Htm 531 – exam for case analysis and one excel – 05/18

1.  Review our service design analysis framework (the Francis Frei article); how to analyze cases; and the primer on how not to get lost in the numbers. In other words, get your analysis mindset and tools ready so you can hit the ground running during the exam. 

2. Unlike most midterms that you might be used to, this exam is will not test your knowledge of raw facts and figures. Rather, the questions on the exam are designed to test your ability to apply the methods of thinking that were taught and applied in class. The best way to understand what I mean by ‘apply methods of thinking’ are to give you an example. Our first readings this semester: Frei, F. X. (2008). The four things a service business must get right. Harvard business review, 86(4), 70-80, I will not overtly ask what the ‘four things’ are, but rather I will be looking for whether, you analyzed the given service strategy as it relates to having a sound offering that matches with customer values/needs/wants; the strength of its customer and employee management strategies; and its funding mechanism. AND that you have appropriately identified and evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of those mechanisms in the case given. A and B -grade responses are those that cross-pollinate the strategies used and issues presented in in-class cases with those that you’re currently being asked about.