CASE INTERVIEW
PREP (LATERALS
17-19)
A COLLECTION OF CASES
FROM SUMMER INTERVIEW
PROCESS (2019)
ICON | CONSULTING
CLUB | IIM
BANGALORE
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
A T Kearney
TMT- Case 1
Hardik Dubal
Process problem
The Interview
I had two cases which went on for 30 minutes each, both with the Partners of the firm. The
firsts one was a case on a telecom service provider, while the second was on a pharma
company’s sales.
Interview:
Interview
progress
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Hardik. Tell me something about yourself.
Interviewer:
Me:
Do not prepare an answer which looks prepared. Try to make it interesting, more
like a story.
That’s nice. Let’s start our case. Your client is a service provider in India during
the year 2012. They have the largest market share in the industry but are facing
a large number of complaints from customers. Their service is top notch, but
somehow the customers are not very happy. A T Kearney has identified that
there is an internal problem. Please build up on this information to identify the
problems and suggest what could be done about them.
Me:
Interviewer:
At this point, I knew that none of the “frameworks” that I had prepared would help
me. This was a case purely based on the analysis of the problem at hand. The
interviewer wanted to know how I MECE-ed the current node and moved on to the next
one.
When you say “’internal”, I am assuming that it has to do with the core product/
service that they offer, and not an organizational design problem.
Yes, you can assume that. How will you approach the case? Talk me through your
thoughts.
Definitely. An internal problem can be caused by three reasons: Product quality,
customer service and meeting customer demands (product line). Which one would
you like me to explore first?
The quality of their offerings is at par with the requirements of the customer. You
can dive deep into the customer service part.
Thanks. Customer service can be divided into the service itself, and the process that
the customers go through while experiencing the service. Since you had mentioned
earlier that the service is top-notch, I am assuming that the problem is with the
process. Is my assumption correct?
Interviewer:
You are right. Please elaborate on this hypothesis.
Me:
To understand the process better, let us have a look at the various steps that the
customer goes through. They place the call, then reach the startup menu-You are forgetting something. The year is 2012, and startup menus were not very
actively used back then.
My apologies. Then the customer waits for the call to be attended by the teller,
after which the call gets connected. I am not analyzing this further since the quality
after this is good. Which part of the process seems to be the problem?
Customers have expressed concerns about a very long waiting time for the tellers
to pick up the call.
The waiting time of the customer is a function of only two things- arrival rate and
service rate.
I applied concepts from queuing theory and wrote down the formula for the length of
the queue. The interviewer seemed quite impressed.
Good work. We have understood that the number of tellers that we have are
enough for the specific requests that the customers have. Still, the waiting time is
longer than the competitors’.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interview
progress
Interviewer:
Me:
May I know by what margin?
Interviewer:
About 20%. But don’t delve on this further. I want to know the qualitative reasoning
that you provide.
Me:
Okay. This means that we have unnecessarily long calls from customers.
Interviewer:
Good observation. But there is another problem that we are facing. Can you list
down the various reasons that the customers might call us for?
Definitely. The calls can either be general queries regarding the top-ups, various
schemes that the company advertises etc. or it could be some genuine specific
problem that they are facing, and they need support regarding this problem.
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Good. General queries that customers call us for do not fall into the domain of
specific requests that the company considered while calculating the number of
tellers.
I see. Can we say that the number of these non- specific requests are high, leading
to larger number of calls from the customers?
Good job. You have identified the problem. What are some of the
recommendations that you would give to the company to improve their service?
Me:
The company needs to start using startup menus! (with a smile)
Interviewer:
(Laughs) Alright, looks like we are out of time. Please wait outside so we can tell
you the next step in the process.
Me:
Thank you!
Thoughts
I did not ask any clarifying question during the start- simply because I did not know
what to ask. The problem statement was rich with information and answered all the
initial questions that I had. Also, I tried to keep the case like a conversation with the
interviewer by turning the paper around and showing him what I had written.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
A T Kearney
Pharma- Case 2
Hardik Dubal
Salesforce problem
The Interview
This interview was kind of a stress interview. The interviewer never looked at me during the
case, and was continuously doing something on his laptop, his phone, or was looking out of
the window. He kept cutting me mid-sentence, as you will see during the case.
Interviewer:
Hi Hardik. We don’t have much time, so quickly introduce yourself.
Me:
Mentioned a few lines when mid-sentence-
Interviewer:
Alright. Let’s start with the case. The client is a pharma company which has a
patented drug. This drug is its cash cow. However, this patent will expire in 6
months, and the company is worried how it will sustain itself. Analyze the situation
and suggest recommendations.
Sure. According to my understanding, the customer wants to ensure that it can
keep capitalizing on this drug even after the patent expires. Am I right?
(interviewer nods). Thanks. May I ask a few clarifying questions, so that I can
understand the situation better?
Sure. But do it quickly.
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
The interviewer was trying to put me under pressure. I was on the verge of
panicking, but I realized that there was no reason he would want to reject me- yet.
If I panicked, I would definitely give him a reason to do so.
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Sure. A couple of questions: a. Where is this company located? b. Does any
competitor have any similar product? c. What type of drug is this- is it an over-thecounter drug, or a prescription drug? and d. What type of ailment is it used to curesomething permanent or a short-term disease?
The company is located in India, our competitor has a similar product, the drug is a
prescription drug and is used to cure short term diseases.
Okay. Please give me a minute to structure my thoughts. (After about 40 seconds)
I will approach this case from the revenue side, if that is okay with you (nods). So,
revenue can be increased by increasing the number of units sold, or by increasing
the basket size. Since we are only focusing on one drug, I shall ignore the second
part, unless there is a complementary drug that sells along with this drug.
Interviewer:
There is, but you can ignore the second part for now.
Me:
Okay. The number of units can be increased either by increasing the number of
doctors that know about and prescribe our drug (demand side) or by increasing
the pharmacies that keep our drugs (supply side). Here I would like to ask you a
question: When a patient is diagnosed with the disease, what percent of the doctors
remember the name of our medicine while prescribing?
Interviewer:
Good question. The recall rate of our drug is about 20%.
Me:
Okay, so there is a potential to increase this rate. I shall first analyze this tree. We
can increase demand through existing doctors, or by reaching out to new doctors.
The company’s sales force has reached out to all the major hospitals in the country.
Reaching out to the smaller hospitals will not be economical.
Alright. We can either increase the advertisements for our product, or we can
increase our salesforce efficiency.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Tell me more about this salesforce part that you are talking about.
Me:
Sure. We can increase our reach by increasing the number of salespeople, the
number of doctors each salesperson contacts, and the frequency of contact. These
are somewhat interconnected, but individually they provide more information. May
I know the standing of our company wrt. the competitor for these numbers?
Good observation. I will mention the ratio wrt. our competitor for these metrics: a.
1:4 b. 10:1 and c. once a month vs. once in two weeks.
Wow, that is a huge difference, and a tremendous scope for improvement. Why
are our numbers so low in comparison?
The company has not updated the sales team numbers for a while now, since they
are under the assumption that they are efficient. You have arrived at the root cause.
What recommendations would you give the company?
Well, a personalized relationship with the doctors goes a long way in establishing
trust, as well as over-the-head recall of the product. Apart from increasing the sales
force and improving the frequency of contact with doctors, we can also use social
media to reach these doctors through targeted advertisements.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Good job. Please wait outside while we tell you the next step in the process.
After about a
minute, which
felt like an
eternity:
Congratulations, Hardik! Welcome to A T Kearney!
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Passenger travelling out
AT Kearney
Transportation/Logistics
Anant Sharma
Guesstimate
3rd AC
Roadways
Railways
The Interview
I had two rounds of interview, the first went for around 30 mins; second was just a
conversation which went on for around 10 mins over skype. At the end of these, I was
extended the offer
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Good Morning, Anant. I am XYZ, a principal at ATK. Can you please walk me
through your resume
Good Morning Sir. I am an electrical engineer. I graduated in 2014 from IIT
Roorkee. Since then I had worked with two companies both in Malaysia. My
first job was with Finisar. There I was part of Software development team.
Next I worked with Intel Corp, where I was a R&D lead in FPGA division.
Here, at IIM Bangalore, I am part of two clubs AlumCom and Culcom
So, tell me something about your role at Alumcom.
Alumcom’s moto is “Building bridges across time”. So, that’s what we basically
do. We try to ensure that the current students get the maximum benefit out of
experiences of our Alumni and Alumn’s feel perennially connected to campus.
I will try to explain that with an example. At Vista we invited few of our
distinguished Alumni’s from Marketing sector and paired them up with teams of
5 students for a marketing event. This was one of our attempts to let the
experience permeate.
Ok. Lets do a quick case now. Our client is Airport Developer. They had been
given contract of developing an airport in a Tier2 city. What capacity should
they have in mind?
As Usual, I started with a set of preliminary questions to understand the
problem and to have an understanding of expectations. I had received reviews
during my prep that I’ll do good till I keep the case going as a conversation.
2nd AC
1st AC
Me:
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand the problem our
client is facing. Which Tier 2 city are we talking about? Is it in India? The question
is relevant because different cities might have different passenger dynamics.
Some might have their own businesses to fuel growth; others might have some
industrial establishments nearby to cater to.; still others might act as a secondary
airport for a nearby metro.
Interviewer:
Very well. Consider a city like Jabalpur in MP.
Me:
Ok, great! I would like to take a few 20-30 secs to think through this.
Interviewer:
Sure. Take your time.
Me:
Thanks. One more question I had regarding capacity. Are we only interested in
passenger handling capacity?
Yes. Other variables like runways, hangars, size etc. will scale according to
passenger capacity.
Ok understood. I would like to approach the case by trying to get an estimate of
fixed passenger traffic that we can expect. Over that we can have a peak factor
to account for seasonal variations, festivals etc.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Ok. How do you plan to estimate that?
Me:
We can have a look at businesses in Jabalpur and we can classify them like local,
multinational and then get an estimate of number of trips currently required. We
can get this data from companies operating in Jabalpur. We can get an estimate
from few companies and then scale it accordingly.
A market research like this will be prohibitively difficult. Second the scaling part
also doesn’t seem very reasonable. Suppose you have a company like Intel in
Jabalpur with 2000 employees. Hardly 1% would fly every month. While there
could be a consulting firm which might require more frequent travels.
Interviewer:
Me:
True. Give me a few seconds more to think through.
Interview
progress
It’s important to realize at this point that the interviewer does not like your
approach. I could have tried to broaden my decision tree further by classifying
businesses as per industry but I thought against that and flipped my approach.
Ok. So, now I plan to approach this problem differently. I want to consider the
means of travel and passengers that we have currently in Jabalpur and how
Me:
many we can expect to shift to Air travel if given an opportunity. Does this seem
better?
Interviewer:
Okay, better.
Me:
So, in Jabalpur we have roadways and railways as primary mode of transport. I
would like to focus on railway passengers because of two reasons
1. Fares are somewhat comparable to airways.
2. Jabalpur being a railway junction is connected to metro cities in India
and if an airport comes up, under hub and spoke model, it will have
flights only to metro cities.
I would like to consider 6 metro cities first and then we can scale model
accordingly if required. I would further like to classify passengers as those
travelling in various classes.
Interviewer:
Go ahead
Me:
How many trains we have from Jabalpur to 6 metros and what’s the occupancy
for each of the ticket classes?
Assume 1 to each city and 80% occupancy for all. (Assumed that all passengers
are bound to metro destination only)
Ok, a train in general has around 16 coaches. I’ll take 3 3rd AC, 1 second AC and
1 First AC. (Did a quick calculation I knew 3rd AC has 72 berths, I accordingly
calculated for 2nd and 1st AC, applied a 80% occupancy factor)
Ok. Now how much of them would shift to air travel. What factors we can
consider?
First will be the ticket price. Second, we can try profiling travelers based on
reason of travel. People travelling for business might shift more easily while those
on general wvisits might show less enthusiasm.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
It,again, won’t be easy to find out. What else we can consider?
Me:
Alright. Tatkal bookings for each of the class can also give us an idea. Let’s
assume IRCTC issues 30% of seats via tatkal, we can assume that 80-90% of
them would shift to flight given an option as they are already paying more. For
rest 70% (regular bookings), we can apply a blanket factor of 10%
conservatively.
Interviewer:
Ok. So can we come up with a number?
Me:
(Did the calculations, number came up around 700). I am getting around traffic of
700 per day. We also need to apply a peak demand factor. The estimate of
that we can again get from number of waitlists during festivals/holidays.
Interviewer:
Thanks, Anant. I think we can wrap up the case now.
Me:
Thanks.
Internship Company
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
Strategy&
Ankur Dixit
Pricing
The Interview
It started with basic HR questions and then had 2 rounds of case interviews.
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Ankur. Tell me something about yourself
Me:
Gave a brief introduction about myself, work experience and hobbies.
Interviewer:
Great, so let’s do a small case. There is an engineer who has just developed a
machine which can teleport people from say Bombay to London. Come up with a
pricing strategy.
Asked for some time to structure as of how I would go about pricing. Made a
rough structure as of what questions are needed to be asked (basically data
points)
So, I can price the equipment with three pricing strategies. Value based, Cost
based, and Competition based.
Before I could proceed further the interviewer asked me to focus on Cost based
pricing
Interview
progress
Me:
Pricing
Value Based
Cost Based
Competition
based
Me:
Can I know about the different costs incurred to develop the product?
Interviewer:
So, the engineer spent around 5 crores to develop the product
Me:
Can I further know about the lifecycle of the product?
Interviewer:
The engineer expects the machine to work without any repair for 5 years
Me:
Great. I would like to know about the time the machine would take to teleport a
person from Bombay to London. Also, if there are any operational hours that are
we constrained to? How many days in a year will the machine work?
Interviewer:
Good question. Currently the machine takes around 5 minutes of setup time every
time for a new person and 5 more minutes to teleport. The engineer expects to
work 10 hours a day. For the number of days assume it to be 360.
Me:
What are the operational costs associated while working on the machine?
Interviewer:
For every person that is transported, there is a fixed expense of 10k.
Me:
Does the engineer have any particular profit margin in mind? Also, the R&D cost is
supposed to be break even in what time frame?
Interviewer:
Just assume a number for both and give me the final price.
Me:
(Now I had all the numbers that I require to come up with the price)
(5 crores/ (12*360) + 10k + 360*8*60/10) * 0.2 = ~ 46000
Interviewer:
That’s good. Which pricing model would you choose to price the equipment?
Me:
We already have the cost-based price as calculated earlier.
For value-based pricing, it will depend upon the current price of air ticket
assuming that the air travel is the fastest mode of transportation currently present.
Then I would like to add the value gained by the time saving
Thirdly, for competition-based pricing I would like to know about the current
competition, the services they provide and the price they are charging.
There is no competition at present. Anyways I think you have done well. Good luck
for next round.
Interviewer
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Bain & Co.
IT consulting
Maitresh Agarwal
Performance Improvement
Me:
The Interview
I had a single case round that went for around 15 minutes at the end of which I was
extended the offer. I had one interviewer in my room who asked few basic HR questions
first in order to put me at ease after which we dived into the case.
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Maitresh. Why don’t you start by telling me something about
yourself?
Good Morning. I was born and brought up in Bihar and have completed my
primary and secondary education from Patna. I joined Economics Program at IIT
Kanpur for my undergraduation and was working with PwC Diamond Office in
Mumbai for 10 months before joining MBA program here at IIM Bangalore.
Great, so you do have some bit of experience in the industry.
Me:
Yes sir.
Interviewer:
Okay so let’s start with a case. We are an IT Consulting company. We have few,
but big marquee clients who want to improve their hunting capabilities. Can you
tell me ways to help them achieve this goal?
I started with preliminary questions – what kind of clients, where/what/who are
we?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interview
progress
Me:
I restated the problem and asked what exactly am I required to find out.
Interviewer:
Can you tell me the KPIs of the sales team required for hunting?
Me:
For the client hunting team – KPIs – Revenue per sale employee, clients converted
per employee per unit time
Interviewer:
Which one do you think is the metric of higher priority?
Me:
Revenue – because number quality of client matter, not just the number
Interviewer:
Okay, how would you improve this metric for the sales team?
Me:
Performance linked incentives for the sales (hunting) team so they achieve the KPIs
Interviewer:
Ok, let’s say the sales team is incentivized and everything. The organization has
many functions that support the sales team – e.g. product sales div. How would
this support the sales team? How will you incentivize these supporting divisions?
Functions identified – product, account management, lead generation (with many
hints that the interviewer was dropping), tele-calling team
Me:
Interviewer:
Correct, how can their performance be measured? And maybe improved?
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Me:
The people in the product team will help prepare the pitch deck for sales team
and how they can cross – sell and up-sell various products.
The people in the account management team will help with onboarding and
opening of the account. So how many accounts they open and what kind of
retention rates they hold.
Lead generation team – divide # of leads in 3 buckets (Hot, Cold and Junk) and
based on the %age of these leads/totals leads can decide their variable pay.
Tele-calling team – How many appointments they are able to fix and what is the
amount of potential revenue they are bringing in.
Okay, Impressive. Tell me what kind of incentive structure you will have for
account management team?
I laid out a broad 4P (Product, Placement, Price and Promotion) framework to
further my analysis
The account management team should have a fixed bonus pay for each account
they can open based on the client’s revenue category (Gold, silver, Bronze) and
also once the account has been active for at least 6 months to make sure they
keep the clients engaged and farming revenue from them.
Interviewer:
Thanks, Maitresh. I think we can wrap up the case now.
Me:
Thanks.
Interviewer:
We would like to extend the offer to you, will you accept it or reject it?
Me:
(after 10 seconds of being zoned out) definitely accept the offer (I was not able
to fathom the feeling that I was through in one round and did not apply a single
case concept learnt in past 50 days.)
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
McKinsey
Oil and Gas
Swati Agrawal
Impact Assessment
The Interview
Internal Factors
Economic Impact –
financial
Environmental
Social – skill
dev/employ
ment
Technological
I had two rounds, the first was largely an HR round with questions around my academic
background and CV. A short estimation question was asked in the end. The second round
was a purely case round.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Good Morning, Swati. Why don’t you start by telling me something about
yourself?
Good Morning sir, I belong to Delhi which is also where I earned my
undergraduate degree from IIT Delhi before directly joining IIM Bangalore.
Oh, that’s great, I graduated from IIT Delhi too sometime in the eighties. (We
had a virtual hi5 moment across the VC at this point). So, Swati, McKinsey’s
team has been approached by the M/o oil and gas. Seeing the rising oil
prices and concerns over the environmental sustainability, the government is
keen on assessing the possibility of electrification. EVs market is growing
steadily and they would like us to assess the impact of electric mobilization by
the year 2030.
Okay, that’s interesting, just to go over the problem statement, I take that the
government wants us to assess the impact of electric mobility in the next
decade? What is the government looking at specifically when they’re saying
impact? For starters, I think we can discuss this under 2 broad buckets, i.e the
financial and the non-financial impact (environment, resource development,
health, employability etc.)
Yes, that’s right, what do you think is the most important? Let’s discuss more
about the economic impact through substitution of oil and gas by electrification.
The partner pitched in without me discussing each bucket in detail. So, at this
point, I took that we were going to jump into cost savings though substitution of
conventional fuel sources, and largely discuss the economic bearing.
Interview:
Me:
Sure, let’s start by seeing where all substitution can occur in oil and gas. Can I
take a minute?
Interviewer:
Sure, go ahead.
Me:
(after a minute) – Ok so I think the major industries where this could have an
impact on the bottom line is a) Transport and infrastructure b) Power c) Heavy
electricals industries..(interrupted)
Interviewer:
Ok, Swati, let’s just focus on the transport and logistics sector for now
Me:
Okay sure, let’s further look at the various modes of transportation which rely
heavily on oil and gas derivatives such as road transport, and…(interrupted
again)
Let’s narrow it down and just say we’re doing this analysis for road transport.
How would you want to move ahead
Okay, so I would like to segment road transport into intra-state and inter-state
transport (desperately trying to be MECE).
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Okay good, for this discussion, let’s focus on intra-state transport.
Me:
Very well, so (again trying to be MECE) – there could be transport for private
consumption, public consumption and commercial.
Interviewer:
Sure, let’s focus on one of these, say, private consumption.
Me:
I can think of personal vehicles and these days, cabs.
Interviewer:
Let’s see how much this means for personal vehicles. And let’s say for a particular
year in Delhi.
Great. So after much segmentation, we finally were at a point where I had to
calculate the total fuel personal vehicles would consume in a given year in Delhi.
So, just for the sake of simplicity, let’s take an average personal car in Delhi,
calculate the total number of cars and compute the fuel load of the city.
Interview
progress
Me:
Interviewer:
Okay, go ahead please.
Me:
Let’s start by calculating the number of cars in Delhi. Diving the population into 4
segments a) HHs with income < 2 lpa – own 0 cars on an average b) HHs with
income b/w 2-10 lpa – have avg. 1 car c) HHs with income 10-25 lpa – own 2
cars on an avg, and d) HHs with income > 25 lpa – own 3 cars on an average.
HH Income
category (I)
a) < 2 lpa
b) 2-10 lpa
c) 10-25 lpa
d) > 25 lps
Avg. no.
of cars (II)
0
1
2
3
# households in
mn. (III)
0.4*240 = 96
0.3*240 = 72
0.2*240 = 48
0.1*240 = 24
# cars
(III*II)
0
72
96
72
Total number of cars = (72+96+72) mn. = 240 mn.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Great, the actual number is actually around 300 mn. for Delhi. And let’s say this
grows by 5%, so we have at a CAGR of 5% for 10 years, a growth of about
60%.
Right, so about 180 mn. more cars, thus about 400 mn. cars at the end of the next
decade.
Fair enough. Let’s say 10% of these are substituted by EVs, let’s estimate the fuel
savings per annum.
Okay, so fuel saved per annum would be the fuel that would’ve been consumed
by theses 0.1*400 mn. = 40 mn. cars.
Mhmm. How’re you going to do this? And take the case we came at, i.e., personal
cars.
Sure, let’s just take the average yearly running of a car and assume an average
mileage, and then we can calculate the amount of petrol used up by 40mn. cars in
Delhi in a year.
Sure Swati. What numbers are we looking at? I want you to arrive at a number
and tell me.
Okay, for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume an average office goer clocks a
running of about 30km/day. So that’s around 30km/day * 300 days/yr. = 9000
km/year per car (I had accidentally multiplied by 360, to which he pointed, and
waited for me to correct)
Interviewer:
Okay sure, this seems fine.
Me:
Considering an average car, the mileage should be around 10-12km/l. Let’s say
10. So that’s a consumption of 900 l/year per car. Petrol in Delhi is about Rs.
70/l. And we have to substitute 40mn. cars. So that’s a substitution saving of
about 900*70*40 mn. ~ 2500 bn.
Interviewer:
Okay, Swati, this sounds fine. It was nice talking to you. Have a good day!
Interview
progress
Me:
The partner was trying to help me out with approximations wherever he could.
Thank you, sir, good day.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Bain and Co
Technology/Product
Vishwajith G Bhat
Unconventional Case
Interviewer:
No. The value chain seems fine. Anything in specific that you would like to dwell
into?
Me:
Great. Can you kindly explain as to what is the existing supply chain for the router?
Interviewer:
There are two main channels of distribution – distributors and system integrators.
The distributors provide the router as an independent product and sell it to
small/medium businesses. Some examples include Simple, Ingeram, Reddington, etc.
System integrators are large firms that provide the end-to-end solution such as
WIPRO, TELCO’s, etc.
Thanks. I would like to compare the two channels across the two markets – India vs
globally.
What is the percentage split for the distribution channels?
What exactly is the difference between the two distribution channels with respect
to warranty renewals?
Also, what is the net realization for these distribution channels?
Good follow up questions. In India, the split between distributors and integrators is
40:60
and
globally,
this
is
about
70:30.
With respect to renewals, the attach rates in India for the distributors is 50%, for
the integrators is 33%. Globally, this is 97% respectively for both the distributors
and the integrators.
Further, the net realization rate is about 9% in India, while it is about 16% globally.
Ok. So, from the case facts, I can understand that there are two primary issues in
India – the attach rate is low (about 40% vs 97%) and the net realization is also
on the lower side.
I was able to get majority of the case facts early in the case. The case then meandered
for a bit in the middle as I tried to structure the data available.
I would like to understand the competitive landscape in India and globally and
understand the points of difference if any. Also, I would like to look at the
differences if any between the Indian applications/utility for these routers v/s those
globally. Also, I would like to understand a bit more about the consumer
preferences in these two countries.
Okay. For the sake of simplicity, you can assume that the router provided by CISCO
is unique in the world and that the company has a near monopoly in this respect.
As for the second question, the end customers are generally system integrators –
small and medium purchase from the distributors and the large ones directly.
Ok. So, CISCO has monopoly in this space and its end customers are the system
integrators.
The primary requirement for the attach service comes from the failure of devices. I
would like to understand the usual failure rates of these routers, both in India and
globally.
Good. The failure rate in India is seen to be higher than globally, primarily driven
by high voltage fluctuations. You can assume that the total failure rate is about
0.23% on average in the first 5 years of usage.
So, from what I understand, the failure rate is less than 0.25%. Even if I assume a
safety factor of 4x, it will be about 1% of the cost. Thus, for every 100 such routers,
1 extra spare will suffice. Thus, due to the low failure rates, the value of spare and
hence warranty is less than 1$ per unit. This is much lower than the basic warranty
being provided – 8$ per unit. This could be one of the potential reasons as to why
we are seeing lower attach rates in India vs globally.
The Interview
I had a single case round that went for around 25 minutes at the end of which I was extended
the offer. The interviewer decided to directly get into the case.
Interviewer:
Hello Vishwajith, kindly take a seat. How are you doing today?
Me:
Good Morning. I am doing fine. A little nervous on account of Day Z.
Interviewer:
Good, then let us get directly into the case. It is a slightly lengthy case, so make a
good note of the case facts.
Your client is CISCO, an American multinational technology conglomerate
headquartered in San Jose, California, in the center of Silicon Valley. It has
entered into the switch/router business in India about 6-7 years ago. Assume that
the cost of this switch/router is about $ 100. It currently offers warranties at
multiple levels:
a) First warranty is priced is at an 8% premium over the product and as a part of
this warranty, CISCO offers call/remote support to its clients and in-case the
router issue is not fixed over call, the customer then couriers the faulty product to
CISCO and it repairs it and re-sends it to the customer
b) Second warranty is priced upto 35% of premium over the product. CISCO
assures its customers that the technical team will be on-site within 1 hour to respond
to the situation.
CISCO has observed a very unique situation in India. While globally, the attach
rate is about 97% in Year 1, 80% in Year 2 and about 70% in Year 3, in India,
the attach rate is only 40% in Year 1, 20% in Year 2 and less than 10% in Year
3.
You have been tasked with helping the client increase their attach rate. How will
you go about it?
I have a few preliminary questions that will help me with the case. What is the
product portfolio of the switches/router business?
What exactly do we mean by attach rate?
Also, are there any other objectives in this case?
For the simplicity of the case, assume that there is only one product – the router.
Attach rate is the percentage of clients opting for warranties of their CISCO product
to the total CISCO product sold.
Lastly, no. There are no additional objectives to this
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Ok. I have a reasonable idea of the product. Next, I wanted to understand a bit
more about the value chain. From my understanding, the value chain comprises of
the procurement (inbound logistics), manufacturing of routers, distribution of routers
(supply chain), finance and marketing as the main arms. Have I missed anything?
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interview
progress
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Hmm, correct. So, what can we do?
Me:
Me:
I would like to examine the distribution channels – the margins involved and if we
can push it via the distribution channels.
Both the distributors and integrators are getting double digit margins on the unit.
The margins are consistent across.
Also, another factor could be the variation between the warranty attach rates in
the channels across the two geographies, which is seen in the net realization of 9%
v/s 16% globally. From this, I can conclude that in the Indian context, the preference
is
towards
the
lower
warranty
–
8%.
I would like to focus on first increasing the attach rate and then focus on the net
realization. Is this approach fine?
Interviewer:
Sure. Go ahead
Interview
progress
I had further identified the problem – price of maintaining spares v/s basic
warranty. I asked for some time at this juncture to come up with the suitable
recommendations.
I would like to go through the short term recommendations. I have four pointers:
1) Distribution: Focus on shifting the ratio of distributors to integrators.
Reason: Globally, the split is higher for the distributors and their attach
rate seems to be higher in India
2) Contracts: Include warranty as a part of the contracts.
Reason: Monopoly in industry and this will boost the attach rates
3) Cost: Re-look at the cost of the product itself and the cost of warranty.
Also, look for bundling of services (if any) to improve the value of the
proposal
4) Channels: Explore additional channels to reach out to the direct customers
directly. Maybe establish additional channels if necessary.
Ok. Basis what we have seen, most of these cannot be implemented. In order to
increase the attach rates, we did focus on contracts. Can you come up with a pricing
for this?
(Confused) The warranty seems to be fixed at 8% currently. Are we looking to
change this?
Yes. In interest of time, I can tell you what was implemented. The pricing was set at
5% for the base warranty from year 1 onwards. As seen in the case, the attach
rate is about 40% in India. If the net realization is taken at 9%, this is about 3.6$
for 100$ unit. If we are charging 5% (assuming 100% net realization), we are
gaining 1.4$ per 100$ unit.
The interviewer asked me to think about the final strategy deployed in terms of
long-term solution and left the room (about 25 mins into the interview).
I have broken down the long term solution into three parts (roughly ¾ P’s):
1) Contracts: Look to extend additional value add ons to the second
warranty and look to push these services.
a. Further, look to getting into providing multi-year contracts with
a mix of warranty 1 and warranty 2.
b. Focus on distributors as their dependence/bargaining power is
lower.
2) Services: Develop an additional services arm, dedicated to providing
additional service options and look to provide this as a add on package,
over and above the existing warranty options
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Me:
3)
Interviewer:
Integration: Look to building a module/unit around the core product –
routers and offer this as a package to the customers
Well, these recommendations were thought of by the team, however, the final
approach proposed was different from these recommendations.
I think we can wrap up this case.
Me:
Thanks.
Interview
conclusion
I asked the interviewer for the final solution.
During the course of our final discussion, he revealed that CISCO would look to
integration of software with the product and integration of their global services.
Also, since majority of the integrators were themselves into SaaS (software as a
service), some portion of the pie could be outsourced to them, thereby getting them
onboard for the second warranty.
India
Ratio
% Warranties
USA
Ratio
% Warranties
Distributors
40%
50%
70%
97%
Integrators
60%
33%
30%
97%
Net Realization
9%
Basic table for comparison
16%
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
McKinsey
R1: E-Commerce | R2: Insurance
Samridhi Khurana
R1: Unconventional | R2: New product
Interviewer:
Me:
The Interview
I had two case rounds that went for around 30 minutes each. The first interview was with a
Partner. The interviewer spent 15 minutes asking me questions pertaining to my resume.
Next, the interviewer asked me an unconventional case. The second interview was with an
Associate Partner. It was a video conferencing round and the interviewer asked me a case.
The last set of interaction (around 5 minutes) was with another Partner who asked me a
couple of questions before extending the offer.
Interview
progress
It is easy for FB to track clicks per ad, but it could be a challenge to gauge how
many customers made a purchase from the SME’s website and for how much.
This was me thinking out loud. I started thinking using customer journey analysis
and was able to understand the challenge faced by FB.
Interviewer:
Yes. How do you think FB can measure that?
Me:
A couple of things that come to my mind:
1. Ask SMEs to provide data so that we can map the customers who landed on
their site via FB to their bill amount (both first-time & repetitive purchases)
2. With SME’s revenue before advertising on FB as the benchmark, we can track
how much has their revenue increased after they started advertising with FB
These might be difficult to implement as there are many SMEs and asking for data
from each is not feasible. The second one could be one way but not very accurate.
I agree sir. With the increasing privacy regulations, data collection from SMEs might
not be feasible as they are bound to protect the customer’s information. And since
companies deploy multiple marketing strategies in parallel, we cannot attribute the
entire amount to FB.
As another method, I think we can have a survey on our platform and ask customers
who clicked on an ad as to how relevant the ad was for them. We can also ask if
they had shopped with the SME before, how frequently do they buy from that
website now and what is their average spend. With the correct questions, we can
get an estimate of their annual purchase from the SME.
Perfect. Let’s move on to the second part of the problem to discuss if there is any
other way to measure FB’s contribution. I want you to apply learnings from your
economics class.
The interviewer had given a straight cue. We had micro economics in term 1 but
this was an application of macroeconomics. I asked for a minute to put my thoughts
on the sheet.
ROUND 1
Interview
progress
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Me:
It started with resume discussion. The interviewer asked me questions around my
internship experience at IBM Research, job learnings at Deutsche, why not MS,
why Student Alumni Committee at IIMB and my contribution to it etc.
The interviewer then proceeded with the case round.
Facebook is your client and it wants to measure its contribution to SME growth in
India. How will you articulate the economic value that Facebook has added?
As I understand, Facebook provides an advertisement platform to various SMEs
across India. To gauge the economic impact, I would like to understand if there
is any specific SME that we are interested in.
We are not restricted to any particular SME here. We want to devise a general
approach. You can think of any SME like Myntra that uses FB for advertisement.
You can take 2 minutes to think how we should proceed.
Alright. So we want to measure FB’s contribution to SME growth in India. Broadly,
I think FB helps SMEs in the following manner:
- Monetary impact (increases revenue for the SMEs etc)
- Societal benefit (helps SMEs ceate awareness for a campaign or a cause)
- Operational Ease (SMEs are able to reach the targeted audience effectively)
I want to understand if we are interested in gauging the tangible impact, or
intangible impact, or both.
Let’s consider the tangible impact. Let’s focus on how FB will measure the
monetary impact that it creates for SME.
I was slightly blank after I heard the problem statement at the start, but I
maintained my confidence and made it as interactive as possible. I tried to apply
a structure to my thoughts as much as I could.
The monetary benefit added by FB can be broken down as:
Eyeballs per advertisement *
%age clicks that landed the customer on SME website *
Average revenue per customer
Alright. Now I want you to think how you will measure the business that the SME
did with FB’s help. And secondly, is there any other method apart from this using
which we can gauge FB’s contribution.
So first I will focus on measuring how much business did FB help the SME to
achieve. And then, I will move on to the second part of the problem.
For a customer who is using FB, there are a sequence of steps involved that will
lead to the business for SME:
Ad -> Click -> Makes purchase
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Me:
Interview
progress
Sir, FB’s contribution to the SME growth will also lead to the economic benefit for
the nation at the macro level:
1. Increase in the revenue will increase the overall GDP of the country
2. The SME might attract foreign investments in India which will lead to the further
growth of the business
3. The SME expansion will generate more employment and might also add an
impetus to the average wages
4. It will also enable other businesses to grow. For example, if Myntra flourishes
then other ancillary businesses like logistic also grow.
The interviewer told me that we are out of time and asked me if I had any questions
for him. I asked him his experience at the firm and with this the interview ended.
ROUND 2
Interviewer:
Me:
Let’s start directly with a case. Your client is an insurance player that recently
launched a new product. It did not do well in the market and the client wants
you to diagnose.
Could I ask a couple of questions to understand the client and the product better
before I proceed with the case?
Interviewer:
Sure.
Me:
What kind of insurance is the client into? Is it life insurance company or general
insurance company or both?
Interviewer:
It is a leading life insurance player like LIC.
Me:
Okay, so it is a public player that has a pan India presence in mostly life
insurance product. And what about the new product? Is it also a life insurance
product? And when did they launch it?
That’s a relevant question. It is a home insurance product that was launched 6-7
months back.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Me:
Okay, I would like to discuss the internal factors that can affect the demand for
our product.
- Product Awareness: The customers would know the client mostly for life
insurance products. Are they aware of this home insurance product?
- Product Attractiveness: Is the product offered by the client attractive for
customers? Does it charge competitive premium?
- Effective Salesforce: Is the client able to explain the product features and sell
the product to its customers?
- Customer Onboarding: How seamless is the process to onboard the customers
and to retain them?
Interviewer:
Let’s focus on salesforce.
Me:
For salesforce, the following factors could affect the performance
- Do we have a dedicated Team for new offering? Have we trained them?
- Employees: i) Expertise level ii) Soft skills * ability to convince
- Realistic Selling Targets for the new policy
- Efficiency or Employee Utilization
Great. We do not have a dedicated team for this new product. How do you think
employee expertise will affect the performance? What kind of employees do we
need for this product?
Life insurance is an emotional investment for most of the families. And therefore, the
salesforce tries to get the emotional buy in of the customers. It requires less
convincing as most of the customers are more than willing to buy the life insurance
policy for the betterment of their family.
For home insurance, the customers have to understand the financial benefit in order
to buy it. Therefore, the salesperson needs to be able to articulate the monetary
benefit effectively and be able to carry out comparative analysis well,
demonstrating the advantages over the competitor’s products. This requires
employees who are good with numbers and understand the nuances of the product.
Thank you for that information. So the failed product is a general insurance
offering. Who are our customers for this product? Is this home insurance product
targeted towards economic segment or HNI?
Mostly HNIs. You can consider HNIs in a metro city like Mumbai where there is
adequate demand.
What is the competitive landscape like? My understanding is that there are 4
major public companies who offer non-life insurance policies, and there are
many private players who would provide a similar offering. So the market has
multiple players for home insurance. Is my understanding correct.
Yes.
Okay, I have one last question before I proceed. When we say the product has
not done well, is it based on client’s own projections or are we comparing with
our competitors?
It didn’t do well as per their own projections before launching the product.
Me:
Okay. Thank you for all the details. I would like to take a minute to jot down
my thoughts, if that is okay with you.
Interview
progress
I divided the number of policies sold as a demand side or supply side issue. I
further divided the demand side into internal and external factors. The
framework shown in the figure is a general framework based on which I
structured my points. The interviewer asked me to focus on internal issues.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Alright. That’s all.
ROUND 3 – 5 minute discussion round
Interview
progress
The partner asked me a couple of questions on my resume – school related, JEE
rank related etc. And a couple more on my academic interests. The interviewer
kept on interrupting I every 30 sec, so I tried to keep my answers very brief.
Interviewer:
What event could be very detrimental for India at the moment?
Me:
If US and China become allies, then this strategic alliance could hurt India badly.
Interviewer:
Something internal?
Me:
Interviewer:
Any religion disharmony or regional tension could prove detrimental for the
country as with the deep penetration of social media, it might be difficult to
control it.
Why do you want to join McKinsey?
Me:
Sir, there are two-fold reasons.
Interviewer:
Tell me the top one.
Me:
People it is.
Interviewer:
What are you views on our current government?
Me:
Sir, I am mostly apolitical and am definitely not a government critic.
Interviewer:
Great. As professionals we should not be discussing our political affiliations.
With this, I’d like to welcome you to the firm. Congratulations!
Me:
Thank you sir!
IMAGES NOT CLUBBED TOGETHER ( IF REQUIRED)
The collated image is there in round 2
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Accenture Strategy
Manufacturing
Rohit Narula
Cost Optimization
The Interview
I had two case rounds that went for around 20 minutes each and one MD round at the end
of which I was extended the offer. I had one interviewer for case interviews who asked few
basic HR questions first in order to put me at ease after which we dived into the case. MD
round had three interviewers who asked me about the firm and few HR questions.
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Rohit. Tell me something about yourself.
Me:
Introduced myself with emphasis on few major pointers from the resume.
Interview:
Me:
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand the client’s
operation and the problem. Where does our client basically operate and how
many manufacturing units do they have?
Interviewer:
Consider only India operation and they have 5 manufacturing sites in India.
Me:
Ok, great! Does our client face issue in Inventory management for both In-bound
and Out-bound sides? I mean they have issues for both Raw Material/spares and
finished goods or any one of them? What are the different types of products do
they manufacture?
The in-bound inventory is basically managed only in manufacturing sites. Finished
goods inventory management is having issues which is being kept at both
manufacturing site as well as external warehouses. You can consider 5-6 different
products.
Interviewer:
Me:
Thanks. Is the problem specific to any one warehouse or manufacturing site?
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Great, so you do have quite good experience in the cost optimization in
manufacturing industry.
Me:
Me:
Yes. I have worked on Lean and Six Sigma methodologies to lead various
projects during my experience at Mondelez International.
Consider inventory management and optimization across all sites and external
warehouses.
Ok. One more thing that I would like to know about is the reason behind the need
for inventory management. Is there any competitive benchmarking that has forced
the client to look into this or some other internal reason?
Interviewer:
What do you think can be the reasons for inventory management?
Interviewer:
Let’s dive into a case now. Our client, Mondelez International, wants to
optimize inventory and needs help with their inventory management. What are
the possible options the company can explore?
I started with basic set of preliminary questions after which I made a clear
outline of the framework I was planning to adopt to solve the case. The
preliminary questions helped me to gain perspective about the industry and
the business problem.
Me:
Me:
The need for inventory management can be looked from two perspectives: One is
the revenue side and other is the cost side. In revenues, there can be some
changes in the sales volume and product mix which might have triggered the need
for better management. In cost, there can be some increase in costs incurred for
inventory as compared to the competition or past data of the organization itself.
What do you mean by the product mix changes that can affect inventory? In
addition to this, list down the costs factors that need to be looked into for cost
optimization.
As we are considering all the manufacturing sites and warehouses, product mix
changes can be due to two reasons: Change in the demand pattern across
different areas due to changes in customer preferences. For example, we have
high demand for Five Star and low for Gems in one area but opposite pattern in
other area. Secondly, there can be introduction of a new product that might have
effect on the space requirement as well as other products’ demand. This would
require network optimization for meeting demands in different areas. We need
to check whether the nearest site has the manufacturing capability for a specific
product. On the basis of transportation modeling, we can optimize which
warehouse can meet the demand at lowest costs.
Interview
progress
I laid out the structure for costs in two parts: Fixed costs and Variable costs
Interview
progress
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Me:
Okay, go ahead with some description on Inventory handling costs and the
wastes. What levers can be used to decrease these costs?
Wastes basically include losses depending on the type of product and inventory
method the client follows. In case of FIFO method, the product will reach the
market on-time before the shelf life expires. For FIFO, the ease of accessibility in
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
the warehouse facility will be a major factor. We can have a stacking facility for
proper area utilization as well as easy operation through forklifts. This will help in
reduction of waste due to damage. Use of technology for easy identification of
the oldest batch of goods will help in reducing wastes due to shelf life expiry.
What about the inventory handling costs? How do you think they can be a part of
inventory optimization?
Inventory handling costs will depend upon the safety stock levels we have. We
can reduce the safety stocks by having Just-In-Time processes. Improving the
capability of our manufacturing facilities and the efficient logistics will help in
that.
We have high safety stocks in our warehouses. What do you think can be the
reasons?
Safety stocks basically depend on two factors: Lead time and demand. If there is
high lead time from the manufacturing site to the warehouse, safety stocks need
to be high so that the goods can be sent to distributors without any
shortage/stock-outs to avoid any loss of sales. The variation in demand during the
lead-time has to be met through the safety stock. If there are high fluctuations in
demand, the safety stock needs to be kept high.
Is there any data that shows the impact of any of these resulting in high safety
stocks?
You have covered all the factors very well. I think we can wrap up the case here
only. Thanks Rohit.
Thank you so much.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
NRI Consulting
Automotive
Pallavi Patel
Guestimate
The Interview
There were two interviewers in the panel. Interview was mostly on my work experience as
I had worked for 3 years. The interviewers were trying to gauge depth of knowledge on the
fields I had worked during my job. It was almost 10-12 mins when I was asked an
unconventional guestimate.
Interviewer1:
Pallavi, do you have a pet at home?
Me:
Yes Sir, I have a dog.
Interviewer1:
Oh great! What is its name?
Me:
Bruno
Interviewer2:
What a coincidence! My pet dog’s name is also Bruno.
So, can you do a guestimate to find out no. of hairs on its body?
Me:
Sure Sir. Can I take 30 secs to structure my thoughts?
Interviewer1:
Yes Sure.
Me:
(I drew a rough diagram of a dog) The dog’s body can be divided into
varies 4 major parts - 4 legs, tail, face and rest of the body. Then we can
assume the dimensions of each body part and calculate the surface areas.
Then by assuming radius of a hair and packing density of hair on each body
part, we can calculate the number of hairs on its body. Is it okay or I should
take some other approach?
You can proceed.
Interviewer2:
Me:
Interviewer2:
Me:
Interviewer2:
We can assume legs, tail and rest of the body to be cylinder & face to be a
sphere. (Then I started assuming dimensions of each part).
Interrupted. We wanted to see your approach. You don’t have to arrive at a
number. It is okay.
If you were given an instrument with which you can know the density of hair,
then how will you proceed?
I will take tail as a sample, calculate the number of hairs on it and replicate
the same for the population which in this case is the dog’s body excluding
some parts of face.
Good. Thank You Pallavi.
Please send the coordinator in.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Accenture Strategy
Supply Chain
Samir Sodani
Inventory optimization
The Interview
I had 3 rounds of interview. Each interview went for about 15-20 mins. The first interview
was short case interview and a few HR questions and work experience related questions
were asked. The 2nd interview focussed more on the industry knowledge and again work
experience related questions were asked. The 3rd interview was purely HR interview and
again HR questions were asked. I will briefly discuss the important HR questions along with
the case interview below.
Interviewer:
Me:
Good Morning, Samir. Why don’t you start by telling me something about
yourself while I go through your resume.
Gave the prepared answer.
Interviewer:
Great, Can you briefly tell about your roles in your previous work and also the
projects that you handled.
Me:
Yes. I worked as a mechanical engineer, planner and associate manager
during the 3 years of my work tenure. I worked on projects relating to
inventory optimization, mine digitization and equipment overhauling
The interviewer asked several questions regarding the details of the projects
done.
Interview
progress
Interviewer:
Tell me why you want to get into consulting?
Me:
Gave the prepared answer
Interviewer:
Let’s go to the case right now. Suppose you are looking into the supply chain
of a supermarket stores chain and have been asked to optimize the inventory
for the same. What will be your approach?
I started with basic set of clarifying questions to clearly define the objective
and any other relevant information that may be necessary to solve the case.
Interview
progress
Inventory Optimization
Optimization
Product
perishability/Expiry
Truck
Utilisation
Factor
Economic
Order
quantity
Automation
Interview:
Me:
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand the problem our
client is facing. How many stores are there and where are these stores located?
Interviewer:
There are 10 stores located in various parts of Bangalore city.
Me:
By optimizing inventory, do we mean to reduce the total cost incurred in carrying
and transporting inventory? Also, what is the current system of inventory
management?
Yes. Currently, the chain has one operational warehouse in the outskirts of
Bangalore from where it dispatches the required inventory through trucks on a
weekly basis to all the stores. What will be the factors that you will consider
minimizing the cost?
Firstly, I will look upon the cost of operating the trucks for inventory transport and
their utilization. I will also see whether the week dispatch period can be increased
to 15-day period or more by supplying the economic order quantity. Then, I will
look upon the product perishability and expiry in the warehouse. Also, I will look
upon the automation in the warehousing operation so that manual labor tasks can
be eliminated.
The client has outsourced the inventory logistics to a local vendor who charges the
client on per truck basis. The client operates separate trucks for all its stores.
Can I assume that because the client is using separate trucks for each store, there
may be under utilization of truck space?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Yes.
Me:
The client can pool the inventory of 2-3 stores and transport it with the help of 1
truck. This way, the client will be able to reduce the total number of trucks and
utilize the truck space effectively.
Interviewer:
How will you address product perishability or expiry in the warehouse?
Me:
We can devise a FIFO system for the perishable products in the warehouse in
which the product coming first in the warehouse is leaving first from the
warehouse.
Interviewer:
Good. I think you have covered most of the aspects of the problem.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Bain & Company
Media
Sharanya R Nayak
Profitability
Interview:
Me:
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand more about the
current scenario. The client is based in the US and caters the US markets. Are
there any other geographies we are operational in? Also, do we own only a
channel that runs content for kids, or are there any other offerings?
Interviewer:
The clients works only in the US, and, yes, only kids shows are broadcasted.
Me:
Alright. Can I get some information on our broadcasts. How many shows do we
have? How many shows does the competitor offer?
We have 10 shows, each of one hour. 6 of these are broadcasted on weekdays,
and 4 on the weekends. Our competitors have around 7 shows, 4 on the
weekdays and 3 on the weekends.
Thanks. Also, when we say our client has dropped down to the second position,
are talking about a dip in the profits or is it just in terms of viewership?
The Interview
This case round went on for around 15-20 min at the end of which I was extended the
offer. I had one interviewer in my room who started with the case right away.
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Sharanya. Let’s get straight to case, shall we?
Me:
Sure.
Interviewer:
This case is from the media industry. Our client is media house playing in the US
markets. The programs hosted on the channel owned by the client predominantly
cater to kids and young adults. We ruled the charts for quite some time, but have
recently been pushed to the second position by our closest competitor. I want to
you to analyze the situation and come up with possible solutions for our client to
regain its position.
I started with basic set of preliminary questions after which I made a clear outline
of the framework I was planning to adopt to solve the case. The preliminary
questions helped me to gain perspective about the industry and the business
problem.
Interview
progress
Interviewer:
Revenue
Ad Revenues
Subscriptions
Me:
Interviewer:
Its in terms of the wholesome profit earned by the company.
Me:
I would want to take a few minutes to jot down my thoughts. Since our profits
have been dropping, I would first want to list down the various factors affecting
the revenue and costs of the company and then see if we can pin down to
something in particular.
Interviewer:
Good idea, go ahead.
Interview
progress
I laid out the revenue and cost drivers as elaborately as I could think of. However, I
did miss out a one or two of them. The key here is too keep asking the interviewer if
there’s something missing. Always get them to agree with you before moving ahead.
So, I see the main drivers on the revenue side as revenues from advertisement and
revenue from subscriptions. The costs include costs of the content and the satellite
rights. Is there anything I am missing?
Yes, it also earns from royalties and sale of series merchandise. Also, let’s assume
there is no issue on the cost side. The company brews its own content, and the
rights were a onetime investment. You may also consider the competitor has the
same cost structure as us.
Alright. Coming back to the revenue side, the revenue from ads is the most
predominant source of revenue. It depends directly on the TRPs of our shows, the
number of shows we broadcast and the time slots for advertisements. Since our
competitors are performing better with lesser umber of shows, do they have a
better content/ a hit show, moved towards shows that have a better connect with
the kids or their parents who administer the watching schedules for kids?
Good point, but no. There’s nothing of that sorts that has happened. But yes, their
viewership’s have increased due to which their ad revenues have increased. Could
you tell me why this could have happened?
The viewership’s could have increased due to better timing of shows (prime time),
opting for a new platform, say online, or finding new modes to advertisement.
These are a few ideas coming to the top of my head.
Right, you’ve identified the source correctly. Our competitors have moved to the
online platform. Do you think we should follow the same?
Me:
Merchandise
Sales
Online ad
revenues
(added later)
Interviewer:
Me:
Cost
Interviewer:
Content Rights
Satellite
Rights
Online platform
development &
maintenance. (Added later)
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
To analyze that, I would have to look at the various factors that would come in
play if were to move to a new platform. Can I take a minute to jot them down?
Interviewer:
Alright.
Me:
So, when we move towards a new platform we need to consider the cost incurred
in building it, which include the technical know- how, decisions on whether the
development is to outsourced or done in-house. We also need to know the
revenues associated with it, the additional money that could be obtained by extra
ad space, say scrolling ads during the show etc. Moving towards a new platform
definitely has a lot of upsides in terms of better accessibility to viewers and more
sources of revenues. But, it also has a downside of cannibalization of our own TV
market revenues. Hence, we need to look at the pricing structure carefully as well.
Interviewer:
Perfect. Here are a few numbers you may find useful.
Me:
One more question before I proceed, do our competitors charge for their online
service?
Interviewer:
No, they don’t.
Me:
She proceeded to provide me with number on revenues earned through ads per
hour per show on TV and ads on the online platform. Current subscription models
and a factor for cannibalization. I had to perform a cost- benefit analysis to do
find if the option was feasible.
So, as we can see from these calculations is that this option is feasible and our
client should look towards developing an online platform.
Interviewer:
Okay, any other suggestions for the client?
Me:
Since our objective is to regain our top position in the market, apart from online
streaming, we should also focus on the content. We should see if shows that aren’t
working can be scrapped off and try to gauge what the audience wants. Since
parents are a major stakeholders here, their reactions to shows should also be
monitored. Since, content is formulated within the company, options to outsource it
should be explored.
Interviewer:
Okay. That’s it. Thank you. Please wait outside.
Me:
Thanks.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Boston Consulting Group
Agriculture
Bibha Nayak
Profitability
Me:
Yes, so I can look at my revenue from Quantity sold, Price and Product mix of
the farmer.
Interviewer:
As agriculture products are commodities, the prices cannot be changed much.
Me:
We can focus then on improving either the quantity or product mix. Is the
quantity grown on their lands optimum? As individual farmers in India own
small pieces of land, consolidation of this land can give better returns.
Its known that the yield is optimum currently and is unaffected by the area of
the land.
So, if we look into the product mix, farmers can grow grains, pulses, fruits,
vegetables, etc.
Good point. We know that farmers choose to grow only grains. They are very
reluctant to grow other crops. Can you think why they are reluctant to do so?
High seasonality of these crops can be an issue. Another factor could be
demand being volatile. There is high perishability of these produce unlike
grains, which adds risk in growing them. Also, fruits and vegetables are more
prone to insects and pests.
Yes, these are the issues. Also, the farmers feel their families can consume the
crops grown like wheat and rice. So, can you suggest few recommendations
now on how can we help them to grow these crops?
Sure. One is supporting the farmers through Minimum Support Prices. Other is
looking into insurances that can mitigate some of the risks associated with these
crops. Strengthening distribution channels can address the perishability issue
and also help removing middle men so that farmers can get the maximum
benefits. One way to address their fear is by exploring a good mix of grains
and fruits & vegetables. Providing fertilizers and pesticides and establishing
buying contracts beforehand can be another recommendation.
The Interview
Interviewer:
I had a single case round that went for around 25 minutes. The case started after a few
minutes of initial discussion about my past experience.
Me:
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Let us begin with a case.
Me:
Sure
Interviewer:
Great. So your client is a multilateral company. They want to double farmer’s
income in India. Please advise them.
Me:
I would like to begin with a few preliminary questions. What exactly is the
business of this multilateral company?
Interviewer:
It is into multiple businesses like a conglomerate.
Me:
What is the client’s objective in increasing farmer’s income? And are they
expecting any returns from this project/activity?
Interviewer:
They want to improve farmer’s life in India. And there are no expected returns.
Interviewer:
So, can I consider it a social initiative. And if yes, are there any restrictions on
the investment?
Interviewer:
Great. We can stop the case here. It was nice interacting with you.
Me:
Yes, it’s a social fund, and they are flexible on the investment.
Me:
Thank you.
Interview
progress
I took a few moments to arrive at a basic structure. It was critical to view this
case from the perspective of farmer’s income. The multilateral company part was
very limited post this stage. I divided the case into a basic Profitability structure:
Revenue and Cost
I have divided farmer’s income into revenue and cost. I would like to begin
with costs unless we want to look at revenue?
Me:
Interviewer:
Sure, go ahead.
Me:
If we look at the value chain of a farmer, at the procurement stage: cost of
seeds, fertilizers/pesticides, equipment and financial costs are associated. At
the farming stage, irrigation, labor costs, maintenance, utilities like electricity,
etc. If the farmer undertakes storage of crops, warehousing can be an
additional cost. Depending on the type of crops, rents are associated for cold
storages as well. Beyond this there are costs associated with either selling it in
markets directly or through a third party.
Yes, that pretty much covers the cost aspects. Can we now look into the
revenue side?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Bain & Co.
TMT
Sagarika Chatterjee
Market Entry
The Interview
I had a single case round that went for around 15 minutes at the end of which I was
extended the offer. I had one interviewer in my room who asked few basic HR questions
relevant to my profile after which we dived into the case.
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Sagarika. Why don’t you introduce yourself?
Me:
Good Morning (name of the partner). I am from Durgapur, West Bengal. I
graduated from IIT Kgp in 2015 and thereafter joined ZS Associates in its
Business Consulting Track. I have worked with US based pharma clients
(mentioned 2-3 project categories). I am also a fine-arts enthusiast.
Great! Looks like you have significant analytics experience. How do you think
analytics is going to shape up in the coming years and affect our industry?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Well there is this hypothesis that with increasing focus on AI/ML technologies,
consultants might be replaced by algorithms. I feel these will only provide
improved and more accurate tools for consultants to help organizations solve
their complex challenges. Understanding the data is crucial for us to answer
any business problem. Thus, analytics is a must. But there can be multiple ways
of training the data and different near accurate models. It is the human
experience that is necessary to pick the right observations out of it.
Absolutely! I agree. So now, let’s dive into the case now. Our client is a fresh
MBA graduate from an US university. He intends to return to India and open a
Radio Station. He has reached out to us to understand what factors to evaluate
while taking this decision.
I started by clarifying the problem statement and a few preliminary questions
and then clearly laid out a MECE structure on the sheet she provided.
Interview:
Me:
So, to clarify, our client is moving back to India and plans to open a Radio
Station. He wants to know what factors he must evaluate for taking this decision.
Interviewer:
Yes.
Me:
Okay. Does our client have any work experience prior he took up him MBA? He
could leverage from the experience or the network.
Interviewer:
None. Assume he has no contacts in India and no relevant experience.
Me:
Thanks. Are there any specific business objectives I should be aware of?
Interviewer:
He is looking to establish a sizeable market share for now and ofcourse not at a
financial loss
Me:
I will take a few minutes to come up with a structure to help evaluate the situation
Interview
progress
I laid out a comprehensive market entry structure while she was looking at it carefully
Me:
We will first need to evaluate the market attractiveness and then look at our own
capabilities. We will identify the possible market and identify the target market
bases on the profile, demand pattern and current market analysis. Then we need
to decide the product mix and pricing strategy. Possible investment channels have
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
to be identified and given the person has no experience, understanding the value
chain is key.
Sure. Let’s say money is not a problem. What are the first things he will need to
decide for opening the station? Tell me the key elements.
He will have to set up a space to run the radio station. Buy/lease the radio
frequency and decide the show line-up. He will need a radio jockey. He will need
to identify his target audience and decide the nature and time of the shows.
What will be key to success in this case?
Show customization, timing and the effectiveness of the radio jockey.
Yes, the radio-jockey is key here because they kind of drive the show and
content. What do you think are the revenue sources here?
Advertising, movie promotions, music launches will be the major sources of
revenue. The rates may depend on the number of listeners, type of show, time of
the day, frequency, etc
Okay. Why don’t you tell me how he should identify his target customers and
what shows can he start with?
I will start with looking at the major customer types. There will be school going
children, college students, office-travelers, old people and stay-home people. In
all these categories, I will evaluate the amount of time spent by each on radio
and the type of shows preferred. We can then pick the top segment(s) depending
on the segment size. A survey could be then floated to gauge their interest in
certain show types.
Interviewer:
Would you float a survey to everyone then?
Me:
No. That will not be effective and be unnecessarily expensive. If we look at
consumer behavior, radio is not one of the most preferred modes of
entertainment. Children prefer playing or watching TV, college students prefer to
socialize and old & stay-home people are more hooked to TV. Only the people
who travel to work and are left with not many options of entertainment listen to
radio maybe in their car-pools or cell phones. So, targeting the age group of 2450 years in Tier1 and Tier2 cities could be a good starting point.
Interviewer:
And what shows?
Me:
First, I would look at the other popular radio channels and identify the most
popular shows – look at the genre, timings, duration, etc. Then, I would float a
survey to my target audience to gauge the level of interest in each of these
identified show times. We would also need to discuss this with the RJ & make sure
its in her comfort zone.
Interviewer:
What kind of shows would appeal to this target audience? What do you think?
Me:
From personal experience, I feel, current Bollywood music with a good RJ, news,
sports commentary and stand-up would be interesting to this age group.
Interviewer:
What other factors are important when planning the channel content?
Me:
Planning the show-timings right is very important. News should be in the morning,
songs or stand-up comedy could be at night when people are returning from
work. Also, a good RJ is important. Regulating the frequency and lengths of
advertisements is also crucial for customer retention because switching cost to
another channel is negligible here to the customer.
Interviewer:
Thanks, Sagarika. I think we can wrap up the case now.
Me:
Thanks.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Bain & Co.
IT/ITeS
Anwesha Behera
Cost Optimisation
The Interview
First, after handing out my resume, he asks me some resume-relevant question to
see if he can ask me a question along my past experience.
Interviewer:
Your client is an FMCG company, take Unilever for instance. They want to
bring up a customer engagement portal that serves as an informational
platform for all Unilever’s brands. You have 2 options:
Me:
A. A 1000-strong ITeS team of a local company that is based out of
Bangalore
B. A 1000-strong captive unit as a part of a UK-based company.
How would you go about choosing between the two?
Is the portal meant to be a web application or mobile application?
Interviewer:
Consider it to be a web portal.
Me:
If I understand correctly, our decision involves choosing between two
alternatives to help bring this engagement portal to our customers. May I
understand as to what key metrics are we looking out for, as a company, when
choosing between these two alternatives?
We want to ensure that the team we choose is technically competent to
execute this project. Also, we want to involve minimum cost while carrying out
the same.
I’d like to look at the first metric you mentioned – technical competencies. Do
we have any information about how options A and B compare to each other in
terms of their technical prowess?
Interviewer:
Me:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Without further ado, I’ll dive into what cost components might exist for the
portal. I’ll take the salaries of our employees, the IP rights that ~might~ be a
concern if we’re planning to own the portal’s source code, data repositories (if
we want to store any customer data, cookies etc.) as well as maintenance of
the database and portal itself.
You can take the IP rights not to be a concern as web services like these aren’t
usually bought over these days, they aren’t that unique and have been
commercialized. You can also ignore maintenance costs for now.
Some additional information is that the captive unit will function as our own
team full-time.
I see. I’ll dive right into the salaries of our employees. I’ll list out various
components that must be considered for the same – monthly wages, healthcare
insurance, other perks etc. Any of these you’d like me to focus at?
Interviewer:
You can assume that salaries are comparable.
Me:
Are their insurance coverages different?
Interviewer:
You can ignore all perks.
Me:
In that case, if I were to look at the employees, in order to execute their goals
well, they must have the ability and the willingness to work towards achieving
the goals. My hunch is that since you mentioned that the team’s abilities are
comparable, would they be having different motivations towards the tasks
(probably because the first outsourced team has other projects to complete
hence might not give their best)?
This is a valid point, however it does not relate to our costs directly, that you
initially identified as one of our objectives.
(After some thinking) You mentioned the team’s capabilities to be the same.
However, the composition of the 1000-member team might be different. There
might be more senior managers in one of the teams, wherein the other team
might have more entry level employees. At different levels we would have to
pay our employees differently.
Yes that’s right. This greatly determines how much the portal project may cost
us.
Can you figure out which level employees have a greater impact if they were
to leave?
Yes, senior managers leaving would greatly hurt our business as they have
more technological and managerial capabilities accumulated over the years. It
would be costly to replace them.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Both teams are equal in terms of technological capabilities.
Me:
In that case I will keep that aside as it seems that it might not be a determining
factor. I’ll move on the next metric – costs. Is the second team also based out of
Bangalore?
Me:
Interviewer:
Yes, in fact both teams have local employees and technical experts.
Interviewer:
What costs might be involved with attrition of entry level employees?
Me:
Alright. I’d like to analyze the value chain to better determine components
along which these two teams may differ. (I draw the standard value chain
briefly, without expanding all). I would want to highlight on just the marketing
and sales section as we’re dealing with customers who would either want more
information about the products they’ve bought, are planning to buy or want to
engage with the brand. Our customer engagement portal would fit in right
here, if I’m not wrong.
Me:
Retraining costs, mostly. We would be offering the same salary package to
our new hires most likely.
Interviewer:
Thanks. That’s pretty much it.
Interviewer:
Yes, that’s right.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
ALVAREZ & MARSAL
Manufacturing
Pallabi Chakraborty
Profitability
The Interview
I had 2rounds of interview. Both had case study and some HR/work ex questions. Both
round lasted for around 30 minutes each.
Me:
Can you tell me more about the product?
Interviewer:
It is a special lining reactor. They use glass for lining. They sell directly to end
customers.
Me:
Ok. Thanks. How many factories do they have?
Interviewer:
5.
Me:
This cost cutting measure is to be employed across all factories?
Interviewer:
Yes. Consider all factories are similar. Take one factory as specimen.
Me:
Since Cost cutting is main agenda I will first focus on the ways of minimising cost
and then move to maximizing revenue part. Is it ok?
Interviewer:
Yes. Please
Me:
I will divide cost in to fixed and variable cost. I will start with foxed cost
assessment. Is it ok?
Me:
Good Morning, Pallabi. Why don’t you start by telling me something about
yourself?
As prepared
Interviewer:
Where did you work before? What did you do exactly?
Interviewer:
Yes. Please.
Me:
Told
Me:
I did a value chain analysis in the paper. He was looking over what I was writing.
Interviewer:
Let’s dive into a case now. Our client is a reactor manufacturer based in India.
Financials are good. The reactor is a special type of reactor with a glass lining.
The client want us to increase revenue and find ways to minimize cost.
I started with basic set of preliminary questions like how many factories,
location, any special reason for cost cutting or general ,what is the market
demand etc. after which I made a clear outline of the framework I was
planning to adopt to solve the case. The preliminary questions helped me to
gain perspective about the industry and the business problem.
Interview
progress
Me:
I asked questions on each and every item one by one and suggesting how to reduce
cost.
Since we sell directly to customer I am assuming that there is no substantial cost to
dealers and as such marketing.
Interviewer:
Okay, go ahead please.
Me:
I was asking questions about fixed cost items. He cut me in between and asked
me to focus on variable costs.
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Me:
Cost
Fixed Cost
Variable Cost
Interview:
Me:
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand the problem our
client is facing. Is that ok?
Interviewer:
Yes sure.
Ok. From where do we source raw materials?
Interviewer:
Major is steel. 2 vendors.
Me:
How do we source? Any contract? How is lot size decided?
Interviewer:
As and when required.
Me:
Since steel is major part of raw material it is better to enter into long term
contract and get price discount. Suppliers will also have stable demand
knowledge and scheduling will be better.
Interviewer:
Yes. Good. Go to the next component.
Me:
What kind of employees do we have? Permanent / contract wise? How do we
pay them? Pay structure?
Interviewer:
Why do we ask?
Me:
We can link pay with performance. See what are the medical benefits given. If
there is chance of cost cutting there.
Interviewer:
Yes ok.
Me:
Then he nudged me to look into the production process. I asked the various staged
of production. He helped me construct a flow chart. Again I started by asking
questions about what is the exact process currently employed and offered my
suggestion as to how that can be improved. I will cite some example.
Me:
How much is the process technology driven?
Interviewer:
Mostly manual.
Me:
We can see lots of scope of incorporating technology. This will drive down cost.
Interviewer:
Yes.
Me:
How are the reactors stored?
Interviewer:
On wood rolls. Laid horizontally
Me:
We can see if there is a substitute material of wood. Wood is costly. And also
storing them vertically will free up space,we will able to sell more as there is
ample demand.( He indicated before that there is unmet demand)
Interviewer:
How? I don’t understand.
Me:
There were water bottles in the table. I took two of them and showed him that
horizontally they take more floor space and vertically less space.
Interviewer:
That’s impressive.
Me:
Thank you.
Interviewer:
Okay. We are done with the case. What are your 3 major learnings from your
last work experience?
Me:
Told.
Interviewer:
Thanks. Wait outside. I will decide with my partner and let you know.
Me:
Thanks.
Second round
I waited outside then the partner called me.
Interview
progress
The second interview was also a profitability case.
During the question and answering I got to know that the client was a cab
aggregator. They maintain their own cabs. They have schedule of maintenance
according to which drivers come with the cabs and get those serviced. Objective
was to reduce cost. I did the same cost structure again. She looked at what I am
writing.
Me:
What kind of cabs?
Interviewer:
Two type.
Me:
Separate line of maintenance?
Interview
progress
During the interview I asked about all the processes and could not find any major
cost improvement measures. Then I asked what do they do once the servicing is
done.
They have rented a place to keep the serviced cars. Then the drivers come and
collect.
Interviewer:
Me:
Why pay rent? They can call the drivers before and we can do away with this
cost.
Interviewer:
Yes. That’s what we did. We did a proper scheduling system. Thanks.
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
Optimization
:
:
:
:
Alvarez & Marsal
Turnaround Consultancy
Sourabh Choraria
Profitability/ Resource
The Interview
I had two case rounds. First one with Director and other with HR (Yes, HR also took a case
round) at the end of which I was extended the offer.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Round 1: Good Morning, Sourabh. Why don’t you start by telling me
something about yourself.
Told them about myself with special emphasis on my work-experience. Make
sure to elaborately describe your experience with focus on what extra you
did.
Why A&M?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Ok. What do you think we can introduce as a new product?
Me:
Since they are already selling tea. We can start keeping snacks.
Interviewer:
We are already keeping all relevant snacks.
Me:
Ok so can we increase the variety of beverages we provide, may be start
putting fruit juices.
Interviewer:
Okay, so just opposite of ChaiPoint there’s a CCD. What would you do?
Me:
We can start selling Coffee and leverage the customer base of CCD but this
could create a brand confusion as the name itself has ChaiPoint (the interview
was looking for this rationale) so we must be cautious in launching
Good. Now lets move to the cost part. How can you reduce operational cost of
Chaipoint?
I drew the value chain applicable to service industry. And asked the
interviewer is there any particular node I should start of can I go ahead with
sourcing of Raw Material.
Interviewer:
Me:
Me:
The answer to this question went about 30 mins. I linked the answer to my work
experience and fortunately the director got excited and cross questioned.
Interviewer:
Let’s dive into a case now. Our client is Chai Point. The CEO has asked us to
strategize a plan to increase current profit from 100 cr to 500 cr in a year.
Interview
progress
I started with basic set of preliminary questions after which I made a clear
outline of the framework I was planning to adopt to solve the case. The
preliminary questions helped me to gain perspective about the business
problem.
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand the problem
our client is facing. First one being, in which cities Chai Point stores are located
and what is the relative size of this for each city?
Me:
Interviewer:
Its located just in Bangalore
Me:
Ok. So, I want to know how many stores are there in Bangalore and is there
any difference based on revenue?
There are 30 stores but two stores (Airport and Koramangala) contribute to
60% of sales.
Thanks. So I am thinking of dividing the problem into two parts as Revenue and
Cost and then analyze on how we can increase revenue and reduce cost. Is
there any preferred direction you want me to move on?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Ok so you can start with Revenue Part and then we can go to Cost.
Me:
Sure. So how is the utilization in the stores of Chai Point in the peak time. This is
for me to understand if stores are suffering from lack of service or quality as
28 stores just cover 40% of sales
Good question. But that’s just because of their locations. Almost all the stores
are 100% utilized during peak hours, i.e, all sittings remain more or less
occupied. You can go ahead with Koramangala for your analysis as it covers
major revenue portion.
Ok. So we can increase revenue by two ways – increase the sales of our
products by promotional activities or by introducing new product.
Interviewer:
Lets focus just on the cost in the restaurant.
Me:
Ok. So there are three heads which constitute cost inside a restaurant –
Workers, Products, location(Rent/Electricity).
Interviewer:
Yeah, we can’t actually do much about rent/electricity.
Me:
Ok so do we have data on how many workers are there and what do they
do?
Interviewer:
Gave some numbers.
Me:
Ok so we can reduce the workers by automation. Example – We can place a
tea dispenser which will make it self-serve. Also we can automate payment
system. We can also think about cross training to increase the utilization of
workers.
For reducing cost of products we should try to reduce our wastage by
analyzing which products are least sellable and remove it from our menu.
Interviewer:
Thanks, Sourabh. I think we can wrap up the case now.
HR Round (20 mins – 10 mins (about myself) + 10 mins(case)
Interviewer:
Hi Sourabh, Can you please tell me about yourself
Me:
Told – again discussed work experience (they have huge weightage on this as
told by my buddy)
Ok. So lets do a very small case. There’s a car service center for a Taxi
aggregator of 200 taxis. Basically its just a cost head of the aggregator for
its taxis. The aggregator has hired us to reduce cost.
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
My approach was first to ask basic questions to help me draw the value chain
for the service center and then come up with recommendations to reduce cost
Actually I am not aware of the process which Taxi drivers follow. Is their any
fixed procedure for the maintenance or does it depend case to case basis.
So majority of it is just scheduled maintenance which is fairly mechanical but
there are some instances of emergency situations in case of accidents.
So Can I assume scheduled maintenance covers the majority of cost or does
emergency situations over powers this because of material costs?
Interviewer:
You can go ahead just with scheduled maintenance.
Me:
Drew the process flow. (Asked the interviewer for its validity, she told to give
recommendations on how we can reduce cost at each step)
Recommendation (given in complete sentence)
Cross training of workers
Inventory Management (to reduce wait time for parts)
Pre processing ( drivers can fill up basic details while in queue)
Thanks Sourabh, I think we have to wrap up because of lack of time, otherwise
I would have grilled you a bit more.
Me:
Me:
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
McKinsey
Private Equity
Shivali Pande
Profitability
Interview
progress
Try to MECE all possible cost and revenue heads by thinking in a sequential
manner about running the project and keep providing insights (the GST point
or the differential in commercial and private vehicles) as it will help your
interviewer quickly guide you to the core head.
Interviewer:
Well that pretty much covers all the heads. In fact, most of the cost comes from
construction which can be treated as a sunk cost in this case and the others are
constant costs with very less variability. So let’s look at the revenue side, what do
you think would be the biggest chunk?
It’s a heavy traffic route between two major commercial cities and so the toll
collections should be significant.
Well absolutely! It is the biggest concern in this project. How will you assess the
potential risks associated with it?
For that I would need to understand the current structure of toll collections in terms
of toll charged and distribution across commercial and private vehicles in terms of
number of vehicles.
(gave me the following data:)
Type
Price
Quantity
Private cars
100
40%
Commercial
200
40%
Buses
150
20%
Total number of vehicles on a daily basis = 100,000
Alright! I’d like to calculate the respective revenue contributions of each category
to see who can create the maximum impact on overall earnings. Should that be
fine?
The Interview
I had one interviewer who straight away began the case. The entire round was
conversational wherein I kept confirming my approach before proceeding at each step and
the interviewer not only reassured me about the approach but also kept commenting on
the ideas, I was discussing which served as inputs.
Interviewer:
Me:
Good Morning Shivali, since we have a limited time frame, let’s just start with
the case. You are working with a private equity client who is exploring an
investment opportunity in an infrastructure company that works in the area of
roads, metros, sea ports etc. You are specifically looking at one project being
undertaken by the infrastructure firm which is the Mumbai-Hyderabad
expressway. You have been called upon to examine the estimated cash flow
statement of the project and enumerate the possible risks associated with these
cash flows.
Alright, before I start thinking of a possible way to enumerate the risks, I’d like
to clarify a few things if that’s fine?
Interviewer:
Sure! Go ahead.
Me:
I wanted an idea as to the typical projects that the PE firm deals in and is
there any specific reason why they have chosen to go ahead with this
infrastructure firm and this particular Mumbai Hyd expressway project only?
Because I need to interview you to offer you an internship and we have got
only 15 min so let’s just cover this one project for now.
Right! So, the approach that I was thinking of is that we can delve into the
profitability of the expressway venture and see the sources of revenue and
costs involved which will correspond to the cash inflows and outflows. However,
this method would cover cash flows over the lifetime of the project, is that fine
or are we looking at a specific timeframe?
No that should be fine. Let’s drill down the revenue and cost heads.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
The major revenue sources associated with expressways according to me are
toll tax: both commercial vehicles and private vehicles as there will be rate
differential, interstate duties (though these might be simplified given the GST
regime), food mall or restaurant rents in case the sideroads utilized by these
places are on lease, advertisement revenue from billboards on highways. Costs
would include construction, road maintenance, running the toll collection
systems, electricity expense on lights and billboards and additional service
expense (like telephone booths or emergency ambulances). Am I missing out on
any other major head?
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Absolutely!
Interview
progress
Calculated revenue for each and concluded that commercial vehicles had the greatest
impact. Further presented the idea that cash flows can be impacted by change in
price charged or if traffic conditions change. The interviewer suggested that assume
tolls to be completely regulated and hence constant price for the case and therefore
focus on traffic fluctuations.
The major traffic of commercial vehicles on this route would likely be due to trade
given that both the cities are major industrial or commercial centers in the West
and South respectively. Hence, any change in volume of trade can impact the
traffic. Additionally, any alternate route availability or possibility of alternate
modes of transport can impact traffic also. Do any of these causes seem pertinent
as of the current circumstances?
Well, trade certainly seems to be the area of interest. Which industries do you
think account for greatest trade in general across land routes?
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Typically, raw materials (steel etc), automobile industry and agriculture.
Interviewer:
Correct, so agriculture and automobile are the major contributors in this case,
each contributing 50% to the total commercial vehicle traffic. And declining trade
in both the industries is a cause of concern, what do you think is driving the decline
in trade?
Let’s look at agriculture first: it’s a heavily monsoon dependent industry and
therefore the most likely reason for the dip in trade would be a bad season.
Me:
However, this is a seasonal variation that must have been accounted for in the
estimation of cash flows.
Interviewer:
Yes, so let’s focus on just the automobile industry.
Me:
So typical factors affecting trade vehicles are competition, demand for goods,
alternate routes o modes of transport. Any specific head that I should look at?
Well Pune-Solapur belt is an automobile hub which has been supplying the major
chunk of automobiles to the South but recently Chennai has emerged as a
dynamically growing auto hub in the South.
So, it seems like it’s become easier for Hyderabad retailers and stock holders to
source automobiles from Chennai than Pune belt and hence traffic on Mum-Hyd
expressway might be taking a hit. Do we have an idea as to what extent can the
demand be fulfilled by the Chennai hub?
50% of the current demand. Also assume that the entire demand currently is
being met by transporting vehicles via the expressway.
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
So, we expect a 50% fall in traffic and hence revenue.
Interviewer:
Also, you talked about an alternate route. So, there is a new highway coming up
that can help cut down the time of this route travel by 25%. That will reduce the
remaining traffic by another 50%. So, can you calculate the expected number of
commercial vehicles.
Initially we had 40,000. Due to Chennai hub the traffic dropped to 20,000 and
now, due to this alternate route it’ll now go down to 10,000. So, we will have
only 10000 commercial vehicles which will be charged a toll of 200. This drop
should be the major risk to estimated cash flows then. Do you want me to
calculate the new estimated revenue?
Not really, I’m sure you can multiply 10000 and 200. So, you have pretty much
proceeded in a way that we did for this case when we were working with this
client. Do you have any questions for me?
I wanted to know about the work that McK does in the field of retail and brands,
so we discussed that for a while and the interview ended.
Me:
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Revenue
Toll tax
Interstate duties
Food mall and
restuarant leases
Advertisement
Revenue
Commercial
vehicles
Private vehicles
Reduction in
trade
Fall in traffic
Alternate routes
Seasonal nature
of agricultural
trade
Chennai hub
competition
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
AT Kearney
Retail
Vivek Gaba
Guesstimate
Interviewer:
Me:
The Interview
I had two rounds of interview, the first was just a conversation and went for around 20
mins; second was a guesstimate that went on for around 10 min. At the end of these, I was
extended the offer
Interviewer:
Interview
progress
Good Morning, Vivek. I am XYZ, a principal at ATK. Let’s do a guesstimate for a
modern retail outlet operating in Bilekahalli. You need to estimate its revenue.
As usual, I started with a set of preliminary questions to understand the problem
and to have an understanding of expectations.
Income Class
High income
Me:
Interviewer:
Middle
income
Low income
Very low
income
I have a few preliminary questions to help me better understand this retail outlet’s
business. What kind of products are sold at this outlet? What other similar outlets
are available in this area? Is there anything that differentiates our client from its
competitors? What is its market share?
Products like groceries, home care and personal care, electronic goods etc. are
sold at this outlet. There are competitors present in this space and market share
for our client can be assumed to be 40%
Me:
Ok, great! I would like to take a minute to think through this.
Interviewer:
Sure. Take your time.
Me:
First, it is important to estimate the income for all 4 classes listed above. Then it
can be safely assumed, that 30% of income remains untouched and contributes
towards savings. Rest is used for expenditure
Since the outlet sells a wide variety of products including groceries, food and
electronic items, a large fraction of spent income (70% of total) will be consumed
in buying these items. I would like to assume this fraction to be 75%. Should I go
Me:
ahead with this approach or do you want me to consider some other parameters
as well?
The approach is alright. Assume the average income of 30k/ month can be used
as representative for all 4 income groups. Go ahead and estimate the revenue.
Since we have the income figure, we can now calculate the amount being spent on
products sold at modern trade outlet. 0.7*0.75*30k= 15k per household is used
for buying these products. Assuming 4 person per household, we now need to
calculate the number of households in Bilekahalli.
Interviewer:
Okay. How will you estimate Bilekahalli’s population?
Me:
This can be done using two data points: the area of Bilekahalli and area of
Bangalore city as a whole. We know that population of Bangalore is around 12
million. Using the two areas we can then calculate Bilekahalli’s population.
Assume the area of Bilekahalli and Bangalore is 5 and 700 square kilometer
respectively.
Interviewer:
Me:
Final revenue will be 15k/4*(5/700*12M)*0.4=128M per month
Interviewer:
Good! We are done with the guesstimate
Internship Company
Sector
Name of the candidate
Type of Case
:
:
:
:
Bain & Co
Service
Karan Tulsiyan
Go to market
The Interview
I had a single case round that went for around 15 minutes at the end of which I was
extended the offer. I had one interviewer in my room who asked few basic HR questions
first in order to put me at ease after which we dived into the case.
Me:
I will to open a roll joint, preferably north Indian, considering that Bangalore now
has a huge influx of people from north both for studies and work. Moreover,
there are very less restaurants serving the same and hence would be a
differentiator.
Interviewer:
Okay! That was well thought. So Karan! How will you proceed next?
Me:
The next thing would be to find a place to rent in Koramangala which has an
easy visibility and should be near to crowd gathering areas. Do we have any
budget in mind?
Interviewer:
On point! We do not have any budget, why don’t you guess the same.
Me:
Okay, according me a small shop in Koramangala would be around 25k per
month. Should I proceed with it?
Yes, you can go ahead but before that lets do a small guestimate, estimate the
sales you would have daily qualitatively.
To estimate our sales (monthly, for quick calculations), it is generally a product of
avg. no. of rolls sold each day & avg. price per roll. To estimate the number of
rolls sold, I would begin by estimating the number of people visiting Koramangala
each day. To estimate that, I would begin by population of Bangalore, classifying
it according to age and then concentrating on people from 15 to 45 as our target
customer. After calculating this number, I would take a 10% factor who would visit
the area every day & inflate it for weekends. After we get this no., I would give
a 5% chance of people visiting our store and making a purchase. Should I move
ahead, or do you want me to rethink on some part?
The thought process looks clear, but how did you choose 5% as a fair probability
and how would you decide the price?
I choose a 5% probability because there are various shops already present
around the area which would be a direct competition for us, moreover not
everyone prefers roll, so I assigned a low probability to it. Coming to pricing,
there are generally 3 ways of pricing, cost-based pricing; value-based pricing &
competitor-based pricing. Before I move ahead, do we have any data regarding
the competitors and do you wish me to elaborate more on 5%?
No, 5% was a well thought answer, and we do not have any data regarding
competitors. Why don’t you go ahead with cost-based pricing?
Sure! To calculate through cost-based pricing, I will divide the cost into fixed &
variable. Considering the fixed costs would be that of labor, rent, chef’s salary,
tools & utensils; and variable cost primary would be vegetables, fruits and
chicken & cooking gas. Do you want me estimate all of this or should I assume
convenient numbers?
You can assume that per roll costs 50 inclusive of fixed cost, how much profit will
you charge and how will you check the feasibility?
Since it will be a new business, I will like to keep the margin low at 20 per roll
and then I would divide the fixed cost by my margin to take out the breakeven
point. If my annual sales (in no of rolls) is greater than the breakeven sales, it will
be profitable for me to move ahead and start it, hence making it feasible.
It’s exactly what I was thinking. Karan, do you think that you are missing on
something?
(After taking a minute to think) As far as I can think, I missed out on 2 things.
Firstly, we did talk about price, place & product but we did not talk about
Interviewer:
Good Morning, Karan! How are you feeling today?
Interviewer:
Me:
Good Morning. I am feeling good, a little nervous maybe
Me:
Interviewer:
Being little nervous is always good before an interview, you have mentioned in
your CV that you had a self-owned business, then why consulting?
Me:
Yes definitely, while I was working into my business I was basically acting as a
negotiator between buyers and sellers of edible oils, in B2B space, a part of
the work also included monitoring production plants and solve supply chain
issues, this prompted me to think that if I can solve problem for small
companies, why not work for diverse sectors and bigger companies, hence
consulting.
Well that’s interesting, without wasting time any further let us start with the
case!
Interviewer:
CASE
You have to open a QSR (Quick Serving Restaurant) in Bangalore, which place
would you choose, which product and then we will go towards pricing and
finally its feasibility
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interview:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
I have a few preliminary questions to help me make a better decision, to start
with do we need to open a unique QSR or any well-established brand?
You have to open a unique restaurant, you can choose your expertise. Moreover,
a QSR is generally a fast food serving place.
Ok, thank you, I would begin by deciding the place first, considering it’s a QSR, I
would prefer to open in Koramangala, which caters to both the college going
crowd as well as shoppers.
Okay, which food will you prefer to serve?
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
Me:
Interviewer:
promotion which would be a considerable part of my cost initially. Secondly, while
considering sales I forgot about delivery system as well.
Exactly, what you missed out, now since you have figured that out, can you quickly
state how will these factors play in your case
Talking about marketing cost, I think it will be around 20-30% as it would include
discounts, online & offline advertisements. It would eventually fall below 20%
after sales stabilize.
Okay!!, well thought and what about food delivery, how would you venture into
it?
Well, since we have started the business now, we will tie-up with swiggy, uber
eats etc. It will not only increase our sales but would also be a source of our online
promotion through reach. The channel will have its costs, but it also has the
potential to increase our sales by 50%.
That’s right. Also, these channels will help you reduce your cost in delivery vehicles
and delivery boys and hence would help you expand easily. We can close the
case now.
Me:
Thank you, Ma’am. It was good to talk to you!
Interviewer:
Thanks Karan. You did a great job and fairly covered everything, its already
20mins why didn’t I hear the knock!!
I was extended an offer after the first round, the case although was
comprehensive and involved a lot of things but it is very important to buy-in from
interviewer at every stage because it helps removing unnecessary information.
Interview
Verdict