Then it's organized by highlighting a problem or goal in the introduction, the process the company took to reach its goals, and the results. Then, in the end, Facebook notes the tools used in the case study.

Showcasing Your Work

You work hard at what you do. Now, it's time to show it to the world — and, perhaps more important, to potential customers. Before you show off the projects that make you the proudest, we hope you follow these important steps that will help you effectively communicate that work and leave all parties feeling good about it.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in February 2017 but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in July 2021.

Don't forget to share this post!

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What Is a Case Study and Why You Should Use Them

Case studies can provide more insights into your business while helping you conduct further research with robust qualitative data analysis to learn more.

If you're in charge of running a company, then you're likely always looking for new ways to run your business more efficiently and increase your customer base while streamlining as many processes as possible.

Unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult to determine how to go about implementing the proper program in order to be successful. This is why many business owners opt to conduct a case study, which can help significantly. Whether you've been struggling with brand consistency or some other problem, the right case study can identify why your problem exists as well as provide a way to rectify it.

A case study is a great tool that many businesses aren't even aware exists, and there are marketing experts like Mailchimp who can provide you with step-by-step assistance with implementing a plan with a case study. Many companies discover that not only do they need to start a blog in order to improve business, but they also need to create specific and relevant blog titles.

If your company already has a blog, then optimizing your blog posts may be helpful. Regardless of the obstacles that are preventing you from achieving all your professional goals, a case study can work wonders in helping you reverse this issue.

What is a case study?

A case study is a comprehensive report of the results of theory testing or examining emerging themes of a business in real life context. Case studies are also often used in the healthcare industry, conducting health services research with primary research interest around routinely collected healthcare data.

However, for businesses, the purpose of a case study is to help small business owners or company leaders identify the issues and conduct further research into what may be preventing success through information collection, client or customer interviews, and in-depth data analysis.

Knowing the case study definition is crucial for any business owner. By identifying the issues that are hindering a company from achieving all its goals, it's easier to make the necessary corrections to promote success through influenced data collection.

Why are case studies important?

Now that we've answered the questions, "what is a case study?" Why are case studies important? Some of the top reasons why case studies are important include:

• Understand complex issues: Even after you conduct a significant amount of market research , you might have a difficult time understanding exactly what it means. While you might have the basics down, conducting a case study can help you see how that information is applied. Then, when you see how the information can make a difference in business decisions, it could make it easier to understand complex issues.
• Collect data: A case study can also help with data tracking . A case study is a data collection method that can help you describe the information that you have available to you. Then, you can present that information in a way the reader can understand.
• Conduct evaluations: As you learn more about how to write a case study, remember that you can also use a case study to conduct evaluations of a specific situation. A case study is a great way to learn more about complex situations, and you can evaluate how various people responded in that situation. By conducting a case study evaluation, you can learn more about what has worked well, what has not, and what you might want to change in the future.
• Identify potential solutions: A case study can also help you identify solutions to potential problems. If you have an issue in your business that you are trying to solve, you may be able to take a look at a case study where someone has dealt with a similar situation in the past. For example, you may uncover data bias in a specific solution that you would like to address when you tackle the issue on your own. If you need help solving a difficult problem, a case study may be able to help you.

Remember that you can also use case studies to target your audience . If you want to show your audience that you have a significant level of expertise in a field, you may want to publish some case studies that you have handled in the past. Then, when your audience sees that you have had success in a specific area, they may be more likely to provide you with their business. In essence, case studies can be looked at as the original method of social proof, showcasing exactly how you can help someone solve their problems.

What are the benefits of writing a business case study?

Although writing a case study can seem like a tedious task, there are many benefits to conducting one through an in depth qualitative research process.

• Industry understanding: First of all, a case study can give you an in-depth understanding of your industry through a particular conceptual framework and help you identify hidden problems that are preventing you from transcending into the business world.
• Develop theories: If you decide to write a business case study, it provides you with an opportunity to develop new theories. You might have a theory about how to solve a specific problem, but you need to write a business case study to see exactly how that theory has unfolded in the past. Then, you can figure out if you want to apply your theory to a similar issue in the future.
• Evaluate interventions: When you write a business case study that focuses on a specific situation you have been through in the past, you can uncover whether that intervention was truly helpful. This can make it easier to figure out whether you want to use the same intervention in a similar situation in the future.
• Identify best practices: If you want to stay on top of the best practices in your field, conducting case studies can help by allowing you to identify patterns and trends and develop a new list of best practices that you can follow in the future.
• Versatility: Writing a case study also provides you with more versatility. If you want to expand your business applications, you need to figure out how you respond to various problems. When you run a business case study, you open the door to new opportunities, new applications, and new techniques that could help you make a difference in your business down the road.
• Solve problems: Writing a great case study can dramatically improve your chances of reversing your problem and improving your business.
• These are just a few of the biggest benefits you might experience if you decide to publish your case studies. They can be an effective tool for learning, showcasing your talents, and teaching some of your other employees. If you want to grow your audience , you may want to consider publishing some case studies.

What are the limitations of case studies?

Case studies can be a wonderful tool for any business of any size to use to gain an in-depth understanding of their clients, products, customers, or services, but there are limitations.

One limitation of case studies is the fact that, unless there are other recently published examples, there is nothing to compare them to since, most of the time, you are conducting a single, not multiple, case studies.

Another limitation is the fact that most case studies can lack scientific evidence.

Types of case studies

There are specific types of case studies to choose from, and each specific type will yield different results. Some case study types even overlap, which is sometimes more favorable, as they provide even more pertinent data.

Here are overviews of the different types of case studies, each with its own theoretical framework, so you can determine which type would be most effective for helping you meet your goals.

Explanatory case studies

Explanatory case studies are pretty straightforward, as they're not difficult to interpret. This type of case study is best if there aren't many variables involved because explanatory case studies can easily answer questions like "how" and "why" through theory development.

Exploratory case studies

An exploratory case study does exactly what its name implies: it goes into specific detail about the topic at hand in a natural, real-life context with qualitative research.

The benefits of exploratory case studies are limitless, with the main one being that it offers a great deal of flexibility. Having flexibility when writing a case study is important because you can't always predict what obstacles might arise during the qualitative research process.

Collective case studies

Collective case studies require you to study many different individuals in order to obtain usable data.

Case studies that involve an investigation of people will involve many different variables, all of which can't be predicted. Despite this fact, there are many benefits of collective case studies, including the fact that it allows an ongoing analysis of the data collected.

Intrinsic case studies

This type of study differs from the others as it focuses on the inquiry of one specific instance among many possibilities.

Many people prefer these types of case studies because it allows them to learn about the particular instance that they wish to investigate further.

Instrumental case studies

An instrumental case study is similar to an intrinsic one, as it focuses on a particular instance, whether it's a person, organization, or something different.

One thing that differentiates instrumental case studies from intrinsic ones is the fact that instrumental case studies aren't chosen merely because a person is interested in learning about a specific instance.

Tips for writing a case study

If you have decided to write case studies for your company, then you may be unsure of where to start or which type to conduct.

However, it doesn't have to be difficult or confusing to begin conducting a case study that will help you identify ways to improve your business.

Here are some helpful tips for writing your case studies:

1. Your case study must be written in the proper format

When writing a case study, the format that you should be similar to this:

Administrative summary

The executive summary is an overview of what your report will contain, written in a concise manner while providing real-life context.

Despite the fact that the executive summary should appear at the beginning of your case studies, it shouldn't be written until you've completed the entire report because if you write it before you finish the report, this summary may not be completely accurate.

Key problem statement

In this section of your case study, you will briefly describe the problem that you hope to solve by conducting the study. You will have the opportunity to elaborate on the problem that you're focusing on as you get into the breadth of the report.

Problem exploration

This part of the case study isn't as brief as the other two, and it goes into more detail about the problem at hand. Your problem exploration must include why the identified problem needs to be solved as well as the urgency of solving it.

Additionally, it must include justification for conducting the problem-solving, as the benefits must outweigh the efforts and costs.

Proposed resolution

This case study section will also be lengthier than the first two. It must include how you propose going about rectifying the problem. The "recommended solution" section must also include potential obstacles that you might experience, as well as how these will be managed.

Furthermore, you will need to list alternative solutions and explain the reason the chosen solution is best. Charts can enhance your report and make it easier to read, and provide as much proof to substantiate your claim as possible.

Overview of monetary consideration

An overview of monetary consideration is essential for all case studies, as it will be used to convince all involved parties why your project should be funded. You must successfully convince them that the cost is worth the investment it will require. It's important that you stress the necessity for this particular case study and explain the expected outcome.

Execution timeline

In the execution times of case studies, you explain how long you predict it will take to implement your study. The shorter the time it will take to implement your plan, the more apt it is to be approved. However, be sure to provide a reasonable timeline, taking into consideration any additional time that might be needed due to obstacles.

Always include a conclusion in your case study. This is where you will briefly wrap up your entire proposal, stressing the benefits of completing the data collection and data analysis in order to rectify your problem.

2. Make it clear and comprehensive

You want to write your case studies with as much clarity as possible so that every aspect of the report is understood. Be sure to double-check your grammar, spelling, punctuation, and more, as you don't want to submit a poorly-written document.

Not only would a poorly-written case study fail to prove that what you are trying to achieve is important, but it would also increase the chances that your report will be tossed aside and not taken seriously.

3. Don't rush through the process

Writing the perfect case study takes time and patience. Rushing could result in your forgetting to include information that is crucial to your entire study. Don't waste your time creating a study that simply isn't ready. Take the necessary time to perform all the research necessary to write the best case study possible.

Depending on the case study, conducting case study research could mean using qualitative methods, quantitative methods, or both. Qualitative research questions focus on non-numerical data, such as how people feel, their beliefs, their experiences, and so on.

Meanwhile, quantitative research questions focus on numerical or statistical data collection to explain causal links or get an in-depth picture.

It is also important to collect insightful and constructive feedback. This will help you better understand the outcome as well as any changes you need to make to future case studies. Consider using formal and informal ways to collect feedback to ensure that you get a range of opinions and perspectives.

4. Be confident in your theory development

While writing your case study or conducting your formal experimental investigation, you should have confidence in yourself and what you're proposing in your report. If you took the time to gather all the pertinent data collected to complete the report, don't second-guess yourself or doubt your abilities. If you believe your report will be amazing, then it likely will be.

5. Case studies and all qualitative research are long

It's expected that multiple case studies are going to be incredibly boring, and there is no way around this. However, it doesn't mean you can choose your language carefully in order to keep your audience as engaged as possible.

If your audience loses interest in your case study at the beginning, for whatever reason, then this increases the likelihood that your case study will not be funded.

Case study examples

If you want to learn more about how to write a case study, it might be beneficial to take a look at a few case study examples. Below are a few interesting case study examples you may want to take a closer look at.

• Phineas Gage by John Martin Marlow : One of the most famous case studies comes from the medical field, and it is about the story of Phineas Gage, a man who had a railroad spike driven through his head in 1848. As he was working on a railroad, an explosive charge went off prematurely, sending a railroad rod through his head. Even though he survived this incident, he lost his left eye. However, Phineas Gage was studied extensively over the years because his experiences had a significant, lasting impact on his personality. This served as a case study because his injury showed different parts of the brain have different functions.
• Kitty Genovese and the bystander effect : This is a tragic case study that discusses the murder of Kitty Genovese, a woman attacked and murdered in Queens, New York City. Shockingly, while numerous neighbors watched the scene, nobody called for help because they assumed someone else would. This case study helped to define the bystander effect, which is when a person fails to intervene during an emergency because other people are around.
• Henry Molaison and the study of memory : Henry Molaison lost his memory and suffered from debilitating amnesia. He suffered from childhood epilepsy, and medical professionals attempted to remove the part of his brain that was causing his seizures. He had a portion of his brain removed, but it completely took away his ability to hold memories. Even though he went on to live until the age of 82, he was always forced to live in the present moment, as he was completely unable to form new memories.

Case study FAQs

When should you do a case study.

There are several scenarios when conducting a case study can be beneficial. Case studies are often used when there's a "why" or "how" question that needs to be answered. Case studies are also beneficial when trying to understand a complex phenomenon, there's limited research on a topic, or when you're looking for practical solutions to a problem.

How can case study results be used to make business decisions?

You can use the results from a case study to make future business decisions if you find yourself in a similar situation. As you assess the results of a case study, you can identify best practices, evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention, generate new and creative ideas, or get a better understanding of customer needs.

How are case studies different from other research methodologies?

When compared to other research methodologies, such as experimental or qualitative research methodology, a case study does not require a representative sample. For example, if you are performing quantitative research, you have a lot of subjects that expand your sample size. If you are performing experimental research, you may have a random sample in front of you. A case study is usually designed to deliberately focus on unusual situations, which allows it to shed new light on a specific business research problem.

Writing multiple case studies for your business

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the idea of writing a case study and it seems completely foreign, then you aren't alone. Writing a case study for a business is a very big deal, but fortunately, there is help available because an example of a case study doesn't always help.

Mailchimp, a well-known marketing company that provides comprehensive marketing support for all sorts of businesses, can assist you with your case study, or you can review one of their own recently published examples.

Mailchimp can assist you with developing the most effective content strategy to increase your chances of being as successful as possible. Mailchimp's content studio is a great tool that can help your business immensely.

How to write a case study — examples, templates, and tools

It’s a marketer’s job to communicate the effectiveness of a product or service to potential and current customers to convince them to buy and keep business moving. One of the best methods for doing this is to share success stories that are relatable to prospects and customers based on their pain points, experiences, and overall needs.

That’s where case studies come in. Case studies are an essential part of a content marketing plan. These in-depth stories of customer experiences are some of the most effective at demonstrating the value of a product or service. Yet many marketers don’t use them, whether because of their regimented formats or the process of customer involvement and approval.

A case study is a powerful tool for showcasing your hard work and the success your customer achieved. But writing a great case study can be difficult if you’ve never done it before or if it’s been a while. This guide will show you how to write an effective case study and provide real-world examples and templates that will keep readers engaged and support your business.

In this article, you’ll learn:

What is a case study?

How to write a case study, case study templates, case study examples, case study tools.

A case study is the detailed story of a customer’s experience with a product or service that demonstrates their success and often includes measurable outcomes. Case studies are used in a range of fields and for various reasons, from business to academic research. They’re especially impactful in marketing as brands work to convince and convert consumers with relatable, real-world stories of actual customer experiences.

The best case studies tell the story of a customer’s success, including the steps they took, the results they achieved, and the support they received from a brand along the way. To write a great case study, you need to:

• Celebrate the customer and make them — not a product or service — the star of the story.
• Craft the story with specific audiences or target segments in mind so that the story of one customer will be viewed as relatable and actionable for another customer.
• Write copy that is easy to read and engaging so that readers will gain the insights and messages intended.
• Follow a standardized format that includes all of the essentials a potential customer would find interesting and useful.
• Support all of the claims for success made in the story with data in the forms of hard numbers and customer statements.

Case studies are a type of review but more in depth, aiming to show — rather than just tell — the positive experiences that customers have with a brand. Notably, 89% of consumers read reviews before deciding to buy, and 79% view case study content as part of their purchasing process. When it comes to B2B sales, 52% of buyers rank case studies as an important part of their evaluation process.

Telling a brand story through the experience of a tried-and-true customer matters. The story is relatable to potential new customers as they imagine themselves in the shoes of the company or individual featured in the case study. Showcasing previous customers can help new ones see themselves engaging with your brand in the ways that are most meaningful to them.

Besides sharing the perspective of another customer, case studies stand out from other content marketing forms because they are based on evidence. Whether pulling from client testimonials or data-driven results, case studies tend to have more impact on new business because the story contains information that is both objective (data) and subjective (customer experience) — and the brand doesn’t sound too self-promotional.

Case studies are unique in that there’s a fairly standardized format for telling a customer’s story. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for creativity. It’s all about making sure that teams are clear on the goals for the case study — along with strategies for supporting content and channels — and understanding how the story fits within the framework of the company’s overall marketing goals.

Here are the basic steps to writing a good case study.

1. Identify your goal

Start by defining exactly who your case study will be designed to help. Case studies are about specific instances where a company works with a customer to achieve a goal. Identify which customers are likely to have these goals, as well as other needs the story should cover to appeal to them.

The answer is often found in one of the buyer personas that have been constructed as part of your larger marketing strategy. This can include anything from new leads generated by the marketing team to long-term customers that are being pressed for cross-sell opportunities. In all of these cases, demonstrating value through a relatable customer success story can be part of the solution to conversion.

2. Choose your client or subject

Who you highlight matters. Case studies tie brands together that might otherwise not cross paths. A writer will want to ensure that the highlighted customer aligns with their own company’s brand identity and offerings. Look for a customer with positive name recognition who has had great success with a product or service and is willing to be an advocate.

The client should also match up with the identified target audience. Whichever company or individual is selected should be a reflection of other potential customers who can see themselves in similar circumstances, having the same problems and possible solutions.

Some of the most compelling case studies feature customers who:

• Switch from one product or service to another while naming competitors that missed the mark.
• Experience measurable results that are relatable to others in a specific industry.
• Represent well-known brands and recognizable names that are likely to compel action.
• Advocate for a product or service as a champion and are well-versed in its advantages.

Whoever or whatever customer is selected, marketers must ensure they have the permission of the company involved before getting started. Some brands have strict review and approval procedures for any official marketing or promotional materials that include their name. Acquiring those approvals in advance will prevent any miscommunication or wasted effort if there is an issue with their legal or compliance teams.

3. Conduct research and compile data

Substantiating the claims made in a case study — either by the marketing team or customers themselves — adds validity to the story. To do this, include data and feedback from the client that defines what success looks like. This can be anything from demonstrating return on investment (ROI) to a specific metric the customer was striving to improve. Case studies should prove how an outcome was achieved and show tangible results that indicate to the customer that your solution is the right one.

This step could also include customer interviews. Make sure that the people being interviewed are key stakeholders in the purchase decision or deployment and use of the product or service that is being highlighted. Content writers should work off a set list of questions prepared in advance. It can be helpful to share these with the interviewees beforehand so they have time to consider and craft their responses. One of the best interview tactics to keep in mind is to ask questions where yes and no are not natural answers. This way, your subject will provide more open-ended responses that produce more meaningful content.

4. Choose the right format

There are a number of different ways to format a case study. Depending on what you hope to achieve, one style will be better than another. However, there are some common elements to include, such as:

• An engaging headline
• A subject and customer introduction
• The unique challenge or challenges the customer faced
• The solution the customer used to solve the problem
• The results achieved
• Data and statistics to back up claims of success
• A strong call to action (CTA) to engage with the vendor

It’s also important to note that while case studies are traditionally written as stories, they don’t have to be in a written format. Some companies choose to get more creative with their case studies and produce multimedia content, depending on their audience and objectives. Case study formats can include traditional print stories, interactive web or social content, data-heavy infographics, professionally shot videos, podcasts, and more.

5. Write your case study

We’ll go into more detail later about how exactly to write a case study, including templates and examples. Generally speaking, though, there are a few things to keep in mind when writing your case study.

• Be clear and concise. Readers want to get to the point of the story quickly and easily, and they’ll be looking to see themselves reflected in the story right from the start.
• Provide a big picture. Always make sure to explain who the client is, their goals, and how they achieved success in a short introduction to engage the reader.
• Construct a clear narrative. Stick to the story from the perspective of the customer and what they needed to solve instead of just listing product features or benefits.
• Leverage graphics. Incorporating infographics, charts, and sidebars can be a more engaging and eye-catching way to share key statistics and data in readable ways.
• Offer the right amount of detail. Most case studies are one or two pages with clear sections that a reader can skim to find the information most important to them.
• Include data to support claims. Show real results — both facts and figures and customer quotes — to demonstrate credibility and prove the solution works.

6. Promote your story

Marketers have a number of options for distribution of a freshly minted case study. Many brands choose to publish case studies on their website and post them on social media. This can help support SEO and organic content strategies while also boosting company credibility and trust as visitors see that other businesses have used the product or service.

Marketers are always looking for quality content they can use for lead generation. Consider offering a case study as gated content behind a form on a landing page or as an offer in an email message. One great way to do this is to summarize the content and tease the full story available for download after the user takes an action.

Sales teams can also leverage case studies, so be sure they are aware that the assets exist once they’re published. Especially when it comes to larger B2B sales, companies often ask for examples of similar customer challenges that have been solved.

Now that you’ve learned a bit about case studies and what they should include, you may be wondering how to start creating great customer story content. Here are a couple of templates you can use to structure your case study.

Template 1 — Challenge-solution-result format

• Start with an engaging title. This should be fewer than 70 characters long for SEO best practices. One of the best ways to approach the title is to include the customer’s name and a hint at the challenge they overcame in the end.
• Create an introduction. Lead with an explanation as to who the customer is, the need they had, and the opportunity they found with a specific product or solution. Writers can also suggest the success the customer experienced with the solution they chose.
• Present the challenge. This should be several paragraphs long and explain the problem the customer faced and the issues they were trying to solve. Details should tie into the company’s products and services naturally. This section needs to be the most relatable to the reader so they can picture themselves in a similar situation.
• Share the solution. Explain which product or service offered was the ideal fit for the customer and why. Feel free to delve into their experience setting up, purchasing, and onboarding the solution.
• Explain the results. Demonstrate the impact of the solution they chose by backing up their positive experience with data. Fill in with customer quotes and tangible, measurable results that show the effect of their choice.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that invites readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to nurture them further in the marketing pipeline. What you ask of the reader should tie directly into the goals that were established for the case study in the first place.

Template 2 — Data-driven format

• Start with an engaging title. Be sure to include a statistic or data point in the first 70 characters. Again, it’s best to include the customer’s name as part of the title.
• Create an overview. Share the customer’s background and a short version of the challenge they faced. Present the reason a particular product or service was chosen, and feel free to include quotes from the customer about their selection process.
• Present data point 1. Isolate the first metric that the customer used to define success and explain how the product or solution helped to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 2. Isolate the second metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 3. Isolate the final metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Summarize the results. Reiterate the fact that the customer was able to achieve success thanks to a specific product or service. Include quotes and statements that reflect customer satisfaction and suggest they plan to continue using the solution.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that asks readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to further nurture them in the marketing pipeline. Again, remember that this is where marketers can look to convert their content into action with the customer.

While templates are helpful, seeing a case study in action can also be a great way to learn. Here are some examples of how Adobe customers have experienced success.

Juniper Networks

One example is the Adobe and Juniper Networks case study , which puts the reader in the customer’s shoes. The beginning of the story quickly orients the reader so that they know exactly who the article is about and what they were trying to achieve. Solutions are outlined in a way that shows Adobe Experience Manager is the best choice and a natural fit for the customer. Along the way, quotes from the client are incorporated to help add validity to the statements. The results in the case study are conveyed with clear evidence of scale and volume using tangible data.

The story of Lenovo’s journey with Adobe is one that spans years of planning, implementation, and rollout. The Lenovo case study does a great job of consolidating all of this into a relatable journey that other enterprise organizations can see themselves taking, despite the project size. This case study also features descriptive headers and compelling visual elements that engage the reader and strengthen the content.

Tata Consulting

When it comes to using data to show customer results, this case study does an excellent job of conveying details and numbers in an easy-to-digest manner. Bullet points at the start break up the content while also helping the reader understand exactly what the case study will be about. Tata Consulting used Adobe to deliver elevated, engaging content experiences for a large telecommunications client of its own — an objective that’s relatable for a lot of companies.

Case studies are a vital tool for any marketing team as they enable you to demonstrate the value of your company’s products and services to others. They help marketers do their job and add credibility to a brand trying to promote its solutions by using the experiences and stories of real customers.

When you’re ready to get started with a case study:

• Think about a few goals you’d like to accomplish with your content.
• Make a list of successful clients that would be strong candidates for a case study.
• Reach out to the client to get their approval and conduct an interview.
• Gather the data to present an engaging and effective customer story.

Adobe can help

There are several Adobe products that can help you craft compelling case studies. Adobe Experience Platform helps you collect data and deliver great customer experiences across every channel. Once you’ve created your case studies, Experience Platform will help you deliver the right information to the right customer at the right time for maximum impact.

To learn more, watch the Adobe Experience Platform story .

Keep in mind that the best case studies are backed by data. That’s where Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform and Adobe Analytics come into play. With Real-Time CDP, you can gather the data you need to build a great case study and target specific customers to deliver the content to the right audience at the perfect moment.

Watch the Real-Time CDP overview video to learn more.

Finally, Adobe Analytics turns real-time data into real-time insights. It helps your business collect and synthesize data from multiple platforms to make more informed decisions and create the best case study possible.

Request a demo to learn more about Adobe Analytics.

https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/b2b-ecommerce-10-case-studies-inspire-you

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/business-case

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/what-is-real-time-analytics

Case Study Format Types: Match Format with Business Goals

Explore the different case study format types and their unique strengths & weaknesses. Learn what to consider in our in-depth guide.

Dominika Krukowska

9 minute read

Short answer

What are the best case study formats.

4 best case study format types:

• Problem-solution case study
• Before-and-after case study
• Success story case study
• Interview style case study

Choosing the wrong case study format will fail to achieve your business goals.

The power of case studies lies not in the quality of information they provide but in how they're delivered.

You've put in a ton of work – collected the data, gathered customer testimonials, and analyzed the results, so why trip over at the finish line?

Failing in the delivery can mean most of your effort will go to waste.

The challenge lies in packaging your case study in a way that doesn't present dry facts but tells a compelling story from a credible source (preferably someone your reader sees as their peer).

This post will help you find the right case study format that matches your business goals, so you can deliver captivating stories that engage your audience, build trust, and drive results.

Let’s dive in!

How to choose the best case study format?

Choosing the right case study format isn’t a game of luck, but rather a strategic decision. The format you choose will dictate the flow of your narrative and ultimately, its reception and the impact it creates.

4 aspects to consider when choosing your case study format:

1. Identify your objective

Start by identifying what you aim to achieve with your case study.

Are you looking to demonstrate the effectiveness of your product? Or, maybe you're seeking to showcase a customer’s journey and transformation.

Your objectives will steer you toward a format that best communicates your intended message.

2. Understand your audience

Who are you writing for? Tech-savvy young professionals might appreciate a data-rich, problem-solution case study, while creative entrepreneurs may connect more with an inspiring success story.

Knowing your audience helps you to craft a case study that resonates with them.

3. Contextualize your case

What is the background of your case study? A before-and-after case study might be suitable if your product or service led to a significant transformation, while an interview-style case study works well when the customer's personal journey or experience is especially impactful.

4. Consider the storytelling element

Ultimately, your case study is a story – and a good story needs a captivating plot.

Choose a format that allows you to weave an engaging narrative. Whether it's the drama of problem-solving or the thrill of a success story, your case study should be as compelling as it is informative.

Our recommended story framework:

What are the main case study building blocks?

Creating a compelling case study is about crafting a narrative, not stitching together a sequence of events.

Your narrative must highlight the effectiveness of your product or service by telling a story of intrigue, transformation, and success.

7 building blocks of a compelling case study:

Introduction slide: The gateway to your narrative. Use this to provide context, briefly introduce the subject, and hint at the compelling story to follow.

Company overview slide: Shed light on the company, individual, or situation at the heart of your case study. This helps to paint a full picture for your readers.

Challenge/Problem slide: Bring forward the hurdle or issue that your case study's subject faced. This sets up the conflict that your solution will resolve.

Solution slide: Describe the solution that was implemented. Make it clear how your product or service was applied to tackle the issue at hand.

Results/Outcome slide: Showcase the impact of the solution, ideally backed by hard-hitting data. This is where you highlight the effectiveness of your product or service.

Customer quotes/Testimonials slide: Authentic words from the people who have benefitted from your product or service can provide a persuasive, humanizing touch to your case study.

Call to action slide: Prompt readers to take the next step, whether that's contacting your company, trying your product, or simply learning more.

What are the main business case study writing formats?

Case studies are composed to strike a chord with your audience. But to truly create a melody that resonates, you need to choose the right note - or in this case, the right format.

Here are the 4 main case study writing formats:

1. Problem-solution case study

Think of the problem-solution case study as an epic saga, where your client acts as the hero. It’s the story of how they overcame a great obstacle, becoming better and stronger in the process with the aid of your company’s solution.

By positioning your company as their trusted guide and confidant, you become the Obi-Wan to their Luke, providing guidance and support throughout their journey. This makes it ideal for attracting potential clients or showcasing business adaptability.

Problem-solution format:

• Introduce the client company and their unique situation
• Describe their problem in their words
• Describe the steps taken to solve the problem (your solution)
• Discuss key results and achievements with quantifiable data
• Explain the overall business impact in the client's words
• Provide a compelling conclusion inviting the reader to achieve similar results with your business

See this example by Amazon Web Services demonstrating how they supported Chick-fil-A in developing an AI framework to identify and address food safety risks.

And, here’s a ready-made template built according to this structure:

2. Before-and-after case study

A before-and-after case study brings out the transformative power of your product or service. It starts by painting a picture of what things looked like before your solution was implemented.

It then describes the implementation process and shows what things look like after.

This case study format appeals to visual learners and can be an especially impactful way to boost sales and customer conversion rates.

Before-and-after format:

• Paint a picture of the company's situation before your intervention
• Discuss the transformation in detail highlighting the significant results and improvements with data and visuals
• Explain the difference your solution made
• Conclude by reinforcing the transformative power of your product or service

A great example is IBM’s case study illustrating Carhartt's transformation into a fully digital business.

3. Success story case study

A success story case study tells the story of how a customer succeeded using your product or service.

It starts with a description of the company and its goals, explains how your product or service was used to achieve those goals, and ends with an evaluation of the results.

This format is perfect for emotionally engaging the audience, showing potential customers how they might achieve similar results and reinforcing your brand image.

Success story format:

• Introduce your contact person (the main character)
• Describe what drove them to seek your solution with emotional language
• Introduce your team (as their guide), use names to make them relatable
• Describe your team’s attempt (as individual people) to address the client’s needs
• Describe your joint journey attempting to resolve their issues (with its ups and downs)
• Describe the moment when you knew you’ve succeeded reaching your destination
• End with an empathic invitation to make contact like “struggling with something similar? Talk to us.”

An example of this is Hotjar’s case study of Brand24 showcasing how Hotjar helped them increase conversions in an easy flowing story that’s easy and fun to read.

4. Interview style case study

An interview-style case study brings authenticity to the table. Letting satisfied clients do the talking generates trust and shows your product or service as used by actual clients.

This format is ideal for personalizing your brand and nurturing potential customer relations.

An example of this is KineMatik’s case study presenting how Marine Atlantic helped them centralize and standardize their project delivery.

Interview style format:

• Introduce the interviewee and their company
• Provide the context or background of their challenges
• Present the interviewee's account of how your product or service helped address their challenges
• Highlight key takeaways and results from the interviewee's perspective
• Conclude with an invitation to the reader to experience similar results

You can watch the case study here:

What are the main case study delivery formats?

While crafting a persuasive and impactful case study is essential, how you deliver that content to your audience is equally important.

3 main case study delivery formats:

1. Written case study

Written case studies have long been the go-to choice. They come in the form of static documents such as PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, Word docs, and emails. This makes them relatively easy to create.

But, as they rely only on text and images to tell a story, they may not always capture attention, engage, or evoke a deep emotional response from your readers.

An example can be Adobe’s case study detailing the role they played in Lenovo’s digital transformation.

2. Video case study

Videos breathe life into your case studies. Mainly used for testimonials or interview-type case studies, they can also portray regular case studies in a dynamic format.

Videos add a human touch to your content and engage audiences on an emotional level. They are especially effective in demonstrating the impact of your product or service in real-life settings.

A great example of this is Amazon Web Services’s video case study on how they helped Zalando improve the online shopping experience.

3. Multimedia case study

As attention spans shrink and digital noise grows, it’s imperative to offer an interactive, engaging alternative to static formats.

Multimedia case studies, like those created with Storydoc or as landing pages, blend text, images, videos, and interactive elements to provide a sticky content experience.

The interactive format transforms your case studies into immersive experiences , holds your audience's attention longer, and helps your message resonate.

It also allows you to control the pace and order of information, leading to a deeper understanding of your case study.

Here’s a great example of a multimedia case study:

All 3 delivery formats can serve you well. Just remember, the choice of format should align with your business goals and audience preferences.

Written formats can still be the right choice for detailed communication. At the same time, video and multimedia formats can capture interest and drive engagement in ways that traditional written content cannot.

How do you create a case study format for marketing success?

Step 1: uncover a tale of success.

The first step in creating a case study format that resonates is identifying a success story worth sharing. Look for a customer who has achieved remarkable results with your product or service.

Their journey will serve as a powerful testament to the value you provide.

Step 2: Connect with the customer

Reach out to the customer and initiate a conversation. Express your interest in featuring their success story as a case study. Build rapport and ensure their willingness to participate.

Cultivating a collaborative relationship lays the foundation for a compelling narrative.

Step 3: Dive into the story

Conduct an insightful case study interview to uncover the details behind their success.

Ask open-ended questions that delve into the challenges they faced, the solutions they sought, and the outcomes they achieved.

This step allows you to capture their experiences authentically and gather the necessary information for a compelling case study.

Step 4: Weave the narrative

Begin by structuring the story in a way that engages readers from start to finish. Outline the customer's challenges, the innovative solutions you provided, and the measurable results they experienced.

Use a storytelling approach to make the case study relatable, highlighting the transformation your customer underwent with your assistance.

Step 5: Distribute your case study

A case study's true impact lies in its visibility. Promote your case study across various channels to maximize its reach.

Share it on your website, company blog, and social media platforms. Leverage email marketing to distribute it to your subscriber base with a similar customer profile.

Consider collaborating with industry publications or partners to increase its exposure.

By actively promoting your case study, you ensure that it reaches the right audience and generates the desired marketing success.

Grab any template - create your best case study to date

Now that you know how to choose the right case study format, it’s time to get down to work.

Grab one of our case study templates and cut down the time and effort needed to make a great case study to a fraction of what your company is used to.

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on May 8, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 20, 2023.

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem .

Table of contents

When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyze the case, other interesting articles.

A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.

Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.

You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.

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Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:

• Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
• Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
• Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
• Open up new directions for future research

TipIf your research is more practical in nature and aims to simultaneously investigate an issue as you solve it, consider conducting action research instead.

Unlike quantitative or experimental research , a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.

Example of an outlying case studyIn the 1960s the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania was discovered to have extremely low rates of heart disease compared to the US average. It became an important case study for understanding previously neglected causes of heart disease.

However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience or phenomenon.

Example of a representative case studyIn the 1920s, two sociologists used Muncie, Indiana as a case study of a typical American city that supposedly exemplified the changing culture of the US at the time.

While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:

• Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
• Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
• Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions

To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.

There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews , observations , and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data.

Example of a mixed methods case studyFor a case study of a wind farm development in a rural area, you could collect quantitative data on employment rates and business revenue, collect qualitative data on local people’s perceptions and experiences, and analyze local and national media coverage of the development.

The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.

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In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.

How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis , with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results and discussion .

Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyze its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).

In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Degrees of freedom
• Null hypothesis
• Discourse analysis
• Control groups
• Mixed methods research
• Non-probability sampling
• Quantitative research
• Ecological validity

Research bias

• Rosenthal effect
• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Selection bias
• Negativity bias
• Status quo bias

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• Project planning |
• The beginner’s guide to writing an effe ...

The beginner’s guide to writing an effective business case

Nearly every project needs to be approved—whether that means getting the simple go-ahead from your team or gaining the support of an executive stakeholder. You may be familiar with using a project plan or project charter to propose a new initiative and get the green light for a project. But if your proposed project represents a significant business investment, you may need to build a business case.

If you’ve never written a business case, we’re here to help. With a few resources and a little planning, you can write a business case that will help you get the resources and support you need to manage a successful project.

What is a business case?

A business case is a document that explains the value or benefits your company will gain if you pursue a significant business investment or initiative. This initiative can be anything from the messaging for a new product or feature launch, a proposal to increase spend on a current initiative, or a significant investment with a new agency or contractor—to name a few. A compelling business case will outline the expected benefits of this significant investment decision. Key stakeholders will use the business case you provide to determine whether or not to move forward with an initiative.

If you’ve never created a business case, it may sound similar to other early project planning documentation. Here’s how it stacks up:

The difference between a business case and business plan

A  business case  is a proposal for a new strategy or large initiative. It should outline the business needs and benefits your company will receive from pursuing this opportunity.

A  business plan , on the other hand, is an outline for a totally new business. Typically, you’d draft a business plan to map out your business strategy, your mission and vision statements, and how you’re planning on getting there. There may be a case where you create a business plan for an already-existing business, but you’d only do so if you’re trying to take your business in a significantly new direction.

Business case vs. executive summary

Business case vs. project charter.

If you need to create an elevator pitch for your project but you don’t quite need the full business case treatment, you might need a project charter. Much like a business case, a project charter outlines key details of an initiative. Specifically, a project charter will cover three main elements of your project: project objectives, project scope, and key project stakeholders. Your management team will then use the project charter to approve further project development.

Do you need a business case?

Not every project needs a business case—or even a project charter. Plan to build a business case only for initiatives or investments that will require significant business resources. If you’re working on a smaller initiative, consider creating a project charter to pitch your project idea to relevant stakeholders.

Even if you don’t need to pitch your project to any stakeholders, you should be ready to answer basic questions about your proposed project, like:

What is this project’s purpose?

Why are we working on this project?

How does this project connect to organizational goals and objectives?

Which metrics will we use to measure the success of the project ?

Who is working on this project?

When is this project going to be completed?

5 steps for creating and pitching a business case

Your business case shouldn’t just include key facts and figures—it should also tell a story of why pursuing a particular investment or initiative is a good idea for your business. When in doubt, avoid jargon and be brief—but always focus on communicating the value of the project. If this is your first time creating a business case, don’t worry. Follow these five steps to create a solid one.

1. Gather input

You don’t have to write a business case on your own. Instead, make sure appropriate team members and stakeholders are contributing to the relevant sections. For example, the IT team should be involved in any tooling and timeline decisions, while the finance team should review any budget and risk management sections. If you’re creating a business case to propose a new initiative, product line, or customer persona, make sure you also consult subject matter experts.

2. Plan to write your business case out of order

Some of the first things that appear in your business case—like your executive summary—should actually be drafted last, when you have all of the resources and information to make an informed suggestion. Your executive summary will present all of your findings and make a recommendation for the business based on a variety of factors. By gathering all of those details first—like project purpose, financial information, and project risk—you can ensure your executive summary has all of the relevant information.

3. Build your business case incrementally

A business case describes a significant investment for your company. Similarly, simply writing a business case is a significant investment of your time. Not every initiative is right for your business—so make sure you’re checking your work with stakeholders as you go. You don’t want to sink hours and weeks into this document only for it to be rejected by executive stakeholders right off the bat.

Consider doing a “soft launch” with an outline of your business case to your project sponsor or an executive stakeholder you have a good relationship with to confirm this initiative is something you should pursue. Then, as you build the different sections of your business case, check back in with your key stakeholders to confirm there are no deal-breakers.

4. Refine the document

As you create sections of your business case, you may need to go back and refine other sections. For example, once you’ve finished doing a cost-benefit analysis with your financial team, make sure you update any budget-related project risks.

Before presenting your business case, do a final read through with key stakeholders to look for any sections that can be further refined. At this stage, you’ll also want to write the executive summary that goes at the top of the document. Depending on the length of your business case, your executive summary should be one to two pages long.

5. Present the business case

The final step is to actually present your business case. Start with a quick elevator pitch that answers the what, why, and how of your proposal. Think of this presentation as your chance to explain the current business need, how your proposal addresses the need, and what the business benefits are. Make sure to address any risks or concerns you think your audience would have.

Don’t go through your business case page by page. Instead, share the document with stakeholders before the presentation so they have a chance to read through it ahead of time. Then, after your presentation, share the document again so stakeholders can dig into details.

A business case checklist

Start with the why.

The first section of the business case is your chance to make a compelling argument about the new project. Make sure you draft an argument that appeals to your audience’s interests and needs. Despite being the first section in your business case, this should be the last section you write. In addition to including the  traditional elements of an executive summary , make sure you answer:

What business problem is your project solving?  This is your chance to explain why your project is important and why executive stakeholders should consider pursuing this opportunity.

What is your business objective ?  What happens at the end of a successful project? How will you measure success—and what does a successful project mean for your business?

How does this business case fit into your overall company business strategy plan?  Make sure your proposed business case is connected to important  company goals . The initiative proposed in your business case should move the needle towards your company's  vision statement .

Outline financials and the return on investment

At this point in your business case, you should outline the project finance fundamentals. Don’t expect to create this section on your own—you should draft this in partnership with your company’s finance team. In particular, this section should answer:

How much will this project cost?  Even if the initiative is completely new to your company, do some research to estimate the project costs.

What does each individual component of the project cost?  In addition to estimating the total overall cost, break down the different project costs. For example, you might have project costs for new tools and resources, competitive intelligence resourcing, agency costs, etc.

What is the expected return on investment (ROI)?  You’ve talked about the costs—now talk about how your company will benefit from this initiative. Make sure to explain how you calculated the ROI, too.

How will this project impact cash flow?  Cash flow is the amount of money being transferred into and out of your business. Significant investments are going to cost a lot of money, so they’ll negatively impact cash flow—but you should also expect a high ROI, which will positively impact cash flow.

What is the sensitivity analysis?  Sensitivity analysis is a summary of how uncertain your numbers are. There will be a variety of variables that impact your business case. Make sure to explain what those variables are, and how that could impact your projections.

Preview project details

Your business case is proposing a new initiative. In addition to the financial risks, take some time to preview project details. For example, your business case should include:

Your  project objectives  and  key project deliverables .  What will happen at the end of the project? What are you expecting to create or deliver once the project is over?

Your  project plan .  A project plan is a blueprint of the key elements your team needs to accomplish in order to successfully achieve your project goals.

The  project scope .  What are the boundaries of your project? What exact goals, deliverables, and deadlines will you be working towards?

A list of relevant  project stakeholders .  Who are the important project stakeholders and key decision makers for this work? This can include the members of the project team that would be working on this initiative, executive stakeholders who would sponsor the project, and any external stakeholders who might be involved.

A general  project roadmap  in a Gantt-chart like view.  At this stage in the process, you don’t need to provide a detailed project timeline, but you should outline a general sense of when each project stage will happen in relation to the others. To do this, create a project roadmap in  Gantt-chart like software . Make sure to include any important  project milestones  in your roadmap as well.

Any important project dependencies.  Is there anything that would get in the way of this project getting started? Does this work rely on any other work that’s currently in flight?

Discuss project risks

Once you’ve outlined the financial impact and important project details, make sure you include any potential project risks. If you haven’t already, create a  project risk management plan  for your business case. Project risk management isn’t the process of eliminating risk—instead, it’s about identifying, analyzing, and proactively responding to any potential project risks. Clearly defining each project risk and how that risk might impact your project can best equip you and the project team to manage and avoid those risks.

In the risk section of your business case, include:

A risk analysis of any potential project risks.  What is the risk? How likely is it to happen? What is the priority level of this risk?

What, if any, assumptions you are making.  In project risk management, assumptions are anything you think will be true about the project, without those details being guaranteed facts. Basing project decisions around an assumption can open your project up to risk. Make sure you ratify every project assumption to avoid jeopardizing project success.

Any comparable alternatives in the market.  If you’re writing a business case to pitch a new product or angle in the market, evaluate anything that already exists. Could the alternative impact your financial assessment or project success?

Develop an action plan

In the final section of your business case, outline how you will turn this business case into an actionable project. This section should answer questions like:

How will decisions be made?  Who is responsible for the project? Who is the project sponsor? If you haven’t already, consider creating a  RACI chart  to outline project responsibilities.

How will progress be measured and reported?  Not every project stakeholder needs to be notified of every project change. Outline key parts of your project communication plan , as well as how you’ll communicate  project status updates .

What is the next course of action?  If the management team ratifies this business case, what next steps will you take to put this into action?

Bring your business case to life

You’ve built a solid business case and it’s been ratified—congratulations! The next step is to bring your business case to life. It can be intimidating to  initiate large-scale change , and implementing your business case is no exception.

If you haven’t already, make sure you have a  project management tool  in place to manage and organize your new initiative. With a central source of truth to track who’s doing what by when, share status updates, and keep project stakeholders in the loop, you can turn a great business case into a successful project.

Related resources

How Asana uses Asana to streamline project intake processes

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

6 steps for writing a persuasive project proposal

How to create a request for information (RFI) document

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How to Write a Case Study [+ Design Tips]

By Ronita Mohan , Aug 26, 2021

You need an impactful medium to share your business successes with potential customers and partners. The best way to showcase your brand is by designing a case study.

Case studies are a method of research and storytelling. They help readers gain a better understanding of a subject or process.

In this guide, we’ll explain how to write a case report that markets your business, as well as some design tips.

Don’t know how to start designing case studies?  Create a case study with Venngage’s templates. No design experience required.

START CREATING FOR FREE

Click to jump ahead:

Case study defined, what is the purpose of a case study, what is the format of a case study, how do you write a business case study, case study design tips, case study faqs.

A case study is used in business, psychology, epidemiology, as well as the medical and scientific fields. These reports are also used for social and political work.

Case studies are defined as documents that examine a person, groups of people, events, operations and processes.

For marketing purposes, a case analysis can be a document that outlines problems faced by a customer. It also shares the solutions a brand provided to solve them, such as in the case report below.

USE THIS CASE STUDY TEMPLATE

Case studies usually share success stories for a business partnership or client. But case reports can also be used to analyze a process that went wrong.

This type of study will outline the need for improvements and suggest next steps. As a result, these case studies are not shared externally.

You can look at some case study examples  for inspiration to design your report. Read on to learn about the importance of case studies and how to write them.

Related:  What is a Case Study? [+6 Types of Case Studies]

Return to Table of Contents

Case studies are effective marketing tools that build trust and act as social proof for your brand.

Customers are more likely to choose your company if they know that other businesses like theirs have also benefited.

More importantly, when a customer participates in creating a case report with a brand, they endorse the company and their experience with it.

In other words, a  business report , like the example below, acts as a recommendation to anyone on the fence about working with your brand or using your products.

CREATE THIS REPORT TEMPLATE

Related:  Report Design Ideas to ENGAGE Readers [10+ Tips & Templates]

A case study can be of varying lengths. It can also take a variety of forms, such as a simple two-page document or a Venngage business infographic like the one below.

Most business case studies feature the following five sections.

Related: What is an Infographic? Examples, Templates & Design Tips

• About the company

When creating a case study for marketing, it is best to include a small section about the company. This section can be short, sharing highlights about the company’s goals and missions.

Venngage’s case study templates  offer a variety of options for customizing your report.

Overview of the case study

This is a key section of a case study. What is the study about? What was the reason for conducting it? What are the expected results?

The overview doesn’t have to be very long. Two or three paragraphs that sum up what a reader can expect from the report will suffice.

Case study research

You want to show the kind of research, strategy, and approach adopted for your case study. This is the section where you can showcase your process while conducting the analysis, like in this template.

Results of the case study

By far the most important aspect of a case study is the results section. You can choose to share your findings in a few paragraphs.

Alternatively, go down a more visual route by using data visualizations  to showcase your results. You can use different types of charts and graphs  or use a single number or donut chart.

This case study template is a great example of how to highlight results.

This is also a good section to include a testimonial or quote from your client as social proof.

Related: How to Choose the Best Types of Charts

Conclusion of the case report

You can choose to add a separate conclusion to your case study following the results section. This is where you sum up the process you used in the analysis.

Also, share why the process or campaign was effective and how your brand achieved these results.

Writing a case study requires research and revision. You should have a single objective decided before you start writing.

Case studies in marketing, like the below example, are meant to highlight your company’s successes. Choosing a client to showcase is also an important step in the writing process.

Below, we share the top steps to complete when writing a case study to promote your business.

Determine your objective

Before you start writing case studies, decide what the main objective for this exercise is. Case reports don’t have the potential to go viral, nor are they shareable on social media.

But a case study is an effective tool for converting prospects into customers. They can also encourage business partners to take that final step and sign on the dotted line.

You need to approach your case analysis differently than all other content. This is why you need to have an objective for undergoing the process of writing a case study.

For example, this report shows how the fictional company Toy Crates used the services of Ad Factory to significantly increase its sales.

The main objective of your case study is to highlight your business processes. You should also show the benefits of using your product. But there needs to be a relatable angle for whoever is reading your study.

Possible angles for a case study can be:

• Audience growth
• Launch of a new type of product
• Entry into a new market
• Improvements in conversion rates
• Increased revenue
• Increased traffic or social media impressions
• Technology or software adoption

This case study focuses on lead generation. The report showcases the efforts behind boosting the client’s lead generation program and the successes achieved.

Once you determine the best objective for your analysis, you can move onto the next step. Look for a client that best showcases positive aspects of your company.

Choose the right client

You need a particular type of client as the subject of your case study. This client will be a loyal customer. They should be willing to participate in the study. The client should also align with the objective of your study.

Pick a customer who knows your product inside and out. They should not be someone who used your product once and had success with it.

You want to showcase consistent and high-quality results over a period of time. In this example, the fictional Ad Factory also showcased Loot Box as a client that had success with their brand.

USE THIS CASE REPORT TEMPLATE

You also want to choose customers who have had success directly from using your product. If a brand has seen overall growth and your product was just part of that success, it won’t make for a compelling case study.

Contacting your client for the case study

The customer you choose for your case study should know what the process entails.

Be open in your communication about what you need to put together the case report. This could be communicated through calls, email conversations, or a project management tool.

Set a deadline and share a project timeline  so the client knows what the process will look like. Let them know what documentation or statistics you will need for them before you start writing.

Offer something in exchange for participating in the case study. These could be product discounts, a temporary upgrade, a mention in your newsletter, social media, or increased brand awareness.

USE THIS CASE REPORT TEMPLATE

It is imperative that you let the customer know how their information and data will be used. Tell them if you’re posting the case analysis to your blog, sharing it on YouTube, or with your email subscribers.

Some clients may not want their professional information shared with large audiences, so clarify this step of the process first.

Related:  40+ Timeline Template Examples and Design Tips

Research your case study

Once your client agrees to participate in the case analysis, you can begin researching. Remember the objective of your case study and research the subject accordingly.

For example, we wanted to show how infographics help businesses grow their audience. We contacted our user, ChadSan , who had seen massive growth after adding infographics to their marketing campaigns.

We put our findings into a  research infographic  along with quotes from the client, charts and graphs.

To do this, we researched the content ChadSan created before and compared their traffic to when they started using infographics.

It’s also important to look at the industry your client is in so you have an idea of what success looks like in that sector.

Client interviews

Conducting interviews with clients is a good way to get information for your case report.

You can hold interviews via video call, which you should record to double-check later or conduct the interview via email.

Email interviews might require follow-ups if you need further clarification on particular questions.

Asking the right questions is crucial during the research phase. You don’t want ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as an answer. You need qualified information and data to build out a case study, like the one below.

USE THIS CASE REPORT TEMPLATE

For example, we asked our contact at ChadSan for her experience using infographics in her marketing. We also asked about her main challenges, why she had chosen Venngage and the benefits of using Venngage.

This is also the stage when you can ask for concrete examples of how your product benefited your client.

We asked ChadSan to share some examples of the infographics they had created using our templates. This helped show our product in use, further social proof of the advantages of using Venngage infographics.

Create the case study outline

With the client interview completed, gather the data you have and start writing the outline for the case report. Remember the case study format  we shared earlier when you’re preparing the outline.

This will help you design a case study that is memorable, like this example.

For a case study blog post, you should prepare the following:

• Overview of the study
• The results, with charts
• Call to action

Write a few notes for each point that you can elaborate on in the next writing stage. By following this process, you can build out a case study like this example.

Draft your case report

The outline is your starting point for drafting the case report. Like any other piece of content you create, a case study needs to be engaging. It also needs a beginning, a middle and an end.

Use classic marketing storytelling approaches when writing case studies. Introduce your characters (the client), the conflict (the business problem), the resolution (the benefits of your product).

By using this technique, you can write a case study like this example.

Conclude with an analysis of your success and a testimonial recommending your product and brand.

Finalize your case study

Revise your study and ask one or two colleagues to glance over it to catch any mistakes you may have missed.

You should send the report to the client you’re showcasing for their approval. When you and the client are satisfied with the case study, an infographic study like the one below is ready to be published.

Share a link to the case study with the client to promote on their platforms. You can share the case report on your social channels, with partners and to your email subscribers.

Now that you know how to write your case report, here are some tips on case study design. Improving the aesthetics and usability of your study will make it memorable to read. In the long run, the study will help boost brand awareness.

Use a case study template

Make the case study design process easier by using a template. Venngage offers a variety of customizable case study templates , like this one, to make any study attractive and engaging.

Choose a template from Venngage’s library and edit it to fit your needs. Change the text, upload visuals or choose images from our stock photo integration. Pick icons from the 40,000+ icons available to better reflect your story.

With Venngage for Business , you can get priority support while designing your study.

You can also access  real-time collaboration  features so you can design your case study with team members.

Incorporate white space

A great way to make your case study engaging is to incorporate one important rule of design: use plenty of white space.

White space is all the blank areas around your text and visuals. This space gives your information room to breathe and makes it easier for readers to absorb your story.

Take a look at this template for inspiration. There is plenty of room around each element. This makes the study easier to navigate.

Write short paragraphs of two or three lines and use bullet points to create more space around your text. Leave room around your visuals, as well, so users can move through the sections easily.

Related:  The Ultimate Guide to Design Thinking

Visualize data for your case study

Case studies include a great deal of information but that doesn’t mean they need to be packed full of text. Visuals are a great way to catch the eye and keep users interested in your report.

Statistics are a key element of case reports but numbers on their own can get lost. Instead, visualize your data using Venngage’s chart maker and graph maker .

Design pie charts, bar graphs, donut charts, line and area graphs, or maps to visualize numerous types of data for your case studies, like in this example.

Related:  How to Tell a Story With Data: A Guide for Beginners

Add branding to case reports

Branding is an important facet of case reports. Anybody reading the study should know which companies were involved, both the client and your brand.

Add recognizable brand elements such as your logo and the client’s logo. Use your brand colors and brand fonts  throughout your case study design.

Ensure that your design adheres to your  brand guidelines , including your brand voice.

Take a look at this case study infographic Venngage created with Baptist Care. We incorporated both our logos in the infographic. We also used the brand colors and fonts of both companies.

You can easily add your branding to case report templates using Venngage’s  My Brand Kit  tool. Input your website and the Autobrand feature will apply your branding across all your designs.

What subjects are covered in a case study?

Depending on the field of study, case reports can examine a variety of subjects, including:

• a group of people
• an organization or business

For example, case studies in psychology may be focused on a person or groups of people. Medical case reports might study events or groups of patients.

Businesses can examine other organizations, as in this example, or events.

What are the characteristics of a case study?

Case studies are characterized by the units or subjects they examine. These units need to be studied in totality. Every aspect of the person, organization or event needs to be included.

Reports should also be qualitative as well as quantitative. This means that case study research describes problems and solutions.

It also backs those assumptions up with data. Both aspects must be included in the analysis, as in this example.

How can you design a case study with Venngage?

Venngage makes it easy to design case studies by offering numerous editable templates. Create an account with Venngage and browse the library for a template.

Customize the template, like the one below, in the easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor. Add text, pick colors , icons, add photos and charts and graphs.

Upload photos with Venngage. Drag and drop images into the Venngage editor and customize your reports in seconds.

Use a case study to highlight your brand’s successes

A case study can be a powerful marketing tool that showcases the advantages of using your product.

By highlighting real clients and their successes, you can provide social proof to potential customers and partners.

Designing case studies has never been easier. Use Venngage’s templates to create engaging reports to impress your audiences and help you grow your client base.

Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2021

Two cases about Hertz claimed top spots in 2021's Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies

Two cases on the uses of debt and equity at Hertz claimed top spots in the CRDT’s (Case Research and Development Team) 2021 top 40 review of cases.

Hertz (A) took the top spot. The case details the financial structure of the rental car company through the end of 2019. Hertz (B), which ranked third in CRDT’s list, describes the company’s struggles during the early part of the COVID pandemic and its eventual need to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The success of the Hertz cases was unprecedented for the top 40 list. Usually, cases take a number of years to gain popularity, but the Hertz cases claimed top spots in their first year of release. Hertz (A) also became the first ‘cooked’ case to top the annual review, as all of the other winners had been web-based ‘raw’ cases.

Besides introducing students to the complicated financing required to maintain an enormous fleet of cars, the Hertz cases also expanded the diversity of case protagonists. Kathyrn Marinello was the CEO of Hertz during this period and the CFO, Jamere Jackson is black.

Sandwiched between the two Hertz cases, Coffee 2016, a perennial best seller, finished second. “Glory, Glory, Man United!” a case about an English football team’s IPO made a surprise move to number four.  Cases on search fund boards, the future of malls,  Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, Prodigy Finance, the Mayo Clinic, and Cadbury rounded out the top ten.

Other year-end data for 2021 showed:

• Online “raw” case usage remained steady as compared to 2020 with over 35K users from 170 countries and all 50 U.S. states interacting with 196 cases.
• Fifty four percent of raw case users came from outside the U.S..
• The Yale School of Management (SOM) case study directory pages received over 160K page views from 177 countries with approximately a third originating in India followed by the U.S. and the Philippines.
• Twenty-six of the cases in the list are raw cases.
• A third of the cases feature a woman protagonist.
• Orders for Yale SOM case studies increased by almost 50% compared to 2020.
• The top 40 cases were supervised by 19 different Yale SOM faculty members, several supervising multiple cases.

CRDT compiled the Top 40 list by combining data from its case store, Google Analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption.

All of this year’s Top 40 cases are available for purchase from the Yale Management Media store .

And the Top 40 cases studies of 2021 are:

1.   Hertz Global Holdings (A): Uses of Debt and Equity

2.   Coffee 2016

3.   Hertz Global Holdings (B): Uses of Debt and Equity 2020

4.   Glory, Glory Man United!

5.   Search Fund Company Boards: How CEOs Can Build Boards to Help Them Thrive

6.   The Future of Malls: Was Decline Inevitable?

7.   Strategy for Norway's Pension Fund Global

8.   Prodigy Finance

9.   Design at Mayo

10. Cadbury

11. City Hospital Emergency Room

13. Volkswagen

14. Marina Bay Sands

15. Shake Shack IPO

16. Mastercard

17. Netflix

18. Ant Financial

19. AXA: Creating the New CR Metrics

20. IBM Corporate Service Corps

21. Business Leadership in South Africa's 1994 Reforms

22. Alternative Meat Industry

23. Children's Premier

24. Khalil Tawil and Umi (A)

25. Palm Oil 2016

26. Teach For All: Designing a Global Network

27. What's Next? Search Fund Entrepreneurs Reflect on Life After Exit

28. Searching for a Search Fund Structure: A Student Takes a Tour of Various Options

30. Project Sammaan

31. Commonfund ESG

32. Polaroid

33. Connecticut Green Bank 2018: After the Raid

34. FieldFresh Foods

35. The Alibaba Group

36. 360 State Street: Real Options

37. Herman Miller

38. AgBiome

39. Nathan Cummings Foundation

40. Toyota 2010

How to Write and Format a Business Case Study

Case Study Structure, Format and Components

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Business case studies are teaching tools that are used by many business schools, colleges, universities, and corporate training programs. This method of teaching is known as the case method . Most business case studies are written by educators, executives or heavily educated business consultants. However, there are times when students are asked to conduct and write their own business case studies. For example, students may be asked to create a case study as a final assignment or group project. Student-created case studies may even be used as a teaching tool or a basis for class discussion.

Writing a Business Case Study

When you write a case study, you must write with the reader in mind. The case study should be set up so that the reader is forced to analyze situations, draw conclusions, and make recommendations based on their predictions. If you aren't overly familiar with case studies, you may be wondering how to best organize your writing. To help you get started, let's take a look at the most common ways to structure and format a business case study. 

Case Study Structure and Format

Although every business case study is a little different, there are a few elements that every case study has in common. Every case study has an original title. Titles vary but usually include the name of the company as well as a little info about the case scenario in ten words or less. Examples of real case study titles include Design Thinking and Innovation at Apple and Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service.

All cases are written with a learning objective in mind. The objective might be designed to impart knowledge, build a skill, challenge the learner, or develop an ability. After reading and analyzing the case, the student should know about something or be able to do something. An example objective might look like this:

After analyzing the case study, the student will be able to demonstrate knowledge of approaches to marketing segmentation, differentiate between potential core customer bases and recommend a brand positioning strategy for XYZ's newest product.

Most case studies assume a story-like format. They often have a protagonist with an important goal or decision to make. The narrative is usually weaved throughout the study, which also includes sufficient background information about the company, situation, and essential people or elements. There should be enough detail to allow the reader to form an educated assumption and make an informed decision about the questions (usually two to five questions) presented in the case.

The Case Study Protagonist

Case studies should have a protagonist that needs to make a decision. This forces the case reader to assume the role of the protagonist and make choices from a particular perspective. An example of a case study protagonist is a branding manager who has two months to decide on a positioning strategy for a new product that could financially make or break the company. When writing the case, it is important to ensure that your protagonist is developed and compelling enough to engage the reader. 

The Case Study Narrative/Situation

The narrative of a case study starts with an introduction to the protagonist, her role and responsibilities, and the situation/scenario that she is facing. Information is provided on the decisions the protagonist needs to make. Details include challenges and constraints related to the decision (such as a deadline) as well as any biases the protagonist might have.

The next section offers up background information on the company and its business model, industry and competitors. The case study then covers challenges and issues faced by the protagonist as well as the consequences associated with the decision that the protagonist needs to make. Exhibits and extra documents, like financial statements, might be included in the case study to help students reach a decision about the best course of action. 

The Deciding Point

The conclusion of a case study returns to the main question or problem that must be analyzed and solved by the protagonist. Case study readers are expected to step into the role of the protagonist and answer the question or questions presented in the case studies. In most cases, there are multiple ways to answer the case question, which allows for classroom discussion and debate. 

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7 Favorite Business Case Studies to Teach—and Why

Explore more.

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FEATURED CASE STUDIES

The Army Crew Team . Emily Michelle David of CEIBS

ATH Technologies . Devin Shanthikumar of Paul Merage School of Business

Fabritek 1992 . Rob Austin of Ivey Business School

Lincoln Electric Co . Karin Schnarr of Wilfrid Laurier University

Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth . Gary Pisano of Harvard Business School

The United States Air Force: ‘Chaos’ in the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron . Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School

Warren E. Buffett, 2015 . Robert F. Bruner of Darden School of Business

To dig into what makes a compelling case study, we asked seven experienced educators who teach with—and many who write—business case studies: “What is your favorite case to teach and why?”

The resulting list of case study favorites ranges in topics from operations management and organizational structure to rebel leaders and whodunnit dramas.

1. The Army Crew Team

Emily Michelle David, Assistant Professor of Management, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

“I love teaching  The Army Crew Team  case because it beautifully demonstrates how a team can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I deliver the case to executives in a nearby state-of-the-art rowing facility that features rowing machines, professional coaches, and shiny red eight-person shells.

After going through the case, they hear testimonies from former members of Chinese national crew teams before carrying their own boat to the river for a test race.

The rich learning environment helps to vividly underscore one of the case’s core messages: competition can be a double-edged sword if not properly managed.

Executives in Emily Michelle David’s organizational behavior class participate in rowing activities at a nearby facility as part of her case delivery.

Despite working for an elite headhunting firm, the executives in my most recent class were surprised to realize how much they’ve allowed their own team-building responsibilities to lapse. In the MBA pre-course, this case often leads to a rich discussion about common traps that newcomers fall into (for example, trying to do too much, too soon), which helps to poise them to both stand out in the MBA as well as prepare them for the lateral team building they will soon engage in.

Finally, I love that the post-script always gets a good laugh and serves as an early lesson that organizational behavior courses will seldom give you foolproof solutions for specific problems but will, instead, arm you with the ability to think through issues more critically.”

2. ATH Technologies

Devin Shanthikumar, Associate Professor of Accounting, Paul Merage School of Business

“As a professor at UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business, and before that at Harvard Business School, I have probably taught over 100 cases. I would like to say that my favorite case is my own,   Compass Box Whisky Company . But as fun as that case is, one case beats it:  ATH Technologies  by Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard.

ATH presents a young entrepreneurial company that is bought by a much larger company. As part of the merger, ATH gets an ‘earn-out’ deal—common among high-tech industries. The company, and the class, must decide what to do to achieve the stretch earn-out goals.

ATH captures a scenario we all want to be in at some point in our careers—being part of a young, exciting, growing organization. And a scenario we all will likely face—having stretch goals that seem almost unreachable.

It forces us, as a class, to really struggle with what to do at each stage.

After we read and discuss the A case, we find out what happens next, and discuss the B case, then the C, then D, and even E. At every stage, we can:

see how our decisions play out,

figure out how to build on our successes, and

address our failures.

The case is exciting, the class discussion is dynamic and energetic, and in the end, we all go home with a memorable ‘ah-ha!’ moment.

I have taught many great cases over my career, but none are quite as fun, memorable, and effective as ATH .”

3. Fabritek 1992

Rob Austin, Professor of Information Systems, Ivey Business School

“This might seem like an odd choice, but my favorite case to teach is an old operations case called  Fabritek 1992 .

The latest version of Fabritek 1992 is dated 2009, but it is my understanding that this is a rewrite of a case that is older (probably much older). There is a Fabritek 1969 in the HBP catalog—same basic case, older dates, and numbers. That 1969 version lists no authors, so I suspect the case goes even further back; the 1969 version is, I’m guessing, a rewrite of an even older version.

There are many things I appreciate about the case. Here are a few:

It operates as a learning opportunity at many levels. At first it looks like a not-very-glamorous production job scheduling case. By the end of the case discussion, though, we’re into (operations) strategy and more. It starts out technical, then explodes into much broader relevance. As I tell participants when I’m teaching HBP's Teaching with Cases seminars —where I often use Fabritek as an example—when people first encounter this case, they almost always underestimate it.

It has great characters—especially Arthur Moreno, who looks like a troublemaker, but who, discussion reveals, might just be the smartest guy in the factory. Alums of the Harvard MBA program have told me that they remember Arthur Moreno many years later.

Almost every word in the case is important. It’s only four and a half pages of text and three pages of exhibits. This economy of words and sparsity of style have always seemed like poetry to me. I should note that this super concise, every-word-matters approach is not the ideal we usually aspire to when we write cases. Often, we include extra or superfluous information because part of our teaching objective is to provide practice in separating what matters from what doesn’t in a case. Fabritek takes a different approach, though, which fits it well.

It has a dramatic structure. It unfolds like a detective story, a sort of whodunnit. Something is wrong. There is a quality problem, and we’re not sure who or what is responsible. One person, Arthur Moreno, looks very guilty (probably too obviously guilty), but as we dig into the situation, there are many more possibilities. We spend in-class time analyzing the data (there’s a bit of math, so it covers that base, too) to determine which hypotheses are best supported by the data. And, realistically, the data doesn’t support any of the hypotheses perfectly, just some of them more than others. Also, there’s a plot twist at the end (I won’t reveal it, but here’s a hint: Arthur Moreno isn’t nearly the biggest problem in the final analysis). I have had students tell me the surprising realization at the end of the discussion gives them ‘goosebumps.’

Finally, through the unexpected plot twist, it imparts what I call a ‘wisdom lesson’ to young managers: not to be too sure of themselves and to regard the experiences of others, especially experts out on the factory floor, with great seriousness.”

4. Lincoln Electric Co.

Karin Schnarr, Assistant Professor of Policy, Wilfrid Laurier University

“As a strategy professor, my favorite case to teach is the classic 1975 Harvard case  Lincoln Electric Co.  by Norman Berg.

I use it to demonstrate to students the theory linkage between strategy and organizational structure, management processes, and leadership behavior.

This case may be an odd choice for a favorite. It occurs decades before my students were born. It is pages longer than we are told students are now willing to read. It is about manufacturing arc welding equipment in Cleveland, Ohio—a hard sell for a Canadian business classroom.

Yet, I have never come across a case that so perfectly illustrates what I want students to learn about how a company can be designed from an organizational perspective to successfully implement its strategy.

And in a time where so much focus continues to be on how to maximize shareholder value, it is refreshing to be able to discuss a publicly-traded company that is successfully pursuing a strategy that provides a fair value to shareholders while distributing value to employees through a large bonus pool, as well as value to customers by continually lowering prices.

However, to make the case resonate with today’s students, I work to make it relevant to the contemporary business environment. I link the case to multimedia clips about Lincoln Electric’s current manufacturing practices, processes, and leadership practices. My students can then see that a model that has been in place for generations is still viable and highly successful, even in our very different competitive situation.”

5. Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth

Gary Pisano, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

“My favorite case to teach these days is  Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth .

I love teaching this case for three reasons:

1. It demonstrates how a company in a super-tough, highly competitive business can do very well by focusing on creating unique operating capabilities. In theory, Pal’s should have no chance against behemoths like McDonalds or Wendy’s—but it thrives because it has built a unique operating system. It’s a great example of a strategic approach to operations in action.

2. The case shows how a strategic approach to human resource and talent development at all levels really matters. This company competes in an industry not known for engaging its front-line workers. The case shows how engaging these workers can really pay off.

3. Finally, Pal’s is really unusual in its approach to growth. Most companies set growth goals (usually arbitrary ones) and then try to figure out how to ‘backfill’ the human resource and talent management gaps. They trust you can always find someone to do the job. Pal’s tackles the growth problem completely the other way around. They rigorously select and train their future managers. Only when they have a manager ready to take on their own store do they open a new one. They pace their growth off their capacity to develop talent. I find this really fascinating and so do the students I teach this case to.”

6. The United States Air Force: ‘Chaos’ in the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron

Francesca Gino, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

“My favorite case to teach is  The United States Air Force: ‘Chaos’ in the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron .

The case surprises students because it is about a leader, known in the unit by the nickname Chaos , who inspired his squadron to be innovative and to change in a culture that is all about not rocking the boat, and where there is a deep sense that rules should simply be followed.

For years, I studied ‘rebels,’ people who do not accept the status quo; rather, they approach work with curiosity and produce positive change in their organizations. Chaos is a rebel leader who got the level of cultural change right. Many of the leaders I’ve met over the years complain about the ‘corporate culture,’ or at least point to clear weaknesses of it; but then they throw their hands up in the air and forget about changing what they can.

Chaos is different—he didn’t go after the ‘Air Force’ culture. That would be like boiling the ocean.

Instead, he focused on his unit of control and command: The 99th squadron. He focused on enabling that group to do what it needed to do within the confines of the bigger Air Force culture. In the process, he inspired everyone on his team to be the best they can be at work.

The case leaves the classroom buzzing and inspired to take action.”

7. Warren E. Buffett, 2015

Robert F. Bruner, Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business

“I love teaching   Warren E. Buffett, 2015  because it energizes, exercises, and surprises students.

Buffett looms large in the business firmament and therefore attracts anyone who is eager to learn his secrets for successful investing. This generates the kind of energy that helps to break the ice among students and instructors early in a course and to lay the groundwork for good case discussion practices.

Studying Buffett’s approach to investing helps to introduce and exercise important themes that will resonate throughout a course. The case challenges students to define for themselves what it means to create value. The case discussion can easily be tailored for novices or for more advanced students.

Either way, this is not hero worship: The case affords a critical examination of the financial performance of Buffett’s firm, Berkshire Hathaway, and reveals both triumphs and stumbles. Most importantly, students can critique the purported benefits of Buffett’s conglomeration strategy and the sustainability of his investment record as the size of the firm grows very large.

By the end of the class session, students seem surprised with what they have discovered. They buzz over the paradoxes in Buffett’s philosophy and performance record. And they come away with sober respect for Buffett’s acumen and for the challenges of creating value for investors.

Surely, such sobriety is a meta-message for any mastery of finance.”

More Educator Favorites

Emily Michelle David is an assistant professor of management at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Her current research focuses on discovering how to make workplaces more welcoming for people of all backgrounds and personality profiles to maximize performance and avoid employee burnout. David’s work has been published in a number of scholarly journals, and she has worked as an in-house researcher at both NASA and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Devin Shanthikumar  is an associate professor and the accounting area coordinator at UCI Paul Merage School of Business. She teaches undergraduate, MBA, and executive-level courses in managerial accounting. Shanthikumar previously served on the faculty at Harvard Business School, where she taught both financial accounting and managerial accounting for MBAs, and wrote cases that are used in accounting courses across the country.

Robert D. Austin is a professor of information systems at Ivey Business School and an affiliated faculty member at Harvard Medical School. He has published widely, authoring nine books, more than 50 cases and notes, three Harvard online products, and two popular massive open online courses (MOOCs) running on the Coursera platform.

Karin Schnarr is an assistant professor of policy and the director of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program at the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada where she teaches strategic management at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. Schnarr has published several award-winning and best-selling cases and regularly presents at international conferences on case writing and scholarship.

Gary P. Pisano is the Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean of faculty development at Harvard Business School, where he has been on the faculty since 1988. Pisano is an expert in the fields of technology and operations strategy, the management of innovation, and competitive strategy. His research and consulting experience span a range of industries including aerospace, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals, health care, nutrition, computers, software, telecommunications, and semiconductors.

Francesca Gino studies how people can have more productive, creative, and fulfilling lives. She is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author, most recently, of  Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life . Gino regularly gives keynote speeches, delivers corporate training programs, and serves in advisory roles for firms and not-for-profit organizations across the globe.

Robert F. Bruner is a university professor at the University of Virginia, distinguished professor of business administration, and dean emeritus of the Darden School of Business. He has also held visiting appointments at Harvard and Columbia universities in the United States, at INSEAD in France, and at IESE in Spain. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books on finance, management, and teaching. Currently, he teaches and writes in finance and management.

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Writing A Case Study

Types Of Case Study

Understand the Types of Case Study Here

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Simple Case Study Format for Students to Follow

Brilliant Case Study Examples and Templates For Your Help

Case studies are effective research methods that focus on one specific case over time. This gives a detailed view that's great for learning.

Writing a case study is a very useful form of study in the educational process. With real-life examples, students can learn more effectively. 

A case study also has different types and forms. As a rule of thumb, all of them require a detailed and convincing answer based on a thorough analysis.

In this blog, we are going to discuss the different types of case study research methods in detail.

So, let’s dive right in!

• 1. Understanding Case Studies
• 2. What are the Types of Case Study?
• 3. Types of Subjects of Case Study 
• 4. Benefits of Case Study for Students

Understanding Case Studies

Case studies are a type of research methodology. Case study research designs examine subjects, projects, or organizations to provide an analysis based on the evidence.

It allows you to get insight into what causes any subject’s decisions and actions. This makes case studies a great way for students to develop their research skills.

A case study focuses on a single project for an extended period, which allows students to explore the topic in depth.

What are the Types of Case Study?

Multiple case studies are used for different purposes. The main purpose of case studies is to analyze problems within the boundaries of a specific organization, environment, or situation. 

Many aspects of a case study such as data collection and analysis, qualitative research questions, etc. are dependent on the researcher and what the study is looking to address. 

Case studies can be divided into the following categories:

Illustrative Case Study

Exploratory case study, cumulative case study, critical instance case study, descriptive case study, intrinsic case study, instrumental case study.

Let’s take a look at the detailed description of each type of case study with examples. 

An illustrative case study is used to examine a familiar case to help others understand it. It is one of the main types of case studies in research methodology and is primarily descriptive. 

In this type of case study, usually, one or two instances are used to explain what a situation is like. 

Here is an example to help you understand it better:

Illustrative Case Study Example

An exploratory case study is usually done before a larger-scale research. These types of case studies are very popular in the social sciences like political science and primarily focus on real-life contexts and situations.

This method is useful in identifying research questions and methods for a large and complex study. 

Let’s take a look at this example to help you have a better understanding:

Exploratory Case Study Example

A cumulative case study is one of the main types of case studies in qualitative research. It is used to collect information from different sources at different times.

This case study aims to summarize the past studies without spending additional cost and time on new investigations. 

Let’s take a look at the example below:

Cumulative Case Study Example

Critical instances case studies are used to determine the cause and consequence of an event. 

The main reason for this type of case study is to investigate one or more sources with unique interests and sometimes with no interest in general. 

Take a look at this example below:

Critical Instance Case Study Example

When you have a hypothesis, you can design a descriptive study. It aims to find connections between the subject being studied and a theory.

After making these connections, the study can be concluded. The results of the descriptive case study will usually suggest how to develop a theory further.

This example can help you understand the concept better:

Descriptive Case Study Example

Intrinsic studies are more commonly used in psychology, healthcare, or social work. So, if you were looking for types of case studies in sociology, or types of case studies in social research, this is it.

The focus of intrinsic studies is on the individual. The aim of such studies is not only to understand the subject better but also their history and how they interact with their environment.

Here is an example to help you understand;

Intrinsic Case Study Example

This type of case study is mostly used in qualitative research. In an instrumental case study, the specific case is selected to provide information about the research question.

It offers a lens through which researchers can explore complex concepts, theories, or generalizations.

Take a look at the example below to have a better understanding of the concepts:

Instrumental Case Study Example

Review some case study examples to help you understand how a specific case study is conducted.

Types of Subjects of Case Study 

In general, there are 5 types of subjects that case studies address. Every case study fits into the following subject categories. 

• Person: This type of study focuses on one subject or individual and can use several research methods to determine the outcome. 
• Group: This type of study takes into account a group of individuals. This could be a group of friends, coworkers, or family. 
• Location: The main focus of this type of study is the place. It also takes into account how and why people use the place. 
• Organization: This study focuses on an organization or company. This could also include the company employees or people who work in an event at the organization. 
• Event: This type of study focuses on a specific event. It could be societal or cultural and examines how it affects the surroundings. 

Benefits of Case Study for Students

Here's a closer look at the multitude of benefits students can have with case studies:

Real-world Application

Case studies serve as a crucial link between theory and practice. By immersing themselves in real-world scenarios, students can apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations.

Critical Thinking Skills

Analyzing case studies demands critical thinking and informed decision-making. Students cultivate the ability to evaluate information, identify key factors, and develop well-reasoned solutions – essential skills in both academic and professional contexts.

Enhanced Problem-solving Abilities

Case studies often present complex problems that require creative and strategic solutions. Engaging with these challenges refines students' problem-solving skills, encouraging them to think innovatively and develop effective approaches.

Holistic Understanding

Going beyond theoretical concepts, case studies provide a holistic view of a subject. Students gain insights into the multifaceted aspects of a situation, helping them connect the dots and understand the broader context.

Exposure to Diverse Perspectives

Case studies often encompass a variety of industries, cultures, and situations. This exposure broadens students' perspectives, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the world and the challenges faced by different entities.

So there you have it!

We have explored different types of case studies and their examples. Case studies act as the tools to understand and deal with the many challenges and opportunities around us.

Case studies are being used more and more in colleges and universities to help students understand how a hypothetical event can influence a person, group, or organization in real life. 

Not everyone can handle the case study writing assignment easily. It is even scary to think that your time and work could be wasted if you don't do the case study paper right. 

Our professional paper writing service is here to make your academic journey easier. 

Let us worry about your essay and buy case study today to ease your stress and achieve academic success.

Dr. Barbara is a highly experienced writer and author who holds a Ph.D. degree in public health from an Ivy League school. She has worked in the medical field for many years, conducting extensive research on various health topics. Her writing has been featured in several top-tier publications.

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How to Write a Business Case (Template Included)

Table of Contents

What is a business case, how to write a business case, business case template, watch our business case training video, key elements of a business case, how projectmanager helps with your business case.

A business case is a project management document that explains how the benefits of a project overweigh its costs and why it should be executed. Business cases are prepared during the project initiation phase and their purpose is to include all the project’s objectives, costs and benefits to convince stakeholders of its value.

A business case is an important project document to prove to your client, customer or stakeholder that the project proposal you’re pitching is a sound investment. Below, we illustrate the steps to writing one that will sway them.

The need for a business case is that it collects the financial appraisal, proposal, strategy and marketing plan in one document and offers a full look at how the project will benefit the organization. Once your business case is approved by the project stakeholders, you can begin the project planning phase.

Projects fail without having a solid business case to rest on, as this project document is the base for the project charter and project plan. But if a project business case is not anchored to reality, and doesn’t address a need that aligns with the larger business objectives of the organization, then it is irrelevant.

Get your free

Use this free Business Case Template for Word to manage your projects better.

The research you’ll need to create a strong business case is the why, what, how and who of your project. This must be clearly communicated. The elements of your business case will address the why but in greater detail. Think of the business case as a document that is created during the project initiation phase but will be used as a reference throughout the project life cycle.

Whether you’re starting a new project or mid-way through one, take time to write up a business case to justify the project expenditure by identifying the business benefits your project will deliver and that your stakeholders are most interested in reaping from the work. The following four steps will show you how to write a business case.

Step 1: Identify the Business Problem

Projects aren’t created for projects’ sake. They should always be aligned with business goals . Usually, they’re initiated to solve a specific business problem or create a business opportunity.

You should “Lead with the need.” Your first job is to figure out what that problem or opportunity is, describe it, find out where it comes from and then address the time frame needed to deal with it.

This can be a simple statement but is best articulated with some research into the economic climate and the competitive landscape to justify the timing of the project.

Step 2: Identify the Alternative Solutions

How do you know whether the project you’re undertaking is the best possible solution to the problem defined above? Naturally, prioritizing projects is hard, and the path to success is not paved with unfounded assumptions.

One way to narrow down the focus to make the right solution clear is to follow these six steps (after the relevant research, of course):

• Note the alternative solutions.
• For each solution, quantify its benefits.
• Also, forecast the costs involved in each solution.
• Then figure out its feasibility .
• Discern the risks and issues associated with each solution.
• Finally, document all this in your business case.

Step 3: Recommend a Preferred Solution

You’ll next need to rank the solutions, but before doing that it’s best to set up criteria, maybe have a scoring mechanism such as a decision matrix to help you prioritize the solutions to best choose the right one.

Some methodologies you can apply include:

• Depending on the solution’s cost and benefit , give it a score of 1-10.
• Base your score on what’s important to you.
• Add more complexity to your ranking to cover all bases.

Regardless of your approach, once you’ve added up your numbers, the best solution to your problem will become evident. Again, you’ll want to have this process also documented in your business case.

Step 4: Describe the Implementation Approach

So, you’ve identified your business problem or opportunity and how to reach it, now you have to convince your stakeholders that you’re right and have the best way to implement a process to achieve your goals. That’s why documentation is so important; it offers a practical path to solve the core problem you identified.

Now, it’s not just an exercise to appease senior leadership. Who knows what you might uncover in the research you put into exploring the underlying problem and determining alternative solutions? You might save the organization millions with an alternate solution than the one initially proposed. When you put in the work on a strong business case, you’re able to get your sponsors or organizational leadership on board with you and have a clear vision as to how to ensure the delivery of the business benefits they expect.

Our business case template for Word is the perfect tool to start writing a business case. It has 9 key business case areas you can customize as needed. Download the template for free and follow the steps below to create a great business case for all your projects.

One of the key steps to starting a business case is to have a business case checklist. The following is a detailed outline to follow when developing your business case. You can choose which of these elements are the most relevant to your project stakeholders and add them to our business case template. Then once your business case is approved, start managing your projects with a robust project management software such as ProjectManager.

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary is a short version of each section of your business case. It’s used to give stakeholders a quick overview of your project.

2. Project Definition

This section is meant to provide general information about your projects, such as the business objectives that will be achieved and the project plan outline.

3. Vision, Goals and Objectives

First, you have to figure out what you’re trying to do and what is the problem you want to solve. You’ll need to define your project vision, goals and objectives. This will help you shape your project scope and identify project deliverables.

4. Project Scope

The project scope determines all the tasks and deliverables that will be executed in your project to reach your business objectives.

5. Background Information

Here you can provide a context for your project, explaining the problem that it’s meant to solve, and how it aligns with your organization’s vision and strategic plan.

6. Success Criteria and Stakeholder Requirements

Depending on what kind of project you’re working on, the quality requirements will differ, but they are critical to the project’s success. Collect all of them, figure out what determines if you’ve successfully met them and report on the results .

7. Project Plan

It’s time to create the project plan. Figure out the tasks you’ll have to take to get the project done. You can use a work breakdown structure template  to make sure you are through. Once you have all the tasks collected, estimate how long it will take to complete each one.

Project management software makes creating a project plan significantly easier. ProjectManager can upload your work breakdown structure template and all your tasks are populated in our tool. You can organize them according to your production cycle with our kanban board view, or use our Gantt chart view to create a project schedule.

8. Project Budget

Your budget is an estimate of everything in your project plan and what it will cost to complete the project over the scheduled time allotted.

9. Project Schedule

Make a timeline for the project by estimating how long it will take to get each task completed. For a more impactful project schedule , use a tool to make a Gantt chart, and print it out. This will provide that extra flourish of data visualization and skill that Excel sheets lack.

10. Project Governance

Project governance refers to all the project management rules and procedures that apply to your project. For example, it defines the roles and responsibilities of the project team members and the framework for decision-making.

11. Communication Plan

Have milestones for check-ins and status updates, as well as determine how stakeholders will stay aware of the progress over the project life cycle.

12. Progress Reports

Have a plan in place to monitor and track your progress during the project to compare planned to actual progress. There are project tracking tools that can help you monitor progress and performance.

Again, using a project management tool improves your ability to see what’s happening in your project. ProjectManager has tracking tools like dashboards and status reports that give you a high-level view and more detail, respectively. Unlike light-weight apps that make you set up a dashboard, ours is embedded in the tool. Better still, our cloud-based software gives you real-time data for more insightful decision-making. Also, get reports on more than just status updates, but timesheets, workload, portfolio status and much more, all with just one click. Then filter the reports and share them with stakeholders to keep them updated.

13. Financial Appraisal

This is a very important section of your business case because this is where you explain how the financial benefits outweigh the project costs . Compare the financial costs and benefits of your project. You can do this by doing a sensitivity analysis and a cost-benefit analysis.

14. Market Assessment

Research your market, competitors and industry, to find opportunities and threats

15. Competitor Analysis

Identify direct and indirect competitors and do an assessment of their products, strengths, competitive advantages and their business strategy.

16. SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis helps you identify your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The strengths and weaknesses are internal, while the opportunities and threats are external.

17. Marketing Strategy

Describe your product, distribution channels, pricing, target customers among other aspects of your marketing plan or strategy.

18. Risk Assessment

There are many risk categories that can impact your project. The first step to mitigating them is to identify and analyze the risks associated with your project activities.

ProjectManager , an award-winning project management software, can collect and assemble all the various data you’ll be collecting, and then easily share it both with your team and project sponsors.

Once you have a spreadsheet with all your tasks listed, you can import it into our software. Then it’s instantly populated into a Gantt chart . Simply set the duration for each of the tasks, add any dependencies, and your project is now spread across a timeline. You can set milestones, but there is so much more you can do.

You have a project plan now, and from the online Gantt chart, you can assign team members to tasks. Then they can comment directly on the tasks they’re working on, adding as many documents and images as needed, fostering a collaborative environment. You can track their progress and change task durations as needed by dragging and dropping the start and end dates.

But that’s only a taste of what ProjectManager offers. We have kanban boards that visualize your workflow and a real-time dashboard that tracks six project metrics for the most accurate view of your project possible.

Try ProjectManager and see for yourself with this 30-day free trial .

If you want more business case advice, take a moment to watch Jennifer Bridges, PMP, in this short training video. She explains the steps you have to take in order to write a good business case.

Here’s a screenshot for your reference.

Transcription:

Today we’re talking about how to write a business case. Well, over the past few years, we’ve seen the market, or maybe organizations, companies or even projects, move away from doing business cases. But, these days, companies, organizations, and those same projects are scrutinizing the investments and they’re really seeking a rate of return.

So now, think of the business case as your opportunity to package your project, your idea, your opportunity, and show what it means and what the benefits are and how other people can benefit.

We want to take a look today to see what’s in the business case and how to write one. I want to be clear that when you look for information on a business case, it’s not a briefcase.

Someone called the other day and they were confused because they were looking for something, and they kept pulling up briefcases. That’s not what we’re talking about today. What we’re talking about are business cases, and they include information about your strategies, about your goals. It is your business proposal. It has your business outline, your business strategy, and even your marketing plan.

Why Do You Need a Business Case?

And so, why is that so important today? Again, companies are seeking not only their project managers but their team members to have a better understanding of business and more of an idea business acumen. So this business case provides the justification for the proposed business change or plan. It outlines the allocation of capital that you may be seeking and the resources required to implement it. Then, it can be an action plan . It may just serve as a unified vision. And then it also provides the decision-makers with different options.

So let’s look more at the steps required to put these business cases together. There are four main steps. One, you want to research your market. Really look at what’s out there, where are the needs, where are the gaps that you can serve? Look at your competition. How are they approaching this, and how can you maybe provide some other alternatives?

You want to compare and finalize different approaches that you can use to go to market. Then you compile that data and you present strategies, your goals and other options to be considered.

And then you literally document it.

So what does the document look like? Well, there are templates out there today. The components vary, but these are the common ones. And then these are what I consider essential. So there’s the executive summary. This is just a summary of your company, what your management team may look like, a summary of your product and service and your market.

The business description gives a little bit more history about your company and the mission statement and really what your company is about and how this product or service fits in.

Then, you outline the details of the product or service that you’re looking to either expand or roll out or implement. You may even include in their patents may be that you have pending or other trademarks.

Then, you want to identify and lay out your marketing strategy. Like, how are you gonna take this to your customers? Are you going to have a brick-and-mortar store? Are you gonna do this online? And, what are your plans to take it to market?

You also want to include detailed information about your competitor analysis. How are they doing things? And, how are you planning on, I guess, beating your competition?

You also want to look at and identify your SWOT. And the SWOT is your strength. What are the strengths that you have in going to market? And where are the weaknesses? Maybe some of your gaps. And further, where are your opportunities and maybe threats that you need to plan for? Then the overview of the operation includes operational information like your production, even human resources, information about the day-to-day operations of your company.

And then, your financial plan includes your profit statement, your profit and loss, any of your financials, any collateral that you may have, and any kind of investments that you may be seeking.

So these are the components of your business case. This is why it’s so important. And if you need a tool that can help you manage and track this process, then sign up for our software now at ProjectManager .

Deliver your projects on time and under budget

Start planning your projects.

S T R E E T OF W A L L S

Consulting case study types.

In the previous chapter , we described some well-known frameworks for evaluating companies and industries—frameworks that are important in Management Consulting Case Studies, and can broadly be applied to many different types of Consulting Business Situation Cases . We also described a number of analytical techniques that frequently come up in Business Situation Cases. In this chapter we’ll take a deeper look into common types of Business Situation Cases, evaluating the core concepts in them and the methodologies for approaching them (using ideas from the frameworks from the previous chapter to help us organize our approach, and the analytical techniques from the previous chapter to help us drive to an answer).

Each of these Case Study categories occurs very frequently in Management Consulting Case Study interviews, so you should be familiar with the basic issues that tend to occur over and over when they come up. In short, you should practice each of these Case types multiple times until you feel confident that you could a new Case of this type in a live interview.

Here are the eight primary types of Business Situation Case Studies as we see them:

Profitability Optimization

Pricing optimization, industry landscape & competitor dynamics, new product or project, growth plan/strategy, market entry or expansion, merger/acquisition/joint venture, start-up/early-stage venture.

Note that in most situations, a given Case will lend itself to several different categories. In the discussion below, we will attempt to enumerate the different combinations of Case Study situations that tend to occur together in the same Case.

In both good and bad economies, companies continually seek to optimize their Revenue model and their Cost structure.  The goal, ultimately, is for the company to use Invested Capital as efficiently as possible.

The two core components of a Profitability Optimization case are a Cost Assessment and a Revenue Assessment. Sometimes, only one of the two will be required for the Case. Note that Profitability Optimization situations often arise as part of a Case Study of another type—for example, in a Case Study involving pressures from competitors or substitute products, you may need to assess and optimize the Company’s Cost structure to determine it is competitive. Or, it could be that the case revolves around the Company’s Cost structure optimization, the job candidate may need to perform some qualitative analysis of the competitor or supplier landscape.  As you can see, a variation on Profitability Optimization can arise as part of many different Business Situation Cases.

Whenever Profitability Optimization is a key issue, the interviewer will usually highlight that profitability has been declining (or is projected to decline) and the Case will involve identifying the sources of the decline and potentially how to reverse or obviate it.

Example Case Situations

• The client is a low-cost airline based in Singapore, serving 24 destinations in the Southeast Asian market.  The Airline’s profitability was strong until 2010 and has since seen a declining trend and is now only just barely profitable.  The CEO would like you to determine what is causing the profitability decline and suggest a strategy to reverse this trend.
• The client is a market-leading, niche ski equipment manufacturer based in Colorado. Profitability has remained steady but the CEO has noticed from reading industry annual reports that two publicly-listed competing ski equipment manufacturers have meaningfully higher profit margins and have also been increasing their top line (Revenue). The CEO would like to understand the drivers of these differences.

Note that both of these Cases would involve some degree of Market Landscape/Competitor Dynamics analysis in addition to Profitability Optimization.

Core Concepts and Structure

Scenario: The client has determined that profitability margins have been (or are projected to be declining) and has requested that you analyze the causes of this decline and put forth recommendations to reverse it.

Expense Analysis

• Gather current expense breakdown and historical expense breakdown (this question alone will only help to get you towards the key focus area, as the interviewer will only have so much information).
• Identify the “bang” areas (this is Consultant lingo for expense areas that account for a large percent of the total).
• Analyze the key Fixed and Variable expense components and identify any meaningful changes in expense areas.
• Fixed Expenses might include overhead, fixed equipment expenses or depreciation, distribution, rent, and/or interest
• Variable Expenses might include raw materials, labor, sales, and/or distribution costs
• Request information on competitor Cost structures from the interviewer to see where the company’s Cost structure may be inefficient.
• Assess whether any expense areas could be cut with minimal or no impact on sales.

Revenue/Sales Analysis

• Gather as detailed of information as possible on current sales volumes and pricing and historical volumes and pricing. Use this information to determine growth rates.
• Identify the “bang” areas (consultant lingo for revenue streams that account for a large percent of the total, and/or a large percentage of the growth in the total).
• Analyze the key product areas and identify any meaningful changes in volumes and prices.
• Request information on competitor Revenue models (volume and pricing) from the interviewer to see where the company is potentially missing profitable business activity.
• Assess whether any changes could be made to improve overall Revenue or Revenue per unit sold.
• Pricing change suggestions/analysis (e.g., factors behind price elasticity; see Pricing Optimization Case descriptions below)
• Volume assessment and ways to improve volumes
• Identify changing customer desires/demands and respond accordingly.
• Invest in and/or reformulate marketing strategy.
• Expand distribution channels.
• Expand sales force or customer service.
• Expand production capacity.
• Expand product/service portfolio (see New Product or Project, Growth Plan/Strategy, and Market Entry or Expansion Case descriptions below).
• Make an acquisition or enter into a joint venture.
• Assess which products/divisions might have the largest growth opportunities and allocate investments accordingly.
• What would customers be willing to pay if Facebook shifted to a subscription model (we heard that this Case was conducted by the San Francisco office of a major Consulting firm recently, though the client being analyzed was not Facebook)?
• A long-stay hotel chain would like to maximize profitability by determining the optimal pricing for different lengths of stays and types of rooms.
• An online movie-streaming company is seeking to select the optimal price mix for its product offering in order to maximize profitability.

Like Profitability Optimization, this is a type of Case Study in which many of the other Case Study types might be relevant (for example, Industry Landscape, Competitor Dynamics, Growth Plan/Strategy, etc.)

Scenario: The client is deciding how to set prices so as to maximize profitability.

• Competitor/substitute pricing is the key element here—particularly if there is no major differentiation or benefit to the client’s products relative to substitutes.
• Price of substitute products/services
• Is the product sufficiently different to justify a higher price? (This points to the threat of substitutes.)
• Customer loyalty/lock-in (as an example: many lower-priced colas have failed to successfully compete against Coca-Cola due to consumer brand loyalty)
• Remember to ask about: Price Elasticity, Price Elasticity, Price Elasticity!
• Interviewers will often give you sufficient information to assess the impact on volume with a price adjustment and expect you to make the calculation.
• The higher the absolute value of Demand Elasticity (i.e., the more volume decreases when prices increase), the more likely it is that a price reduction would be beneficial. Likewise, the lower the absolute value of Demand Elasticity (i.e., volume barely decreases when prices increase), the more likely it is that a price increase would be beneficial.
• Expense-driven pricing analysis
• What is the fully-loaded cost for the client to produce the product or offer the service? How does this compare to the price?
• How does client’s fully-loaded cost compare with competitor pricing?
• Note: In situations in which the client’s cost is higher than the competitor price , it is usually a good recommendation to exit this product or service unless it can be demonstrated that:
• There is a clear path to reduce client production costs, or
• The competitor price is temporary and unsustainable.
• Customer-driven pricing analysis
• How much would customers be willing to pay for this product?  (You are not expected to be able to answer such questions, but ideas on how you might approach such questions are important—for example, running a survey, looking at applicable Case examples, looking at pricing structures for comparable products, etc.)
• What is the current state of demand and supply for the product or service (for example: would an increase in the number of orange juice manufacturers and orange tree groves be putting significant pressure on orange juice prices)?
• What are the alternatives for the customer and the relevant prices? I.e., is the threat of substitutes substantial or can it be mitigated?
• A client is a large nutrition, health & wellness Company and is considering divesting its non-core infant foods subsidiary in order to free up capital to invest in higher growing industries.  The CEO would like you to assess the industry landscape of the infant foods business in Western Europe.
• A client is a global financial services firm that is considering allocating more resources to the facilitation of electronic fund transfers globally.  The CEO wants to better understand the market landscape and develop a strategic plan to increase the Company’s share of the market.

Scenario: The client wants you to understand and assess an industry (this often overlaps with Market Entry, New Product or Project, or Growth Plan/Strategy Cases, described in more detail below).  Usually, the goal is to assess the characteristics of an industry and to determine whether or not it is an attractive industry to enter, to ramp up, or potentially to exit.

• Market/Industry Landscape
• Current market size
• Projected market growth
• Customer mix (a.k.a. Customer Segmentation )
• Industry-wide profitability
• Mergers & Acquisitions activity in the industry
• Competitive Advantage/ Barriers to Entry
• Supply chain: who are the key suppliers to the industry? (Assess this only if relevant)
• Brand loyalty
• Technology, regulatory issues, or other key topics relevant to the market
• Competitor Dynamics
• Key competitors in the market and their strategies
• Current market shares and shares over time
• Used to derive Market Concentration (i.e., what portion of the market is served by the top 3/5/10 companies in the market?)
• Product/service differences among competitors
• Any recent moves/threats by a key player to the market or a new entrant?
• A client is a durable consumer equipment manufacturer attempting to develop a “green” washing machine that employs special technology, resulting in 60% less water use and cleaning 10% more effectively than standard washing machines.  The CEO would like help to determine the product’s market potential and the strategy to bring it to market.
• A client is a pharmaceutical company that is engaged in Research & Development on a drug that would both lower cholesterol and reduce obesity (i.e., help in significant weight loss).  The CEO would like to know whether this drug would gain traction, and if so, what is the potential market size and the optimal price for such a drug.

Once again, this is a type of Case Study where many of the other Case categories might be relevant (Industry Landscape, Competitor Dynamics, Growth Plan/Strategy, Market Entry or Expansion, etc.). Note that such cases could also involve decisions such as the purchase of a major information technology system (in this case, many of the acquisition concepts could be applied).  It could also involve the assessment of a new investment project, such as the development of a new major manufacturing or sales facility.

Scenario: The client is developing a new product and would like your assessment of the feasibility of this product. Would the product be profitable and beneficial in the marketplace?

• Product Snapshot (Less relevant for New Project cases)
• Will the client have any competitive advantage that prevents competitor entry (such as a patent or a way to lock in customers) once the client has unveiled the new product?
• How is the client’s product different from and/or better than competing products? What are the substitute products?
• Pros and cons of client product (for example, environmental and social considerations)
• Is there a risk that that the new product will cannibalize another of the client’s products?
• Customer Strategy (Less relevant for New Project cases)
• What is the appropriate customer mix to target? How does this affect profitability and marketing strategy?
• What are the distribution channels? Can the client use its existing distribution channels?
• What is the methodology/strategy to attract customers to try the product and potentially switch?
• What is the methodology/strategy to retain newly acquired customers?
• Market Entry Strategy (Mostly less relevant for New Project cases)
• Competitive advantages/ Barriers to Entry
• Approach to entering (Acquisition or enter organically?)
• Time/investment required to enter market
• Product pricing strategy
• Technology, regulatory or other risks to entering this market
• Market Landscape
• Future market growth
• Current customer and product mix
• Key competitors in the market, their strategy, Market Shares (current and historically over time), product differences and potential response to client’s actions
• Product/Project Funding
• Does the projected profit justify the required the Research and Development expenditure, the initial capital requirements, and any ongoing investment needs?
• What is the Opportunity Cost of the required funding?
• What is the required financing and how is the Research & Development being financed?
• Will the project result in Economies of Scale (i.e., cost reductions for increased production) elsewhere in the company? (Less relevant for New Product cases)
• The client is a German carpet manufacturer that has seen sales decline dramatically in its North American operation.  The client would like you to help it develop a strategic plan for sales growth in North America and to determine the root causes of the sales decline.
• The client is a surf apparel Company that has three stores on the West Coast of the United States and is looking to grow its store base significantly across the continent.  The CEO would like help designing a store rollout strategy across North America.

Yet again, this is a type of Case Study where many of the other Case categories might be relevant (Industry Landscape, Competitor Dynamics, New Product or Project, Market Entry or Expansion, etc.)

Scenario: The client is seeking to grow its business, whether it involves growing a certain product’s sales, growing in a certain geographical region, increasing total sales, etc.

• Ways to increase number of units sold
• Optimize prices (See description of Pricing Optimization above)
• Increase share of wallet (fancy term used by Consultants to mean that the client captures more of a typical customer’s spending in a particular area than it previously did; analogous to Market Share )
• Determine which products/divisions have the largest growth opportunities and allocate investments accordingly
• Identify changing customer preferences/demands and respond accordingly
• Invest in and/or reformulate marketing strategy
• Investigate means and requirements to expand distribution channels
• Investigate means and requirements to expand capacity
• Investigate means and requirements to expand sales force / customer service
• Investigate means and requirements to expand product/service portfolio (see description of Market Entry or Expansion below)
• Make an acquisition or enter into a joint venture (see description of Merger/Acquisition/Joint Venture below)
• Always drive towards Profitable Growth : in any growth case, be sure to discuss this issue. Growing Revenue in and of itself is usually not a good outcome if the Costs of the growth exceed the Revenue, or if there were other growth opportunities that would have yielded a higher return on investment but are mutually exclusive (see Opportunity Cost).
• The client is an online yoga apparel retailer looking to enter the European market. The CEO would like help in formulating an entry strategy.
• A high-end watch manufacturer has developed a high quality watch called the “outdoors” watch in order to attract the wealthy, younger audience.  The CEO would like to develop a strategy to attract this customer segment.

This category of Case Study frequently overlaps with several other Case categories (Industry Landscape, Competitor Dynamics, New Product or Project, Growth Plan/Strategy, etc.)

Scenario: A client is seeking to expand or enter into a new market, whether it be a new geographical region or an additional customer segment.

• Competitive advantage/ Barriers to Entry
• Entry Strategy
• Approach to entering (acquisition or enter organically?)
• Customer mix/segmentation
• Your client is a European online white goods retailer that is considering acquiring a North American online furniture retailer.
• Your client is a U.S. specialty chemical producer that is considering acquiring a regional specialty chemical producer in Indonesia.

As you might expect by now, this is a type of case where many of the other case segments are relevant. In particular, Merger/Acquisition/JV activity often represents one method of implementing a Growth Plan/Strategy, a New Product or Project, or a Market Entry or Expansion.

Scenario: The client is considering either acquiring a company or entering into a Joint Venture, driven by many potential factors such as wanting to increase market share, widen product portfolio, take out a potential competitive threat, etc.

Important: For this Case type, you should ask questions as to why the Company is contemplating such an action . The responses to these questions can help steer you to the right analysis, as the responses will often indicate what the key considerations behind the acquisition/JV are from the client’s perspective. Thus you should perform a standard Merger/Acquisition/JV analysis as outlined below, but then generally pivot to the right framework for analyzing the business scenario from the aforementioned categories, depending on the situation.

• Evaluate price to acquire (use back-of-the-envelope Valuation techniques to consider whether the deal is reasonably priced, such as those based on Comparable Company Analysis or Precedent Transaction Analysis )
• Market position
• Customer Concentration and customer certainty
• Supplier relationships and supplier certainty
• Barriers to Entry
• Reputation and brand loyalty
• Product/regulatory/technology risks
• Pay-Back Period / Net Present Value / Internal Rate of Return based on current operations and growth estimates
• Add in Cost or Revenue improvements from Synergies (see below)
• Subtract out Integration and Restructuring expenses (also determine whether the project is feasible)
• Compare with similar projections if the Company were to endeavor to grow organically (required capital expenditures, cost of marketing strategy, etc.)
• Ability to combine or leverage joint distribution channels across products produced by acquirer or target
• Value of expending geographic/market reach
• Cost synergies (such as spreading overhead costs across a larger combined business or combining redundant IT systems)
• Strategic fit
• Cultural challenges
• Competitor response
• Plan to exit (if relevant—note that this will always be relevant for Private Equity firms)
• Plan to restructure the organization, if any, and how/why

While consulting firms rarely work for Start-up companies due to the high fees typically charged, there are increasingly Case Study questions that discuss start-ups. Some Consulting firms have even begun the practice of working for Start-up companies and receiving equity compensation from the Start-up in exchange for reduced cash Consulting fees.

Importantly, this topic is in many ways covered when thinking about a company entering a new market or developing a new product, although there are usually some additional issues to consider for a Start-up company. (Most of these additional issues fall into the “Business Plan” category for a Start-up company.) Additionally, there is generally significant overlap with the industry landscape section.

• Two real estate entrepreneurs are contemplating setting up a co-working space in downtown Chicago to attract the increasing number of young IT entrepreneurs in the area.  Discuss the key considerations for a business plan for such a venture.
• Siggi, a student from Iceland at Stanford University, has determined that there is an enormous opportunity for Icelandic-style yogurt in the North American market. He is in the process of securing funding to produce the yogurt on a farm in Oregon and would like input regarding the key considerations for the yogurt to be a success.

Situation: A potential client has launched a new company to develop a new product or technology that is expected to have positive yet disruptive consequences for a particular market or industry. The client would like your advice regarding specific issues in the company development or product rollout, and any thoughts regarding optimal company strategy.

• Competitive advantage/ Barriers to Entry (with a Start-up, this is a crucial piece of the analysis —can the Start-up enter the market successfully? Will the Start-up will have some sort of competitive advantage, whether it be proprietary technology or access to particular distribution channels?)
• Current market size (if the product a new concept, then you would typically be asked to assess the industry of a substitute product or service, or use relevant comparable products or services to estimate the potential market size for the new concept)
• Key competitors in the market, their strategy, current market shares and shares over time, product differences and potential response to entry
• Likely customers and customer mix (a.k.a. Customer Segmentation )
• Industry-wide profitability (to the extent applicable)
• Technology, regulatory issues, or other key topics relevant to the product or market
• Business Plan (the interviewer might ask you to compile a very simple business plan, after he or she gives you some information; key components are given here)
• Product/Service
• What is the product/service? What are pros and cons of this product/service? How does this compare to existing products on the market?
• What will be the competitive advantage and/or barriers to entry for a product of this type?
• Customers and Distribution
• Who are the target customers?
• What are the core distribution channels?
• What is the marketing plan?
• Financing/Profitability
• What are the initial funding requirements prior to cash flow Break-Even? How does this compare with expected future profitability?
• What are the projected Revenue and Costs for the next three years?
• Management and Oversight
• Management: experience and abilities
• Preliminary Investors: reputation, expertise, and ability to add legitimacy to the new enterprise (and potentially invest more in the company)
• Key Directors and Advisors

Being able to discuss the core aspects of analyzing a Start-up company highlights your ability to quickly answer questions about a new project or idea that may be thrown at you when you are with clients.

Additional Resources

There are a number of guides published and online that attempt to discuss different types of Consulting Case Study questions in a comprehensive and informative way. Our feeling is that most of them are not particularly helpful or are too expensive. There are two, however, that we have found to add quite of a bit of value as an “add-on” to the discussion above, and are therefore worth checking out. Please comment on this page or email us directly if you have a suggestion for an additional resource:

• INSEAD Consulting Club Handbook (see pp. 47-53 for discussion of different Case Study Types)
• Crack the Case System by David Ohrvall

Case Interview Types: Master Common Ones Before Your Interview

• Last Updated January, 2024

Rebecca Smith-Allen

Former McKinsey Engagement Manager

On Case Study Preparation , we described what a case interview question is and how you should approach answering one. You can think about that page as your Consulting Case Interview 101 course.

But if we could tell you how to ace your consulting case interview in just one page, Bain, BCG, McKinsey, and other top consulting firms would give out a lot more offers than they do every year.

On this page, we discuss the most common types of case study interview questions . We’ll take your understanding of how to answer these to the next level by outlining the key issues to consider when structuring your answer.

Let’s get started!

Here are the types of cases you might come across during your case interview :

• Profitability Cases 1.1 Profit Optimization 1.2 Revenue Growth 1.3 Pricing Optimization 1.4 Market Entry 1.5 M&A 1.6 Cost Optimization 1.7 Startup / Early-Stage Venture
• Non-Profitability Cases 2.1   Lives Affected 2.2 Retention 2.3 Industry Landscape and Competitive Dynamics
• Market Sizing Questions (also called dinner conversation cases)
• Case Interview Math (also known as consulting math) 4.1 Consulting Math Example 4.2 Summary of Key Things to Remember on Consulting Math Questions

How To Make the Most of Case Interview Practice Time

Help with case study interview preparation.

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Profitability Cases

On this page , we discussed case interview  frameworks   that can help you structure your answers to case study interview questions, we introduced the profitability equation. It’s 1 of 2 basic business frameworks you can use to answer any type of case question. 

This formula can help ensure you address all the key aspects of straightforward profitability cases like the following:

A sports apparel retailer has experienced declining sales in its stores over the past year and declining profits. How would you recommend they address their profitability problem?

A cell phone manufacturer is experiencing declining profitability despite strong sales. What should they do to improve their bottom line?

For more detail on the components in this formula and an example of how to use it to solve a case interview question, see our  Case Interview Frameworks  page . Below, we’ll discuss types of profitability problems that go beyond the basics.out

Profit Optimization

Perhaps a company is profitable… just not profitable enough . 

Maybe its margins are lower than those of an industry rival. 

Maybe they’ve dipped below its own prior-year performance. 

Perhaps management sees an opportunity to launch a new product, leapfrogging the competition, but needs to generate more cash to invest in development. 

Any of these can be reasons to improve the performance of an already profitable company. 

Sample questions:

A nationwide fast-food chain failed to meet Wall Street expectations on its latest investor call and as a result, its stock price fell significantly. Management wants help identifying opportunities to improve the bottom line.

The CEO of a regional hospital chain is concerned that his company’s profitability is half that of the market leader. How can the company grow its net income?

Use the Profitability Equation

In structuring your analysis of a profit optimization case, you should touch on all 4 components of the profitability equation to understand what the company is doing well and where things have taken a turn for the worse. 

But the underlying problem in this type of case may be more subtle than in a basic profitability question. 

Instead of a big jump in costs or the loss of a large customer wiping out a significant chunk of revenue, the company may be experiencing a couple of small problems that add up to bad news for the bottom line. 

Benchmark Relative to Competition of Past Performance

For example, if our client is a TV manufacturer and we find out that our cost of producing a TV has increased overtime while our prices have remained the same, we can see that rising costs is the reason for our profits declining. 

To turn around the situation, we could look into what the competition is doing to reduce costs. For example, if a competitor is sourcing the same materials as us but from a cheaper supplier, we want to see if we can lower our cost by sourcing from the same supplier.

Benchmark One Business Segment to Another

Another way consultants benchmark performance on revenue and cost levers is by comparing the performance in one business segment or type of end-customer to another . 

Continuing with our TV manufacturing example, we might find that the client has seen costs rise on components in its high-end models but remain constant for its low-end models. 

We can look into what is being done differently in the low-end product group: low-cost sourcing, process improvement, etc. to find opportunities to improve the cost position in the high-end segment.

Use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The company may also need more disciplined business processes and a system for measuring key performance indicators . 

Our TV manufacturer might institute a system for measuring cost per unit on a weekly or monthly basis in order to ensure they have an early warning system to monitor if costs are getting out of line.

To go with these KPIs, a regular process for reviewing the costs and taking necessary action could be instituted. Disciplined processes and performance indicators will help to fine-tune operations over time, taking them from good to best-in-class.

Key concepts to consider when addressing a profit optimization case:

The profitability equation including all its components,

• Benchmarks of cost and/or revenue relative to best-in-class competition and prior year performance.  
• Benchmark the company’s performance segmented by product or type of customer .
• Opportunities for business process improvement and key performance indicators that will allow management to monitor profitability more closely. 

Revenue Growth

Revenue growth case questions focus on companies that, while already profitable, still want to grow. 

They can do this by increasing market share, by selling their existing products to new markets, by selling new products to their existing customers, or by pursuing a combination of these opportunities. 

They can also capture more revenue by increasing prices.

A national chain of fitness centers wants to leverage its brand equity by selling additional products and services to its client base. What incremental products and services can profitably grow revenue?

The president of a printer and ink manufacturer thinks there is an opportunity to provide after-sale service to its customer base. What might be the impact on revenue from entering this market?

Capture Additional Market Share

As its name suggests, this type of case study focuses on the first half of the profitability equation — revenue = price x quantity of units sold. in examining units sold, you should consider the company’s ability to capture additional market share for existing products in the markets it already serves. , what is the company’s current share of the market that of its largest competitor what would it take to capture additional share product improvements a shift in marketing and promotion.

If a chain of fitness centers was our client, for example, we’d look at whether the primary competition was 1 or 2 large chains or a number of small, single-location gyms and tailor our strategy to increase market share accordingly. 

If the competition was single-location gyms, we could promote flexibility for members to use our facilities in multiple locations to bring in new customers. We could also leverage the client’s greater size to outspend the small gyms on advertising.

Branch into New Products or Markets

Also, consider the new products and/or markets the company could branch into . What products do competitors sell that the company doesn’t? Does the company have capabilities that would help them  succeed in other markets?

Our fitness center client could consider selling new products like fitness apparel or vitamins. They could expand into new markets, such as towns and cities adjacent to ones currently served.

Offer Services to Existing Customers

In addition, consider  services that can be sold to existing customers . Post-sales support for equipment, for example. Or consumables used with their products, like ink for a printer manufacturer. Our fitness center client could look into providing personal fitness coaching services to members.

Review Pricing

Lastly, consider the company’s  flexibility to raise prices . Where do their prices stand relative to competitive products or services? Do their products or services have higher quality or value-added capabilities that would command a higher price?

For more examples of revenue growth case interviews, see our  Revenue Growth Case article. 

Pricing Optimization

A company must have a solid product or service offering to be able to take a price increase without seeing a significant loss of sales to competitors. 

If their products or services are strong, then optimizing price can be an important lever to grow revenue.

A manufacturer of kitchen knives sells a range of products, from low-end to professional, to customers at different price points. They’ve developed a new line of knives in collaboration with a celebrity chef and would like help setting the prices for these products.

The airline industry has experienced significant changes in its pricing model over the past few years, with some airlines charging separately for checked baggage, meals, and beverages. A global carrier has asked us to help optimize the pricing of the additional services it provides to customers who fly with them.

Elasticity of Demand

When prices rise, demand for a product goes down and when prices fall, demand rises. You’ll remember this from Economics 101, or perhaps just from common sense. Pricing optimization is all about how much . 

If you can raise prices with demand going down just a little, you can improve a company’s revenues by raising price. If a change in price has a big impact on demand, then raising price could be a big mistake.

The term for this is Price Elasticity of Demand . If demand for a product or service changes a lot in response to a change in price, it’s said to have price elasticity. Products with many substitutes or ones that consumers can easily do without are the most sensitive to price changes. 

For example, if McDonald’s raised the price of the Big Mac, more customers might go to Burger King, Taco Bell, or just eat lunch at home. McDonald’s hamburger sales would fall dramatically.

Substitutes

For some products, demand is relatively insensitive to changes in price. This can be the case for luxury goods, for products that have few substitutes , or for when there are large switching costs. When the cost of home heating oil rises, some customers consider switching to natural gas to heat their homes. But if doing so will require buying a new furnace to run on gas or paying for pipes from their house to the gas distribution network, they won’t make the change unless the change in price is dramatic and/or expected to persist for a number of years. 

3 Methods for Setting Prices

Competitive-based pricing — Setting prices based on the prices of other similar products in the market. This is the simplest method for setting prices. Companies who use competitive-based pricing are price takers.

Cost-based pricing —Setting prices as a function of the cost to provide a good or service plus a profit margin. Cost alone can’t be used to set pricing because if a company’s costs are out of line with its competitors, it may price itself out of the market.

Value-based pricing — Setting prices based on the value provided to customers. Luxury goods are priced well above the cost of their production because customers of these products value association with the prestigious image the product conveys. Products that provide significant value to customers in terms of saving time or providing features not found in other products can be priced higher because they are worth more to customers.

Value-based pricing the best pricing method but it can only be used for products and services that are sufficiently differentiated in the eyes of the customer that they will not change their buying behavior in response to higher prices.

Market Entry

Significant start-up costs will be incurred to develop and manufacture a new product, to launch the marketing campaign, or to build the sales force needed to find customers. 

To ensure that spending money on start-up costs are worthwhile, due diligence needs to be done to estimate the size of the market being considered and the cost of successfully entering it.

A teen fashion retailer has seen its sales boom in the North American market for the past 5 years. They’re considering expansion into international markets. They’d like help identifying which markets provide the best opportunities for their line of clothing.

A not-for-profit organization has been successful at hiring the long-term unemployed to manufacturer furniture made from pallets and other recycled items. They’ve not only designed and created beautiful pieces of indoor and outdoor furniture, but also helped to improve the lives of individuals in one city. They’d like to expand to other products and potentially to other cities and have asked for our help in assessing their options.

There are  4 parts to any market entry case : market size, market attractiveness, costs of entry and capabilities required. Let’s look at each.

Market size

Market sizing is sometimes used as a case interview question on its own. See below for more details . It’s also usually the first part of a market entry case. It addresses how large a market is in terms of annual revenue, number of units sold, or both. The underlying issue is whether there is enough opportunity in a market to make it worth the up-front cost.

To determine whether the amount of sales revenue or unit volume is “enough,” estimate the size of the market based on the information provided by your interviewer or by using factors you can reasonably estimate about the market. You can then consider profit margins and what portion of the market the company must capture to break even.

Market attractiveness

The market a company is thinking about entering may be huge, but it can still be unattractive. Key questions include: What is the profit margin for companies already in the market?  What does the competition in the market look like? Large firms with huge marketing budgets or small companies? 

Costs of entry

Will new technology, equipment, sales staff, or something else be required to succeed in the new market? If so, what will it cost? The greater the investment required to enter a market, the more difficult it will be to recoup the initial investment.

Capabilities

Does the firm being discussed have what it takes to succeed in the new market? In some markets, the key to success is marketing expertise and distribution. In others, it’s low costs and disciplined business processes. Identify the key attributes of success in the market and whether the company possesses those attributes.

To learn how you can structure and break down a case such as these, visit the  Case Interview Frameworks  page can help you think through important factors in this type of consulting case interview question.

Above, we looked at how to analyze a market entry case. 

If a market is attractive but the client does not have all the capabilities required to succeed in it, it may decide to buy the right capabilities through a merger or acquisition (M&A). 

They could also consider M&A opportunities if they need to enter the market fast rather than build capabilities over time.

The number 3 competitor in the cellular phone services market is at a disadvantage relative to its larger competitors. Providing cellular phone service has high fixed costs—for the equipment that transmits calls, the retail stores that sell phones and provide in-person customer support, and the marketing spend that is key to customer attraction and retention. The CEO is considering acquiring a smaller competitor in order to gain market share. He would like our help thinking through this decision.

The president of a national drug-store chain is considering acquiring a large, national health insurance provider. The merger would combine one company’s network of pharmacies and pharmacy management business with the health insurance operations of the other, vertically integrating the companies. He would like our help analyzing the potential benefits to customers and shareholders.

When you get this type of case, ask your interviewer why the company is considering the merger or acquisition. They may provide key information on the size and attractiveness of the market the target company is in. Assuming the target company is in a large, attractive market and has the critical capabilities required to succeed in that market, then you should consider whether it is better to build the new business internally or undertake a merger or acquisition. 

If two companies are considering a merger, they still have to persuade their shareholders that the 2 companies would be more valuable working together than on their own. The value the companies can create by working together is called  synergy .

Synergies from a merger or acquisition can be on the cost side, the revenue side, or both. Cost synergies include leveraging fixed costs across more business or cutting costs duplicated in both firms’ operations. Revenue side synergies include selling a broader range of products through the existing sales force or distribution channel. 

The synergies created by the merger or acquisition must be greater than the premium that must be paid to secure the deal in order for the transaction to make sense.

Integration

Mergers and acquisitions are large and complicated transactions. They require  integrating  the talent, systems, policies, and processes of the 2 organizations. Synergies that look good on PowerPoint slides do not always accrue in real life. In addition, key employees may quit during the disruption and uncertainty the M&A activity causes. Even if substantial synergies are identified, a company should consider whether it can successfully undertake the integration.

Regulatory Approval

Lastly, mergers of large companies in regulated markets (financial services, telecommunications) and concentrated markets (ones with only a few large competitors) can require government approval . The possibility of the government blocking the merger or acquisition should be considered in this type of case.

Cost Optimization

A top-3 home improvement retailer has seen price increases from several of its vendors, squeezing its bottom line. The company wants to know how it can cut costs to restore its margins to their previous levels.

The head of an automobile manufacturer has seen its production costs rise over the last several years. She wants your help in turning around this trend.

The most important thing to understand when addressing this type of case is what is going on with fixed costs and variable costs . The costs can be broken down and compared to competitors’ costs or costs in prior years to identify opportunities for improvement.

As a reminder, here are the definitions of fixed and variable costs:

Fixed Costs

Costs that you incur just because you are in business regardless of how many units you sell. Examples: factory rent, equipment depreciation, compensation for salaried employees, and property taxes. A way to think about fixed costs is that a cost that does not change over the short-term, even if a business experiences increases or decreases in its sales volume.

Variable Costs

Costs that only incur when you begin to produce units (if you sell nothing you have no variable costs). Examples: sales commissions, credit card transaction costs, and sales taxes. A way to think about variable costs is that a cost that does change over the short-term. More sales volume will mean more variable costs.

Startup / Early-Stage Venture

Startup and early-stage venture cases have some similarities to market entry cases. 

Ensuring that the market the company is going after is big enough and has high enough margins to be attractive is important, as is understanding their competition. 

Startups are small, nimble companies with only a handful of key employees and limited access to cash. These factors need to be taken into account.

A student from Iceland studying in the U.S. has determined there’s a big opportunity to bring Icelandic-style yogurt to this market. How would you recommend he proceed?

A software company has developed video technology that can be used to quickly and easily create short videos that can be sent to a colleague in place of typing a long email. This disruptive technology will take advantage of the cameras built into cell phones and laptops as well as consumers’ preference for watching a video rather than reading text. The company has a small number of beta customers and is looking for advice on how to ramp up their product to attract a wider audience.

When answering this type of case, focus on the key things that help these small, fast-growth ventures move with agility as they search for the product and business model that will attract customers and investors. 

The Right People

They need the right people —ones with product savvy, marketing savvy and investor savvy to make it. 

A Minimum Viable Product

They need a minimum viable product . This is an initial version of their product offering that will attract paying customers, allowing them earn money and to collect feedback that can be used to improve the product. It will also serve as a proof-of-concept to investors. 

A Business Plan

Start-up and early stage venture also need an initial business plan addressing how they will bring their product to market.

Non-Profitability Cases

Some might focus on charitable organization. Others might focus on businesses issues that don’t relate directly to profits, such as employee retention or understanding the competitive dynamics in an industry. 

An overview of how to approach non-profitability cases is found on this page .

This section focuses on key concepts to address in a few common types of non-profitability cases.

Lives Affected

Government agencies and charitable organizations don’t aim to maximize profits. Nonetheless, they do important work that affects many lives. 

They might hire a consulting company to help them improve their effectiveness, or a consulting firm might take on an important project for a charitable organization on a pro-bono basis. 

The state agency that administers the free summer lunch program for children of families under a certain income threshold wants to increase the reach of its program. How would you advise they approach this? 

Malaria is a devastating disease, affecting hundreds of millions of individuals each year. It’s transferred to humans by mosquitoes, with most of the cases occurring in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Though drugs to treat the disease exist, many in the affected regions don’t have access to or can’t afford these drugs. The disease is a strain on the economies of several nations, perpetuating the cycle of poverty. What can be done to alleviate this disease and its adverse economic effects?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A detailed example of how to approach a lives affected case is provided  here .  As discussed in that case, the key to answering this type of question is to find the key performance indicator (KPI) the organization is trying to improve. In the case of the first sample question above, this is the number of free lunches served to needy children. 

Benchmarking

Once you’ve established the KPI, the case can be answered in the same way you’d answer any case question on business improvement. You can benchmark the organization’s performance by looking at trends in the KPI over time or comparing the growth of the organization’s KPI to that of other organizations serving the same target population to assess whether the agency is doing a good job meeting their mandate or falling behind. If they are falling behind, drill down into the factors that might be causing them to do so.

Cases focused on employee retention are not directly about profits, though the loss of key skills when employees depart and the cost of training new hires require hurts the profitability of organizations with high turnover. 

A fast-food chain is experiencing an increase in the already-high rate of employee turnover typical in its industry. It’s also experiencing trouble attracting qualified new employees. What would you suggest?

The school system in a middle-class suburban town is experiencing higher-than-normal rates of teacher attrition. With a tight budget, they are unable to simply raise salaries to hold onto experienced teachers. What options does the school system have for increasing teacher retention?

Conducting retention interviews —interviews with departing employees to find out why they’re leaving the organization—is a standard practice in most organizations. Because of this, there should be data available on what employees like about their jobs, don’t like about their jobs, why they looked for new opportunities and what new job they’re taking. Ask your interviewer for this information, as well as survey data on the job satisfaction of all employees. It can be used to develop a multi-pronged approach to improving employee retention.

• Look for opportunities to enhance aspects of the job that appeal to employees and change the negative aspects of working for the organization. For instance: What about the job is appealing? 
• Do employees see the work of the organization positively impacting the broader community? 
• Do employees like their colleagues, recognition they receive from management, the financial package provided? 

Industry Landscape and Competitive Dynamics

Cases focused on the landscape of an industry and its competitive dynamics are about the big-picture strategic issues that must be taken into account to compete effectively in that industry.

The traditional newspaper industry is facing heavy pressure from free online news organizations that don’t face the cost of printing a traditional newspaper and are able to leverage Internet ads as a source of revenue. The publisher of an award-winning regional paper would like your help in assessing and responding to this new threat.

The food and beverage industry faces disruption to their traditional brands as organic and small-batch products gain favor with consumers. How should companies in this industry respond to this new of competitive threat?

When analyzing this kind of case, first look for what is changing in the industry —consumer preferences, brand loyalty, barriers to entering the market, regulation, the industry’s cost structure, etc. Ensure you know what the source of change is before you begin to look for a strategy to help the client succeed in the new marketplace. 

For tips on structuring a case like these, visit the  Business Frameworks page . SWOT analysis and other frameworks include some factors to consider in this type of consulting case interview question.

Market Sizing Questions (Also Called Dinner Conversation Cases)

Market sizing cases are focused on establishing the size of a market in terms of annual revenue or the number of units sold rather than determining how to compete successfully in the market. 

Consulting firms often ask market sizing questions early in the consulting interview process or in interviews of undergraduate students who may not have a deep business background. 

They can also be one component of complicated, multi-step cases in later-round interviews. Market sizing questions focus on making logical estimates, showing creativity, and doing basic math.  

What is the size of the market for organic toothpaste in the United States?

How many golf balls would fit inside the Empire State building?

What Are Consulting Interviewers Looking for on Market Sizing Cases?

With case interview questions of this type, you’re not expected to know the answer, but instead to show a logical way of deducing it. Committing a few key facts to memory would serve you well. For example, knowing the population of the United States (or the country you live in) would give you a good place to start as you think through the size of the market for various retail goods. Gross domestic product can help with sizing industrial markets.

Key Statistics to Know for Market Sizing Case Questions:

The Population of the United States 2019 – 329 million according to the US Census Bureau .

World population in 2015 – 7.4 billion according to the United Nations DESA / Populations Division .

2018 Gross Domestic Product of the United States – $20.5 trillion according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce .

Statistics like these give you a good foundation to start your market size analysis. For instance, you could begin estimating the size of the U.S. market for organic toothpaste with the US population. From there, make logical assumptions:

• How many times a day does the average American brushes their teeth?
• How many toothpaste applications are in the average tube of toothpaste?
• How much does the average tube of toothpaste cost?

These assumptions will allow you to calculate the size of the overall toothpaste market in terms of annual revenue. To get to the annual revenue of organic toothpaste you’ll also need to estimate:

• What portion of toothpaste consumers prefers organic toothpaste?

You can (and should) bring paper and a pen into consulting interviews. Use these to keep track of your assumptions as you work through them and to do the basic math required to come to a conclusion.

 Our Market Sizing Questions article has a list of the 7 steps to answering this type of question.

Key Things to Remember When Answering a Market Sizing Question:

• Ask clarifying questions. Does the interviewer want the market size in terms of dollars or units? For the United States, North America, the world?
• Use round numbers for simplicity. For instance, using $20 trillion for U.S. GDP rather than $20.5 would be fine.
• Creativity in your approach to approximating the market is important, but so is good sense. Don’t be so creative that your answer lacks credibility.
• Practice case math so you can do it quickly and correctly even under the stress of an interview.
• Give your answer a sniff-test at the end. Does it make sense? This will both show that you are careful in your analysis and give you the chance to fix an arithmetic mistake if you find you’re way off. 

Case Interview Math (also known as consulting math)

Management consulting interviewers screen candidates to ensure that they can do basic math. 

Don’t worry if you didn’t ace multivariate calculus, the math is usually basic arithmetic—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions/percentages. You may also be asked to extract data from charts and convert from one unit of measure to another.

As mentioned in the discussion of market-sizing case questions above, you can and should bring a paper and pen into the interview. It’s fine to write out your calculations.

Consulting Math Example

In each step, we’ll provide a sense of how we are making the estimate so that the interviewer knows we’re not just grabbing a number out of the air. We want our answer to be as grounded in fact as possible. 

The population of the United States: 329 million. We’ll round to 330 million for simplicity.

The number of times the average American brushes their teeth – 2 times per day. Some people brush at lunchtime too, but that’s probably offset by people who only brush once a day.

330 million people brushing 2x’s per day gives us 660 million toothpaste applications/day.

To get to an annual number of toothpaste applications, we need to multiply by 365. That’s 241 billion toothpaste applications. We’ll round to 240 billion for simplicity.

A tube of toothpaste usually lasts me about 2 months. That means we need to divide by 120 toothpaste applications per tube to come up with the number of tubes sold annually (2 months x 30 days/month x 2 applications/day). 240 billion toothpaste applications / 120 applications per tube = 2 billion tubes of toothpaste sold in the U.S. every year.

The cost of toothpaste ranges from $1 for inexpensive brands to $4 for expensive brands, but the average cost is probably about $2. This means the total revenue for toothpaste sold in the U.S. is 2 billion tubes x $2 or $4 billion.

The percent of the toothpaste market that’s organic is a little tricky to estimate. In the grocery store I shop in, there’s 1 aisle of organic goods in a store that has 20 aisles – that means organic products make up 5% of shelf space (and presumably also of sales). 

I think that people would be less likely to buy organic toothpaste than organic food, because you eat organic food, but you spit organic toothpaste out into the sink. Organic products always cost more and organic toothpaste doesn’t seem quite as important to your health. 

Conclusion: Based on that, I’ll say that 1% of the market for toothpaste is organic, so if $4 billion in toothpaste is sold in the U.S. every year, $40 million of it is organic toothpaste.

Is our answer right? 

Probably not exactly. There are different sizes of toothpaste tubes, a complication that we did not consider in this analysis. There might be some people who don’t brush their teeth every day. That would mean that we overestimated consumption. 

But our estimate of the market size for organic toothpaste is reasonable and grounded in logical assumptions. We could sniff-test our answer by comparing it to a market size we know, or to GDP, one of the facts we suggested having in your back pocket for market sizing case questions. 

U.S. GDP was about $20 trillion in 2018. Our estimations suggest that the overall toothpaste market is $4 billion. That means toothpaste is 1/5,000 of the U.S. economy, and the market for organic toothpaste is 1% of that. 

That sounds plausible. If your answer showed that the market for organic toothpaste was larger than U.S. GDP, it would be a clear indication that you made a mistake somewhere along the way.

For the 4 types of math problems you’ll be asked to compute as part of case studies, read Case Interview Math.

Above, we’ve provided you with 11 different types of case interview questions you might be asked during your consulting interviews. We’ve also told you that you need to get great at doing case math. 

Overwhelming? It can be.

But it doesn’t have to be.

The best way to prepare for your consulting case interviews is NOT to spend hundreds of hours reading every case study question and answer you can get your hands on. Instead, see our page on Case Interview Practice  to find out how to make the most of your interview prep time. In addition, check out this video where Davis Nguyen, Founder of My Consulting Offer, talks about how mastering the case interview is made easier when you focus on the most common types of cases. 

Here in an online workshop he conducted for  Columbia University, NYU, and Cornell students, you can see why this approach is so effective:

After studying the information on this page, you have an in-depth understanding of the types of cases you could be asked to analyze in consulting interviews. From Davis’s video, you know why this is so important to focus on the main types of cases. You’re well prepared to find a case study practice partner and begin practicing.

As you prepare for case interviews, you should use this page in conjunction with  Case Interview Examples , where you’ll find links to sample case study questions and their answers. Remember that while it is important to discuss all the appropriate aspects of a business case, it’s important to structure your analysis and your answer. Refer back to our page on  Case Interview Frameworks   to ensure that you’re not just practicing more cases, but doing them better.

If you still have questions, leave them in the comments below. We’ll ask our My Consulting Offer coaches and get back to you with answers.

• Market Sizing Questions ,
• Case Interview Workshop Video , and
• Written Case Interviews ,

Thanks for turning to My Consulting Offer for advice on case study interview prep. My Consulting Offer has helped almost 89.6% of the people we’ve worked with get a job in management consulting.  For example, here is how Thomas was able to get a BCG offer with just a short time to prepare..

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Bike lanes are good for business

Study after study proves it. So why do so many shops and restaurants still oppose better streets?

Businesses hate bike lanes. Sure, they reduce pollution, slow the pace of climate change, cut traffic fatalities, and make cities healthier and more pleasant. But they also take away parking spaces, which makes it tougher for shoppers to load up their cars with piles of stuff. Freaked-out business owners have been fighting bike lanes coast to coast, in cities from San Diego to Cambridge, Massachusetts. They worry — not unreasonably — that anything that makes it harder for customers to get to their stops will eat into their already precarious margins. 

 “As someone whose family had a small business when I was growing up, I know how invested you get in it,” says Joseph Poirier, a senior researcher at the urban-planning consultancy Nelson Nygaard. “It’s your whole life. Anything you think could threaten that, even if the government and their consultants tell you it’s not going to be a problem, is very scary. It makes sense.”

It’s also wrong. Four decades’ worth of research proves it. I know this because I’ve read every study and report I could find that looked specifically at the economics of bike lanes since 1984 — 32 research articles, to be exact. The results show that making streets friendlier for bikes — and sidewalks friendlier for pedestrians — is actually good for business. The rise of “complete streets” and “road diets,” as urban planners call them, has been a huge boon to businesses in cities.

 I won’t walk you through every study, because most of them actually use survey data. Do you think bike lanes discourage shopping? How much do you spend when you ride your bike here? Surveys aren’t the most reliable way to look at this question. People lie, they misremember, they get stuff wrong. And anecdotal experience tends to loom too large. One angry customer who complains about not being able to find parking trumps the 10 who rode their bikes to your shop and didn’t say boo.

More confoundingly, survey after survey has shown that business owners overestimate how many of their customers drive to their stores, versus walking or biking. In a study of the effects of street improvements on a shopping corridor in Los Angeles published in 2012, more than half of the store owners on the bike-laned part of the boulevard thought most of their customers drove. The actual number was 15%.

So what we need is financial data. Revenue numbers. Sales taxes. Credit-card receipts. Employment figures. That’s the good stuff. And for methodological rigor, we want to case-match our study areas to similar neighborhoods that didn’t get bike lanes — and to numbers for the city overall, to establish a baseline.

That cuts the number of useful studies to just about half a dozen. Here, in brief, is what they tell us.

In 2013, a researcher at the University of Washington named Kyle Rowe looked at two shopping districts in Seattle that got put on road diets. Rowe compared sales taxes in these “Neighborhood Business Districts” with those in similar districts in the city that didn’t get bike lanes. In one NBD, which replaced car lanes and three parking spots with two bike lanes, sales closely tracked those in the bike-less areas, both in peaks and troughs. Conclusion: Bike lanes did nothing to reduce business. And in the other NBD, which replaced 12 parking spaces with a bike lane, sales quadrupled .

Was the spike in business because more cyclists came to shop? Rowe, a careful researcher, declines to make that leap. “It would be logical to assume that more bicyclists were coming to the NBD because of the new facility,” he writes, “but no conclusion can be made to connect mode choice to economic performance.” Still, there’s no mistaking the data: Adding bike lanes certainly didn’t hurt sales — and may have boosted them dramatically.

A year later, the New York City Department of Transportation conducted the same kind of study on a larger scale, examining sales-tax data in seven retail-heavy neighborhoods . A few were plaza-type hubs; the others were more linear retail corridors. All had been through the kind of extensive changes to pedestrian access, mass transit, traffic calming, landscaping, and bike paths that New York was pushing at the time. The results were striking. Compared with the overall business climate in each borough, sales in the bike-friendly areas soared by 84 percentage points in Brooklyn, 9 percentage points in Manhattan, and 32 percentage points in the Bronx. “Better streets,” the report concludes, “provide benefits to businesses in all types of neighborhoods,” from “lower-income neighborhoods with ‘mom & pop’ retail” to “glitzier areas with sky-high rents.”

The next couple of studies got even more specific. In 2018, Joseph Poirier, the urban planner I quoted earlier, looked at sales data from three retail neighborhoods in San Francisco with newly installed bike lanes. Drawing on everything from industry coding conventions to map data, he was able to draw detailed distinctions among hundreds of businesses: what they sold (retail versus restaurants), where they were located (right next to a bike lane versus a few blocks away), and who their customers were (coffee shops serving locals, say, versus a furniture store serving the entire city).

The results were mixed. In two of the three districts, shops and restaurants serving locals did way better than places serving a wider area. In the other district, sales tanked relative to the number of people a shop employed, suggesting that bike lanes gave an advantage to smaller businesses. “The takeaway is that it’s probably a minimal effect on businesses when you put in a bike lane,” Poirer says. “That actually makes a lot of sense. If you think of a busy downtown district, there’s not that many parking spaces relative to the number of people who come to the business.” In this case, bike lanes didn’t seem to help businesses much. But overall, it didn’t hurt them.

In 2019 Poirer was on a team that did another study of San Francisco. They looked at businesses directly adjacent to two kinds of bike infrastructure — Class II, which creates dedicated bike lanes denoted by a paint stripe, and Class III, where signs instruct cars and bikes to share the street. (Either way, blocks with the new lanes lost an average of three parking spaces.) Once again, the results were mixed. On Class II lanes, bars and barber shops and banks enjoyed increases in sales, while furniture stores and gas stations were more likely to experience decreases. Older businesses tended to decline more than new ones. Overall, in the year after the bike infrastructure went in, businesses on Class II streets lost a median of $27,921 compared with $19,390 for those on Class III lanes. But similar shops that weren’t on a bike lane lost $25,296. When it came to bike lanes, there were lots and lots of winners. But there were some losers, too.

The most definitive study, to my eye, came in 2020. Jenny Liu and Wei Shi, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon produced a 260-page report looking at neighborhoods that got bike lanes and other street improvements in Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Memphis. The team cross-referenced financial information like sales taxes with geographic data, so they could tell exactly where businesses were in relation to the street improvements. They ran three kinds of econometric analyses on each site. And they looked not only at revenue but also at the number of employees — per business and in total — in each study area. “I was really trying to be rigorous methodologically, to provide the kind of evidence that people can use to talk to their communities,” says Liu, the director of the Center for Urban Studies at Portland State.

Like Poirier, Liu and Shi found that in many cases, only certain kinds of businesses benefited from the bike lanes and street improvements. Food and beverage did better; retail did worse. And just slapping a bike lane on a hectic thoroughfare didn’t do anyone any good. “On really large streets with high traffic volumes or speeds, even if you add a bike lane or pedestrian improvements, it still isn’t really inviting,” Liu says. “Just having street calming doesn’t always have positive results.”

But overall, Liu’s team found, retail areas benefited from better streets. Sometimes nothing changed, but more often the areas near bike lanes wound up with more employees and more revenue. That was true in Portland, at two sites in San Francisco, one site in Minneapolis (at the other, retail did better than food), and one site in Memphis (at the other, food did a bit better than retail). Across the country, again and again, the numbers told the same story: Either “business activity remained pretty much constant,” Liu says, or “certain types of businesses became much more prosperous.” 

Back in the 1960s, when the advent of suburban flight and climate-controlled malls began to draw business away from America’s once thriving downtowns, cities tried to stanch the flow by banning cars on shopping streets. It was called, not exactly trippingly, “ pedestrianization ,” and it was a disaster. Pedestrian-only plazas couldn’t compete with the Golden Age of the Automobile, and many downtowns turned into boarded-up wastelands. That extinction event is still encoded in the genetic memories of today’s retailers and restaurateurs.

But things have changed. Nowadays, online retail is crushing brick-and-mortar worse than any half-assed pedestrian plaza ever could. What’s more, demand for new homes means lots of cities are putting them downtown, trading daytime workers for all-the-time residents close enough to ride a bike. COVID showed us it’s worth giving up parking spaces for outdoor restaurants. America’s cities are undergoing nothing short of a total rethink of what and whom downtowns are for .

Nationwide numbers of bike lanes are tough to come by. By one count, there are nearly 20,000 miles of bike-ready paths in the United States, but that includes rural routes and trails. Still, city after city is working to create European-style streets. Portland has over 430 miles of bike lanes, about the same as Chicago ; New York City has more than 1,500; Los Angeles has added almost 1,000 miles since 2010. And every new mile of bike lane per square mile of city increases the number of cyclists by 1%. The training wheels are about to come off the “complete street” movement.

Now, advocates and policymakers should be honest about all this. Even if bike lanes boost revenues and employment overall, some individual businesses are going to win and some are going to lose. An older business selling heavier goods, or drawing from a wider watershed for its customer base, might well be in trouble. “Newer businesses who are thrilled with density and development around them are pivoting to a customer who’s younger, who’s arriving on a scooter or a bike,” says Larisa Ortiz, a managing director at the urban-planning consultancy Streetsense. “But this process of evolution toward bike lanes and mobility does not come without loss.”

One way I’d propose to help businesses adjust to the total remaking of the urban landscape is the most American solution of all: Just hand them some money. All you’d have to do is build funds into the budgets for street-improvement projects to compensate adjacent businesses for any sales they wind up losing. If your business takes a hit from all the bikes, you get a pay-out.

The most effective way to deal with opposition from local businesses is to just get the bike lanes built. Before-and-after surveys tend to show that in the long run, everyone winds up satisfied. “It’s a political question, and oftentimes it’s a very divided community when it comes to these types of projects,” Poirier says. “But once a street is changed, generally speaking, after six months or a year, nobody remembers what it used to look like. It’s the new normal.” All the data in the world may prove that bike lanes are good for business. But nothing beats experiencing them.

Adam Rogers is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

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