MKF2131 – Marketing Decision Analysis

Case Study Report Writing Guide

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Please read these instructions at least twice – once before you start your report, and again when you have finished writing. Following these instructions will improve the clarity of your report and help you avoid some of the common pitfalls of report writing.

General Instructions

All assignments are strictly individual. Collusion is not permitted.

Assume that you are a marketing analyst reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The CMO has limited familiarity with spreadsheets and statistics, so you should write your report from a business rather than a technical perspective.

Writing a business report is a very different exercise from writing an essay. To train you in business writing, you will write up each case study using the Report Template provided on Moodle. This is a Word file divided into three sections (Methodology, Interpretation, Recommendation). You are only permitted to enter text into the accompanying text boxes. You must make sure that all the text is visible within the boxes. The maximum number of words for all three sections is 1,500. Do not exceed this limit.

Ensure that all writing in a section actually belongs to that section. For example, Recommendations should not be found in the Methodology section.

All submissions must also include an Appendix at the bottom of the template. The purpose of the Appendix is to display relevant tables, charts and/or diagrams that help in explaining your conclusions. You can include up to 4 items (Tables, Figures, Charts etc.) in the appendix. It is unacceptable practice to include any screen dumps in your Appendix section. All tables, charts and diagrams must be numbered (e.g. Fig. 1), must have a title, and must be cited in the body of the report, otherwise marks will be deducted. Do not include any other text in the Appendix section, as it will not be read by the marker.

Care should be taken in deciding which tables to include in your Appendix section. Only include tables which you feel are critical to the case study. Make sure that all tables are properly formatted. For example, change any proportions to percentages. Also, be prepared to delete any unnecessary rows or columns from tables, as this will help the CMO focus on the key information, without the distraction of extraneous items.

Comments on Appendix

What is the purpose of the appendix section? The appendix provides the reader with visual displays that enable the information obtained from the analysis to be readily interpreted by the reader.

Should information be presented in a chart or a table? The answer depends on the audience and the type of information to be displayed.

If there is a diverse audience, with different informational needs, then a table might be the best way of displaying information. Each member of the audience can then focus on the parts of the table that they are interested in. However, this is not the scenario envisaged with either assignment case study.

Tables can also be better than charts when the information has multiple units of measurement. Case Study 1 was a case in point. Segment characteristics would be difficult to represent graphically, and so a table seemed to be the best option.

Apart from these two situations described above, a chart should always be top of mind for the simple reason that it is more readily interpreted, as the reader can visually see differences in magnitude.

Keep in mind that a business manager would usually like to see the actual numbers as well as the chart – a situation which you should assume for your case study. There are two ways of handling this. If you are displaying information using a bar chart, then you can add data labels to the bars. Alternatively, you can place the numbers immediately below the chart, in a simple table that only includes the numbers that correspond to the chart. In this latter case, the chart and table would together be regarded as a single figure.

What numbers should be included in the appendix? Only include numbers that the reader needs to interpret. You should decide exactly what the reader needs to focus on, and that will inform you as to which numbers to include.

When to use a piechart? Lollipop charts (a.k.a. pie charts) can be beguiling, but of course that isn’t the purpose of a chart. As a guide, only consider using a pie chart if comparing no more than three percentages that add to 100% – otherwise a bar chart is better.