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Part V

PART V: Developing Alternatives

Once the team understands the problem and has developed meaningful insights, the next question is: What could the organisation actually do? This is where many case solutions become weaker. Teams often jump from analysis directly to a favourite idea. They find something interesting, decide they like it, and then spend the rest of the case trying to prove that it is the right answer. Strong case solving works differently.

A recommendation becomes more credible when the team can demonstrate that it considered credible alternatives, established appropriate criteria for comparison, and selected the option that best fits the organisation's situation. Part V focuses on two critical skills:

  1. Developing meaningful alternatives

  2. Creating decision criteria that allow those alternatives to be compared

The objective is not to create more ideas. It is to create better choices.

Chapter 8: Alternatives Are Not a Buffet

Alternatives That Win MECE Options + Decision Criteria That Make Your Recommendation Obvious

A common mistake in case competitions is to create three or four random ideas and then select the one the team likes best. That isn't strategic decision-making. A strong alternative should emerge from the analysis. Your analysis has identified:

  • the problem;

  • the underlying causes;

  • the organisation's objectives;

  • its capabilities;

  • its constraints;

  • its opportunities;

  • and the risks it faces.

Your alternatives should respond to those findings. Think of the progression as:

ANALYSIS → INSIGHTS → ALTERNATIVES → EVALUATION → RECOMMENDATION

The alternatives are the bridge between understanding the problem and making the decision.

What Makes a Strong Alternative?

A strong alternative should be:

Realistic

The organisation could actually pursue it. It fits the organisation's:

  • resources;

  • market;

  • capabilities;

  • financial position;

  • regulatory environment;

  • and strategic situation.

Implementable

The organisation could execute it. You should be able to explain:

  • who would do it;

  • what resources are required;

  • what capabilities are needed;

  • how long it would take;

  • and what major dependencies exist.

Meaningfully Different

The alternatives should represent genuinely different choices. Changing the wording of essentially the same strategy does not create three alternatives. For example:

  • Increase marketing by 10%;

  • Increase marketing by 15%;

  • Increase marketing by 20%.

These are different levels of the same decision, not necessarily three distinct strategic alternatives. Instead, consider alternatives such as: 

  • deepen the existing market;

  • enter a new market;

  • develop a new product;

  • pursue a partnership;

  • acquire an existing capability.

The alternatives create different strategic paths.

MECE Alternatives

A useful principle for developing alternatives is MECE: Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive.

Mutually Exclusive

The alternatives should be meaningfully different from one another. If Alternative A and Alternative B could simply be combined without changing the strategic choice, they may not actually be separate alternatives.

Collectively Exhaustive

Together, the alternatives should cover the reasonable strategic choices available to the organisation. You do not need to identify every conceivable possibility. You need to identify the important and realistic choices.

Alternatives Should Come From the Analysis

Your alternatives should not appear out of nowhere. For example:

Analysis

The company has strong brand recognition but limited digital capabilities.

Insight

The organisation has an opportunity to grow digitally but lacks the internal capability to build the required platform quickly. This could lead to alternatives such as:

  • Alternative A — Build
    • Develop the capability internally.
  • Alternative B — Buy
    • Acquire an organisation that already possesses the capability.
  • Alternative C — Partner
    • Work with an external organisation to access the capability.

Now the alternatives emerge logically from the analysis. That makes the eventual recommendation easier to defend.

Don't Build a Straw Man

One of the worst habits in case competitions is creating:

  • one good idea;

  • one mediocre idea;

  • one obviously terrible idea.

Then the team announces: “Clearly, Option A wins.” Of course it does. But this does not demonstrate strategic thinking. A straw-man alternative is intentionally weak so that the preferred option appears superior. Judges can often see this immediately. Strong alternatives should all be credible choices. Your recommendation should win because it is superior against meaningful criteria—not because the other options were designed to lose.

The Alternative Quality Test

Before evaluating your alternatives, ask:

  1. Is this realistic? Could the organisation actually do this?
  2. Is this implementable? Could the organisation execute it with available or attainable resources?
  3. Is it strategically relevant? Does it address the problem we identified?
  4. Is it meaningfully different? Does it represent a genuinely different strategic choice?
  5. Is it supported by our analysis? Can we explain where the alternative came from?
  6. Would a reasonable executive consider it? If management would never seriously consider the option, it probably does not belong in the final comparison.

Alternatives Are Choices, Not Ideas

There is an important distinction between an idea and an alternative. 

  • An idea might be: Launch a social media campaign.
  • An alternative is broader: Invest in digital customer acquisition to rebuild the company's customer base.

The alternative describes a strategic choice. The social media campaign may then become one of the tactics used to execute that choice. This distinction matters because case competitions are usually asking: What should management do? not: What interesting idea could management try?

Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

Don't create alternatives to fill a slide. Create alternatives to create a real decision.

The purpose of alternatives is to make the choice meaningful.

The Bottom Line

A strong recommendation does not begin with: “We have a great idea.” It begins with: “We identified several credible ways the organisation could address the problem. We evaluated them against what matters most. This option is the strongest.” That is strategic decision-making.

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