Case studies galore...

When I used to think of a typical B-school curricula prior to arriving @ INSEAD, the "Case Study" approach is one that came to mind instantly. The erudite around me claimed that case studies are used extensively as a tools of illustrating important and fundamental concepts.

Well, P1 was the very antithesis of this. Most of the P1 courses were quantitative in nature and there was a truckload of theory being shoved down our throats as well. Be it Marginal analysis & Oligopolistic traits in Microeconomics or Portfolio theory & WACC in Finance, the focus was on understanding concepts the old-fashioned way. All this, hopefully by design, left little time for case studies, although we did work on about half a dozen cases.

P2 though, is a different story. Several courses such as Strategy, Operations, et al are purely case-study based. This is good in that the quantity of raw study required is less, but the load of case studies is starting to build up. While credible cases from HBS, INSEAD, etc are being used, I have found most of the case discussions in class to be rather mediocre. Perhaps I'm jumping ahead of myself here, it is, after all, only the second week. Still, we seem to be covering precious little new ground hand the whole feeling is one of being quick-sanded.

There are, of course exceptions and I say this as I've just finished reading a case study on RyanAir, the low-cost Irish airline, lead today by the colourful, if not controversial, Michael O'Leary. If my statement sounds rather lame, consider one of his recent quotes...

"The European Commission are "morons", BAA "overcharging rapists", Britain's air traffic conrol is "poxy", British Airways as "expensive bastards" and travel agents are "fuckers who should be taken out and shot".

Now, when was the last time the CEO of a successful growth company dared to be so...well...obtuse? It was a moribund trait, one that Mr. O'Leary has re-kindled. Coming to the serious stuff though, RyanAir's achievement in converting itself from virtually a flying club 20 years ago to a company that today has a market capitalization higher than that of British Airways, is admirable and certainly worth studying. An oasis in the desert for now though...