ICAG L3 Strategic Case Study study plan

Build a one-page PESTEL-plus-Porter's-Five-Forces template you can populate from a 2-page case in under 25 minutes

Practise extracting the three to five strategic issues that actually drive the case outcome, and discard the rest

Map each issue to the specific analytical model that best explains it (life-cycle, BCG, value chain, stakeholder, SWOT as a summary only)

Draft a governance-and-risk lens checklist covering board composition, internal control, and risk appetite, so you can apply it to any scenario

Apply competitor and industry analysis to a case with a dominant incumbent and a disruptive entrant, quantifying the threat where numbers allow

Evaluate how macro and regulatory shifts change a company's competitive position over a three-to-five-year horizon

Assess how risk appetite, board oversight, and internal control failures contributed to a strategic misstep in a case

Practise writing a short, decision-focused conclusion rather than a descriptive summary

Generate and compare at least three genuinely distinct strategic options, including a do-nothing option, using explicit criteria

Apply Ansoff, Porter's generic strategies, and the parenting/value-adding logic to test whether an option fits the organisation's capabilities

Plan implementation: structure, resourcing, sequencing, and the two or three critical success factors

Draft the same recommendation twice, once for a board and once for an operating manager, and compare the framing

Appraise an investment using NPV, IRR, payback, and discounted payback, and explain where the methods disagree and why

Build a sensitivity and scenario table on the two or three variables that move NPV most

Weigh financing choices (debt, equity, retained earnings, leases) against cost of capital, covenant headroom, and dilution

Link the financing recommendation back to the chosen strategy and the company's risk profile

Compute cost of equity and WACC from given data and defend each input assumption in one sentence

Evaluate whether a proposed acquisition creates value by comparing purchase price, synergies, and integration cost

Assess business-valuation methods (DCF, multiples, asset-based) and state which is defensible for the case and why

Identify the governance and risk-control weaknesses that would make a financing or acquisition plan fail approval

Apply an ethical decision framework to a conflict-of-interest, whistleblowing, or earnings-management scenario

Identify the professional, legal, and reputational consequences of each course of action in an ethics case

Practise stakeholder communication: what each audience needs, in what order, and in what format

Draft a recommendation that states the action, the ethical justification, and the safeguards in under 400 words

Complete two full past-style cases under timed conditions, allocating roughly equal time across the five domains

Self-mark against the assessment criteria: technical accuracy, application to the case, and quality of judgement

Diagnose recurring weaknesses and rewrite the two weakest answers to a higher standard

Tighten time management so no single requirement consumes disproportionate time

Complete one final full case under exam conditions with no notes

Consolidate a one-page formula and framework sheet covering WACC, NPV, ratios, and your model-selection logic

Rehearse the opening and closing paragraphs of a recommendation until they are fast and precise

Review the three most frequent errors from weeks 1-7 and confirm each is corrected