When you do a commercial case study I've read a lot of stuff about SWOT/PESTLE. Are they expecting you to be able to suggest stories from the news eg knowledge of something political going on, a particular industry trend, etc. which might affect the business in question, or do they want you to just mention that there may be external political factors which could be relevant (and basically give no detail), or alternatively would they give specific details of these in the case study and then just want you to comment on the impacts? This is for a first year scheme if that makes a difference...
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SWOT/PESTLE for Interview
- Thread starter theintellectualpropertygirl
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Hi!
For this kind of exercise (especially for a first-year scheme), I think it is unlikely that they will expect you to list lots of external news stories or have deep industry knowledge.
SWOT / PESTLE are just tools that you can use to help structure your thinking, rather than a tick-box exercise. What firms are usually more interested in is whether you can identify relevant commercial factors and explain their impact clearly and logically.
In most case studies, the key information will be in the material that they give to you. They'll often hint at political, economic or industry factors within the scenario itself, and they'll want you to identify them and analyse how those affect the business (for example, profitability, risk, reputation, strategy, etc.)
You can bring in wider knowledge if it is relevant and you are confident about it - for example, a clear industry trend that directly affects the type of company in the case study. However, this isn't necessary for these types of exercises, and it is better to analyse the facts that you've been given well than to force in external news without as much detail.
Therefore, I would focus on structuring your answer clearly (+ SWOT and PESTLE can help guide this), explaining why each factor matters, and linking everything back to the impact on the client / business.
I hope that assists!
Thank you this is exactly the info I was looking for!!!Hi!
For this kind of exercise (especially for a first-year scheme), I think it is unlikely that they will expect you to list lots of external news stories or have deep industry knowledge.
SWOT / PESTLE are just tools that you can use to help structure your thinking, rather than a tick-box exercise. What firms are usually more interested in is whether you can identify relevant commercial factors and explain their impact clearly and logically.
In most case studies, the key information will be in the material that they give to you. They'll often hint at political, economic or industry factors within the scenario itself, and they'll want you to identify them and analyse how those affect the business (for example, profitability, risk, reputation, strategy, etc.)
You can bring in wider knowledge if it is relevant and you are confident about it - for example, a clear industry trend that directly affects the type of company in the case study. However, this isn't necessary for these types of exercises, and it is better to analyse the facts that you've been given well than to force in external news without as much detail.
Therefore, I would focus on structuring your answer clearly (+ SWOT and PESTLE can help guide this), explaining why each factor matters, and linking everything back to the impact on the client / business.
I hope that assists!
I'm glad to hear it, no problem at all!! Best of luck with the assessment - I'm sure you'll do great!
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