strategic case study may 2023

CIMA Case Study: May 2023

For those students whose first taste of a case study will be in May 2023, what can you expect and how should you prepare?

The pre-seen materials release date is an obvious starting point for preparations, but from personal experience I found that using the weeks BEFORE the pre-seen materials are released as the perfect time to develop a exam strategy and look at the bigger picture on what CIMA expects of a student looking to pass the case study exams first time.

Here are three pieces advice I would give students sitting a May case study exam

Understand your Role

Each CIMA case study exam requires a different approach and mindset, it’s important to understand what role you are playing and how to react to the questions.

Bear this in mind when your answering questions on exam day.

For example, in the SCS exam don’t get drawn into answering a question from the point of view of a Finance Clerk or Manager, you role is Finance Director so you will be required to answer in that mindset – developing strategy and thinking long-term!

Exam Day: Have a Plan

Time management on exam day is crucial and having a plan when answering a question will give you a enough time to produce a full and well balanced answer.

You should have a plan on exam day on how you will answer your question.

Assuming you have 45 minutes for each question in the OCS and MCS (4 questions at 45 mins = 3 hours), I used the below as guideline for answer planning and time management.

• 10-15 mins: read the question, identify requirements and plan your answer with 3 to 5 bullet points.
• 25 minutes: add the detail and develop your answer (think about pre-seen materials, industry analysis and ethics)
• 5-10 minutes: review your answer and adjust where needed.

It’s a natural tendency to rush straight in and start writing out your answering as you see the question, but this can lead to rambling, not answering the requirement and forgetting to add relevant points from the industry analysis or pre-seen materials.

Answer the Requirement

The most common trap students fall into is not understanding the requirement of the question asked, but instead trotting out a pre-rehearsed answer based on the subject.

While it’s important to understand the theory you have studied in the CIMA objective tests, practicing rehearsed statements is not a good idea.

Don’t fall into this trap!

If you identify the requirements of the question and plan your answer around the requirements, you will avoid this trap and maximise your chances of passing the CIMA case study first time.

May 2023 CIMA Case Study Resources

Astranti was the training provider I used to pass my CIMA case studies first time and they’ve recently put together an informative guide on how to crack the case studies !

It’s well worth a read before the pre-seen materials are released later this month.

In terms of the resources, the Astranti course for the May CIMA Case Studies is packed full of resources and tutor support and they have an early sale on their full courses.

• Pre seen materials pack (analysis, top 10 issues, industry examples & 30 questions)
• 5 x mock exams with feedback
• Syllabus theory revision series
• Exam technique series
• Ethics and questions packs
• Tutor feedback
• Pass guarantee & money back guarantee

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Cima exam support and preparation, the scs pre-seen for may and august 2023 is out.

CIMA has released the SCS pre-seen material for the May and August 2023 sittings. To get your copy of the pre-seen, check out my Home page . The preseen company is Daistruk, a quoted company based in Roundland, which offers logistic services.

NOW is an excellent time to kickstart your CIMA case study preparation. If you need a refresher on the theories covered on the strategic level, we’ve got the theory series here for you.

My podcast episode will feature a few tidbits from the SCS pre-seen material for May and August 2023 sittings. Subscribe and catch the episode from the links below.

Various analyses will aid you in understanding and decoding pre-seen jargons:

• Pre-seen analysis – An in-depth analysis of the pre-seen material. We look at our pre-seen company in detail. We learn about the company background, structure and financial standing.
• Strategic analysis – Hot on the heels of a pre-seen analysis is to do a strategic analysis to help us with perspective. We need to know where the company has been, where it is now and where it is headed.
• Most likely issues – Based on what has been mentioned (and sometimes, not mentioned) on the pre-seen material, we can gather clues to risks, issues, and events that may affect our fictitious company.
• Industry analysis – This puts our pre-seen company in the context of the real world. We look at some real-life examples of companies in the same industry. We highlight problems and circumstances that have made the news, and find out how these companies have dealt with them.

The above analyses are delivered in both written and video formats. If you are unsure about the resources available, check out what Astranti has to offer with regards all things SCS.

Good luck, student!

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Exam Resource

Ocs may and august 2023 post exam material.

This document contains the full post exam supporting materials for the May and August 2023 Operational Case Study exams. This includes:

• pre-seen material
• exam variants
• suggested solutions
• examiners report
• marking guidance

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AI Campaigns and Case Studies

By Joanna Fragopoulos     March 29, 2024    

A rtificial intelligence (AI), and its applications, is at the forefront of many discussions in many industries and fields, from marketing to tech to healthcare to education to law. How to implement and leverage these tools in a helpful way for users can be challenging for teams. However, when used well, AI can help save time analyzing data, personalize content and information, enhance creative ideas, and find ways to promote diversity, equality, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). Below are case studies and campaigns that successfully utilized AI.

Leveraging Chatbots and ChatGPT

Zak Stambor, senior analyst of retail and e-commerce at Insider Intelligence, discussed AI at an ANA event , stating that it is "very clear that marketers will be spending more of their budgets on AI-infused productivity tools in the future." Stambor cited two companies utilizing chatbots to help consumers find what they need. For instance, Instacart started its Ask Instacart tool to help its users "create and refine shopping lists by allowing them to ask questions like, 'What is a healthy lunch option for my kids?' Ask Instacart then provides potential options based on users' past buying habits and provides recipes and a shopping list once users have selected the option they want to try," according to the ANA event recap . Further, Mint Mobile used ChatGPT to write an ad which it later released. The recap , however, stated that the company's CMO "emphasized that there were limitations with the technology and stressed the importance of understanding a brand's DNA before using generative AI. He recommended approaching ChatGPT in the same way successful marketers approach social media."

Smoothing the Request for Proposal (RFP) Process

Creating campaigns that are actually interesting and engage people, is, of course, every marketer's dream. ZS, a consulting and technology firm focused on transforming global healthcare, worked with Stein IAS to create its campaign " Data Connects Us ," which provided client services teams with content, case studies, reports, ZS's Future of Health survey, and data to help with the RFP process. The campaign leveraged AI to create "futuristic AI generated images — such as a futuristic hospital — and coupled it with copy communicating how ZS is positioned to help connect data with people and support real innovation. By leveraging emotionally engaging, distinct, and memorable creative, ZS was able to invite consumers to learn more about the company," as described in the ANA event recap .

Fostering DEIB

Google sought to promote DEIB practices as well as combat stereotypes and bias; the company was able to do this through the use of AI in the photography space. In 2018, the company established the Google Image Equity initiative, which enlisted experts on "achieving fairness, accuracy, and authenticity in camera and imaging tools," according to the ANA event recap . This result in Real Tone, which is a "collection of improvements focused on building camera and imaging products that worked equally for people of color" and became a consideration for people potentially buying a Google Pixel. As part of this process, the company collaborated with Harvard professor, Dr. Ellis Monk; together, they released a 10-shade skin tone scale that was more inclusive of diverse skin tones. This scale helps "train and evaluate AI models for fairness, resulting in products that work better for people of all skin tones."

Unearthing Creativity

Michelob ULTRA partnered with agency CB New York to create a virtual tennis match with John McEnroe, both in the past and present. McEnroe's past self was created using motion-capture technology and AI. Moreover, the brand also created a campaign called "Dreamcaster" with Cameron Black, who has been blind since birth, who longed to be a sports broadcaster "but felt he would never get the opportunity due to his disability," as explained in the ANA event recap . The recap went on to explain that Michelob worked with Black for an entire year to "create a spatial audio portal, complete with 62 surround sound speakers and more than 1,000 unique sounds, that 'placed' him at center court and told him what was occurring during a basketball game in real time. The portal featured a vest, designed with its own haptic language, to further assist Black in following the action by allowing him to feel the game's action. After 12 months of development and training, Black became the first-ever visually impaired person to broadcast an NBA game on live TV."

Deepening Personalization

To enhance personalization, Panera Bread created a loyalty program called "My Panera" in 2010. The program gives customers rewards based on visits; the rewards to be personalized which boosts the program's engagement. Recently, Panera worked with ZS Associates to utilize machine learning to create an automated "best next action" program to enable "true one-to-one interactions with My Panera members," as described in the ANA event recap , which went on to say that the company uses a "time-based criterion, combine[s] it with several other variables identified and sorted by AI, and serve[s] more than 100 different offers to the same audience. Panera can also leverage the technology to develop multiple email subjects or coupon headlines, make product recommendations based on past purchases, and even customize colors and copy within the communication to suit the sensibilities of the customer being targeted. Overall, there are more than 4,000 unique combinations of offer and product recommendations that a customer can receive."

The views and opinions expressed in Industry Insights are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the ANA or imply endorsement from the ANA.

Joanna Fragopoulos is a director of editorial and content development at ANA.

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The annual number of U.S. abortions rose for years after Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973, reaching its highest levels around the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. Since then, abortions have generally decreased at what a CDC analysis called  “a slow yet steady pace.”

Guttmacher says the number of abortions occurring in the U.S. in 2020 was 40% lower than it was in 1991. According to the CDC, the number was 36% lower in 2021 than in 1991, looking just at the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported both of those years.

(The corresponding line graph shows the long-term trend in the number of legal abortions reported by both organizations. To allow for consistent comparisons over time, the CDC figures in the chart have been adjusted to ensure that the same states are counted from one year to the next. Using that approach, the CDC figure for 2021 is 622,108 legal abortions.)

There have been occasional breaks in this long-term pattern of decline – during the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, and then again in the late 2010s. The CDC reported modest 1% and 2% increases in abortions in 2018 and 2019, and then, after a 2% decrease in 2020, a 5% increase in 2021. Guttmacher reported an 8% increase over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020.

As noted above, these figures do not include abortions that use pills obtained outside of clinical settings.

Guttmacher says that in 2020 there were 14.4 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. Its data shows that the rate of abortions among women has generally been declining in the U.S. since 1981, when it reported there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age range.

The CDC says that in 2021, there were 11.6 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. (That figure excludes data from California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.) Like Guttmacher’s data, the CDC’s figures also suggest a general decline in the abortion rate over time. In 1980, when the CDC reported on all 50 states and D.C., it said there were 25 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.

That said, both Guttmacher and the CDC say there were slight increases in the rate of abortions during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Guttmacher says the abortion rate per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 rose from 13.5 in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020. The CDC says it rose from 11.2 per 1,000 in 2017 to 11.4 in 2019, before falling back to 11.1 in 2020 and then rising again to 11.6 in 2021. (The CDC’s figures for those years exclude data from California, D.C., Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.)

The CDC broadly divides abortions into two categories: surgical abortions and medication abortions, which involve pills. Since the Food and Drug Administration first approved abortion pills in 2000, their use has increased over time as a share of abortions nationally, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. now involve pills, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. The CDC says 56% of U.S. abortions in 2021 involved pills, up from 53% in 2020 and 44% in 2019. Its figures for 2021 include the District of Columbia and 44 states that provided this data; its figures for 2020 include D.C. and 44 states (though not all of the same states as in 2021), and its figures for 2019 include D.C. and 45 states.

Guttmacher, which measures this every three years, says 53% of U.S. abortions involved pills in 2020, up from 39% in 2017.

Two pills commonly used together for medication abortions are mifepristone, which, taken first, blocks hormones that support a pregnancy, and misoprostol, which then causes the uterus to empty. According to the FDA, medication abortions are safe  until 10 weeks into pregnancy.

Surgical abortions conducted  during the first trimester  of pregnancy typically use a suction process, while the relatively few surgical abortions that occur  during the second trimester  of a pregnancy typically use a process called dilation and evacuation, according to the UCLA School of Medicine.

In 2020, there were 1,603 facilities in the U.S. that provided abortions,  according to Guttmacher . This included 807 clinics, 530 hospitals and 266 physicians’ offices.

While clinics make up half of the facilities that provide abortions, they are the sites where the vast majority (96%) of abortions are administered, either through procedures or the distribution of pills, according to Guttmacher’s 2020 data. (This includes 54% of abortions that are administered at specialized abortion clinics and 43% at nonspecialized clinics.) Hospitals made up 33% of the facilities that provided abortions in 2020 but accounted for only 3% of abortions that year, while just 1% of abortions were conducted by physicians’ offices.

Looking just at clinics – that is, the total number of specialized abortion clinics and nonspecialized clinics in the U.S. – Guttmacher found the total virtually unchanged between 2017 (808 clinics) and 2020 (807 clinics). However, there were regional differences. In the Midwest, the number of clinics that provide abortions increased by 11% during those years, and in the West by 6%. The number of clinics  decreased  during those years by 9% in the Northeast and 3% in the South.

The total number of abortion providers has declined dramatically since the 1980s. In 1982, according to Guttmacher, there were 2,908 facilities providing abortions in the U.S., including 789 clinics, 1,405 hospitals and 714 physicians’ offices.

The CDC does not track the number of abortion providers.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that provided abortion and residency information to the CDC in 2021, 10.9% of all abortions were performed on women known to live outside the state where the abortion occurred – slightly higher than the percentage in 2020 (9.7%). That year, D.C. and 46 states (though not the same ones as in 2021) reported abortion and residency data. (The total number of abortions used in these calculations included figures for women with both known and unknown residential status.)

The share of reported abortions performed on women outside their state of residence was much higher before the 1973 Roe decision that stopped states from banning abortion. In 1972, 41% of all abortions in D.C. and the 20 states that provided this information to the CDC that year were performed on women outside their state of residence. In 1973, the corresponding figure was 21% in the District of Columbia and the 41 states that provided this information, and in 1974 it was 11% in D.C. and the 43 states that provided data.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported age data to  the CDC in 2021, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions, while women ages 40 to 44 accounted for about 4%.

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to  the CDC , which had data on this from 37 states.

In the District of Columbia, New York City (but not the rest of New York) and the 31 states that reported racial and ethnic data on abortion to  the CDC , 42% of all women who had abortions in 2021 were non-Hispanic Black, while 30% were non-Hispanic White, 22% were Hispanic and 6% were of other races.

Looking at abortion rates among those ages 15 to 44, there were 28.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women in 2021; 12.3 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.4 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 9.2 abortions per 1,000 women of other races, the  CDC reported  from those same 31 states, D.C. and New York City.

For 57% of U.S. women who had induced abortions in 2021, it was the first time they had ever had one,  according to the CDC.  For nearly a quarter (24%), it was their second abortion. For 11% of women who had an abortion that year, it was their third, and for 8% it was their fourth or more. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

Nearly four-in-ten women who had abortions in 2021 (39%) had no previous live births at the time they had an abortion,  according to the CDC . Almost a quarter (24%) of women who had abortions in 2021 had one previous live birth, 20% had two previous live births, 10% had three, and 7% had four or more previous live births. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of a pregnancy. In 2021, 93% of abortions occurred during the first trimester – that is, at or before 13 weeks of gestation,  according to the CDC . An additional 6% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, and about 1% were performed at 21 weeks or more of gestation. These CDC figures include data from 40 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

About 2% of all abortions in the U.S. involve some type of complication for the woman , according to an article in StatPearls, an online health care resource. “Most complications are considered minor such as pain, bleeding, infection and post-anesthesia complications,” according to the article.

The CDC calculates  case-fatality rates for women from induced abortions – that is, how many women die from abortion-related complications, for every 100,000 legal abortions that occur in the U.S .  The rate was lowest during the most recent period examined by the agency (2013 to 2020), when there were 0.45 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. The case-fatality rate reported by the CDC was highest during the first period examined by the agency (1973 to 1977), when it was 2.09 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. During the five-year periods in between, the figure ranged from 0.52 (from 1993 to 1997) to 0.78 (from 1978 to 1982).

The CDC calculates death rates by five-year and seven-year periods because of year-to-year fluctuation in the numbers and due to the relatively low number of women who die from legal induced abortions.

In 2020, the last year for which the CDC has information , six women in the U.S. died due to complications from induced abortions. Four women died in this way in 2019, two in 2018, and three in 2017. (These deaths all followed legal abortions.) Since 1990, the annual number of deaths among women due to legal induced abortion has ranged from two to 12.

The annual number of reported deaths from induced abortions (legal and illegal) tended to be higher in the 1980s, when it ranged from nine to 16, and from 1972 to 1979, when it ranged from 13 to 63. One driver of the decline was the drop in deaths from illegal abortions. There were 39 deaths from illegal abortions in 1972, the last full year before Roe v. Wade. The total fell to 19 in 1973 and to single digits or zero every year after that. (The number of deaths from legal abortions has also declined since then, though with some slight variation over time.)

The number of deaths from induced abortions was considerably higher in the 1960s than afterward. For instance, there were 119 deaths from induced abortions in  1963  and 99 in  1965 , according to reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC is a division of Health and Human Services.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 27, 2022, and first updated June 24, 2022.

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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

Public opinion on abortion, three-in-ten or more democrats and republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion, partisanship a bigger factor than geography in views of abortion access locally, do state laws on abortion reflect public opinion, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .