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Table of Contents
From the Presidents Desk .. ......................................................................................................................... 3
Some Gyaan about major Consulting Firms!! ............................................................................................ 6
Consulting Club Calendar: 2013-14............................................................................................................. 10
CASE FRAMEWORKS ................................................................................................................................... 12
Profitability Framework .......................................................................................................................... 13
Market Entry Framework ........................................................................................................................ 24
PE Investment Framework ...................................................................................................................... 27
Sourcing/procurement cost reduction framework................................................................................. 28
Value Chain Analysis framework............................................................................................................. 29
Pricing Framework .................................................................................................................................. 31
M&A Framework..................................................................................................................................... 32
General Frameworks ............................................................................................................................... 33
CASE INTERVIEW EXPERIENCES .................................................................................................................. 36
ACCENTURE MANAGEMENT CONSULTING............................................................................................. 37
AT KEARNEY ............................................................................................................................................ 46
AMAZON ................................................................................................................................................. 51
APPLE ...................................................................................................................................................... 52
DELOITTE ................................................................................................................................................. 52
HUL INTERNAL CONSULTING ............................................................................................................... 64
MCKINSEY & COMPANY .......................................................................................................................... 66
PWC ....................................................................................................................................................... 112
SIEMENS MANAGEMENT CONSULTING ................................................................................................ 119
THE BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP ...................................................................................................... 123
THE PARTHENON GROUP...................................................................................................................... 166
needed. Also, the club designed a Functional Champion Model where club members were
told about the roles and firms available in functional consulting (e.g. Risk, HR, IT, Operations
consulting etc.).
The final interview process consists of two parts Personal interview and Case interview. It is
the latter part where you would find this casebook extremely useful. Cracking a case requires a
thorough understanding of core term courses and decent level of familiarity with different case
types. Ideally, you should revisit your core term courses before you start with your case
preparation. The casebook captures majority of the cases asked during campus recruitments
and hence should sufficiently cover all types of cases you can expect in your campus interview.
Case preparation is best done in groups. Try forming group with people who are dedicated
towards case preparation and have similar class schedule to provide good preparatory time
overlap. This preparation would require different effort from different people so dont
benchmark it with number of cases or number of hours you practice cases. The aim of your
case preparation should be to feel comfortable solving cases in general and you should stop
once you attain that level of comfort (dont kill yourself with case preparation). Personal
interview (PI) is an equally important, if not more important, part of the final recruitment
process. Make sure you spend enough time preparing for your PI and are comfortable
answering general PI questions. Refer to the PI guide from the consulting club for common PI
questions.
Finally be prepared for the roller coaster ride and the hectic scenario of Day One. Students with
multiple shortlists need to get their priority ranking of the firms right and ensure that they
prepare in the best possible way for these firms. Please do sleep well before Day One and relax
because you can do only so much!!
We would like to wish you all the very best for the coming year and we sincerely hope you have
a great time here at ISB and from a career point of view move in your area of interest.
Acknowledgements
We both would like to thank the Consulting Club Core Teams from Hyderabad and Mohali:
Nikhil Abraham, Anand, Ashok, Mark, Shisher, Sidharth, Saurabh, Ajay, Rohit Singh, Aarushi,
Anant, Aditya, Shrestha, Soumyopriyo, Nidhi, Rohit Lohani, Pranav and Shiva; for the work
they have put in not only to compile this case book but also for their fantastic efforts to
organize various activities for the members of the consulting club.
Also, congratulations and special thanks to our fellow batch-mates who got through the most
sought after consulting firms and then helped us in compiling the case book.
Best Wishes,
Nikhil Vij and Nitin Golani
Presidents Consulting Club 2014
McKinsey
Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinsey, McKinsey has grown into a global partnership with
over 6,000 consultants in more than 80 offices in more than 40 countries around the world.
McKinsey serves more than 70% of Fortune magazines most admired companies. It serves
governments in more than 35 countries and conducts 150 pro bono engagements each year.
Clients come to McKinsey for advice on their most critical issues when they have major
strategic, operational or organizational challenges. The firm is comprised of a global network of
offices and practices led by a partnership group. Therefore, it is not tied to earnings pressures
or to increasing returns to shareholders. A strict professional code of ethics includes putting
clients interests ahead of McKinseys, upholding absolute integrity, keeping client information
confidential, telling the truth as they see it, and delivering the best to the client in a costeffective manner.
McKinsey is very effective in concentrating the global knowledge and expertise on the topics of
interest to their clients. It has also a loyal and important alumni community. As an example, 150
McKinsey alumni have become CEOs of companies with more than one billion dollars in annual
revenues. McKinsey is a non-hierarchical organization, where knowledge, insight and the
quality of ideas trump seniority. It is a merit-based organization, where advancement and
recognition is based on the merit of the individuals contribution. There is various training
programs available and an ongoing, frequent review process tied to a strict "up or out" policy.
McKinsey typically recruits for generalist Associate positions, but also Associates for specific
functional practices namely Business Technology, Marketing & Sales, Operations and Corporate
Finance. In most offices, consultants are required to speak the local language. While the
majority of Associates do work as "generalists", with growing seniority after consultants have
been given the chance to explore multiple industries and functions specialization is a natural
progression. Overall, the firm has a culture of enabling consultants to determine their own
career path, and maintains that with its broad reach across industries, functions and
geographies.
When hiring, McKinsey seek individuals with leadership potential, integrity, a sharp analytical
mind, creativity and the ability to work with people at all levels in an organization.
Please Visit: www.mckinsey.com
BCG generally encourages young MBA graduates to start as generalists. Many of them start
their consulting life if they wish so - with projects in the industry of their pre-MBA job and
have therefore the satisfaction to leverage their previous experience, while learning a brand
new job. Typically 20% of BCG consultants serve on social projects across community, urban
development, health/social services, nature and arts. Consultants have opportunities to gain
further international exposure, either by choosing to work on projects outside the home office,
or by asking for a temporary 1-year, or definitive, transfer to another office. Generally,
knowledge of the local language of the chosen BCG office is required.
Please Visit: www.bcg.com
AT Kearney
A.T. Kearney is a global management consulting firm that uses strategic insight, tailored
solutions and a collaborative working style to help clients achieve sustainable results. Since
1926, AT Kearney has been trusted advisors on CEO-agenda issues to the worlds leading
corporations across all major industries. While A.T. Kearney has been serving Indian clients for
over 30 years, they opened offices in New Delhi in 1997 and subsequently, Mumbai in 2004.
Both offices have grown rapidly and are outstanding examples of the firms growth story in
India.
Please Visit: www.atkearney.com
Accenture Consulting
Accenture became public in April 2001, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It has more
than 146,000 employees in 49 countries, including approximately 4,500 senior executives.
Initially called Andersen Consulting, Accenture was formally established in 1989 when a group
of partners from the Consulting division of the various Arthur Andersen firms around the world
formed a new organization focused on consulting and technology services related to managing
large-scale systems integration and enhancing business processes.
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company,
identifying new business and technology trends and developing solutions to help clients around
the world enter new markets, increase revenues in existing markets, improve operational
performance, and deliver products and services more effectively and efficiently.
Please Visit: www.accenture.com
PwC - Strategy
Oliver Wyman
June
July September
Alumni Interaction Sessions; assigning of mentors to each club member (BCG, McKinsey,
Deloitte, Parthenon)
September October
Resume Preparation
October December
November
Consulting Club Conclave @ ILS 2013; Topic Is implementation the real deal in
Consulting?
Consilium 2013 (a business strategy case competition) Consulting Clubs flagship event
December
Day I (Please look at the updated academic calendar for this)
10
January
Day II and III (Please look at the updated academic calendar for this)
March
Post Placement Activities: workshop on excel and PowerPoint training
Please visit the below link to have a detailed insight about the consulting clubs activities
\\isbhdata\ISB_Common\Consulting Club 2014
Also, all consulting enthusiasts please join the ISB Consulting Club Facebook group. Here you
will find all the alumni from ISB
https://www.facebook.com/groups/194867853901398/
11
CASE FRAMEWORKS
Note: The following section has been compiled by Nishant Kedia, Vijayalakshmi Vaithianathan,
Pranav Mathur and Sarvesh Rathi. This is a concise version of important frameworks that were
used by them. However we would recommend you to go through the earlier case books as well
to cover all possible case approaches used over the years.
12
I - Profitability Framework
Profitability cases are the most common type of cases that you will see. The importance of the
case stems from the fact that profit-making is the final goal of every business problem. It is
always recommended to think on first principles when you approach a case-problem. Here we
will try to run through the anatomy of a profitability case.
Breaking profitability down to its simplest components is the key in consulting cases. Dividing
profitability into components such as revenue and cost can be helpful in discovering the causes
of a less than favorable bottom line. It is to be noted that many a time, the interviewer will not
specifically mention the type of the case. The candidate is expected to follow a sequence of
logical steps by gathering information (by asking relevant questions). The structure shown
above will be useful in exploring how to go about exploring the case.
Deconstructing the case-problem
13
The profitability problem is very vast and generally comes in varied dimensions. Thus, scoping
of the problem becomes very important in order to make a structured headway in the case.
This could be done by asking a sequence of logical questions. The idea behind these questions is
two-folds a) to scope the problem, b) to gather relevant information available with the
interviewer.
Defining the problem
1. What is the magnitude of loss/profit? Since when has the trend occurred?
Also, it is noteworthy to inquire if profits are declining or profitability has been affected. (These
are two different things. Profits are merely a difference of Revenues and Cost, while
Profitability is a measure of profit margin.
Q2) Ask if gross margin/operating margin or net margin which is facing the decline?
Now, going ahead with the framework, we first define profits as Revenues Cost. Thus, it is a
function of two drivers. We deep dive into one driver and hold on to the second one for the
time being.
Q3) What is the target of profit / profitability? Any other constraints or secondary objectives
(e.g. market share)?
Q4) Is there a timeline that the company wants to solve the problem in?
Q5) Just to get a background of the company, I would want to know the product mix and
revenue streams for the company.
Q6) Ask for data on trends of each product and ascertain the product(s) which is leading to the
problem.
Q7) Is the profitability problem across the industry and trends for the product? If problem is
across the industry ask for context
Demand
14
Macroeconomic factors
Changing priority of customers change in demographics
Regular market disruptions
Supply
-
The problem may lie in two areas - revenue and costs. What are the trends of
revenues (up or down) and costs (up or down)?
Depending on the response, choose which one to go in first and take buy-in of
interviewer
REVENUES
Revenues are dependent on two factors
1. Average Price - Thus, if revenue side has been affected then either Average Price across the
product mix has decreased (majorly due to competition or company policy). Quantitatively, we
can see that
Average Price = Price of all the products/Total number of products =
Here, the advice is to stick to first principles and be aware of the fact that price of the products
in the product mix and total number of products could also affect the revenues.
Internal factors
15
External Factors
o Price war
o Other stakeholders demanding more in value chain e.g. increased distributor margin
o Government regulation (price cap)
o Customer preference changed. Had to reduce price
Resolution:
- Product Differentiation
1. Better features
2. Better brand
3. Better packaging
- Innovative Pricing Methods
1. Loss Leader Pricing/ Captive Pricing (Razor Blade),
2. Bundle Pricing
- Different methods of pricing:
1. Value based pricing (Premium Pricing & Price Skimming)
R&D Costs
Manufacturing/servicing/construction costs Fixed and Variable Costs
Break-even costs, WACC
2. Volume
Ascertain changes in number of units sold. The two potential reasons for a volume decline are
a) Market share decline
b) Market size decline
a) If Market share declines
Market Share = %Aware X %Preference Buyers X %Available X % Time for adoption X %Repeat
Purchase
Price
o Have these increased? What is the elasticity?
17
Product
o Share of Mind (Likeability)
Poor quality
network effect with other products
substitutes
product mix
better product in market
quality of service
o Perception of poor quality but good product
Check perception and preference map
If problem in perceptual map, check for accuracy in positioning
Training adequacy (curriculum or frequency of training)
Remember The final consumer might not always be the purchase decision
maker. There might me other stakeholders involved, for whom we might
need to make the product attractive.
Promotion
Segmentation
Target
Build Ad
Message
Positioning
Awareness
Knowledge/Perception
Consideration
Preference
Loyalty
Advocacy
18
Decide
Medium
Decide
Frequency
Place
Market Size
Decline
Due to Demand
Due to Supply
Solution:
Short term
Increase distributor margins
Target new segments
Long Term
Launch new SKUs
COSTS
Following approaches can be used for cost analysis:
a) Fixed costs and variable costs
a. In a high fixed cost business there is very high temptation of price wars (Remember
MADM fundas). For Fixed Costs, following considerations need be made
Capacity Utilization
Increasing the scale of business/manufacturing What causes it?
Complex Product: High Costs - What causes it?
Remember it can be a product specific problem or a product mix problem something such as
that we are selling more of higher cost product
b) Value chain analysis
Albeit simpler, FC and VC approach is considered limited in considering the entire set of costs
related problem. Here Value Chain analysis helps us to consider all the costs in detailed.
Raw Material
Inbound
logistics
warehousing
Manufacturing
Outbound
logistics
Distribution
Customers
The value chain depicted above represents a manufacturing setup. However, thinking on first
principles one can easily construct a value chain for any business mentioned in the case. For
starters, think of Suppliers, Distributors (inbound/outbound), storage/warehouses, end
customers (VERY IMPORTANT)
c) Costs income statement wise (COGS, SG&A, Interest, Depreciation, Tax)
What is the percentage split of costs across these different processes?
In case one particular head has highest % say 50% or more then you can ask the
interviewer that you would want to look at this head to start with.
Many a time there might not be one major head and there could be two heads with
30%-30%split. In these cases youll need to explore both heads and also see that the
profitability decline could be partly because of one and partly because of another.
21
Specification
o Substitution (Different Raw Material)
o Cheaper material - indigenization/rationalization?
Quantity
o Value engineering (Use lesser Raw Material)
Per unit price
o Same Supplier
Better Negotiation/Bulk Order Can you provide something in return for
a better price?
Time of Sourcing (Opportunistic) Buying when prices are low
o Alternate supplier
Currency Hedging Use forwards/futures if prices are expected to rise.
Also use call or put options for the variable part of future
Standardization of Parts ordering more of same type of good
Backward Integration
Cheaper supplier - china etc?
Inbound Logistics:
o Do you and your competitor use the same Mode of Transportation?
o Do you incur the same rates and same overall cost?
o Explore Distance Travelled could be that the rates are same but your factory is
further away from the supplier base.
o Are you ordering at the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) Trade of between Set
up cost, holding cost and expected demand
Production/Operations
o Explore Labour cost and efficiency vis-a-vis competitor.
o Inventory Cost (EOQ)
o Overheads such as Electricity/Rent same or higher?
o Machine Utilization: % Downtime - High?
Machine broken? Maintenance/spare cost
Power outage?
Labour unavailability?
Total availability will be a function of (% of time labour, % time machine
available, % Idle time)
o Resolution additional dimensions:
Outsource
Economies of Scale/Learning curve
Labour cost arbitrage
Distribution/Outbound Logistics:
22
SUMMARY
Define the problem by asking the following questions
1. What is the magnitude of the profit/loss?
2. Since when is the issue happening?
3. Is it in any particular geography or is it nationwide?
4. What is the profit/loss of the product mix?
5. What is the target profitability?
6. What is the target time frame?
You may ask other questions as well depending on the problem type. Once you get a grip of the
problem start structuring your analysis as indicated below
1. Market
2. Customer
23
Segment customers
3. Competitors
Segment competitors
Now proceed with the framework outlined above to identify the root cause of the problem
Situation Analysis
Value chain Analysis
Industry Attractiveness
Entry Strategy
1. Situation Analysis
Situation
Analysis
Motive
- Profit, Market Share,
geographic expansion?
Current business/
products
Expectation
Current Customers
- Target profit,
market share,
geogrpahy etc.
- Which part of
value chain?
- Timeline?
If the situation analysis culminates into finding which part of value chain is appropriate for
entry, value chain analysis needs to be done.
24
Parameters
Sourcing
Manufacturing
Distribution
After sales
services
Market Size
Sales Growth
Profitability
Competition
Customers
Technology/skills
Investment required
Value of Synergy
That part of value chain must be chosen which maximizes profits of the firm. It must be
in-line with the firms primary objective
3. Industry Attractiveness
Once the firms objective and its role in the market entry is understood it is essential to
evaluate the industry attractiveness. It has two major components:
Fundamental Attractiveness Is the industry attractive irrespective of the firms current
business, products, customers, performance etc.?
Competitive positioning How is the firm positioned to perform in the industry by
virtue of its present status?
25
Industry Attractiveness
Fundamental Attractivenss
Competitive Positioning
Revenue Synergies
Market
- Size, Growth,
Profitability
Industry
- Competitors
- Customers
- Value Chain
Entry Barriers
- Economies of scale
- Regulation
- Distribution
Technological benefits
- Investment
- Savings in SG&A
- Technology
- Consolidation benefits
- Brand Loyalty
Fundamental Attractiveness
Increase in either of the parameters compensates for the decrease in the other for a threshold
level of attractiveness. A curve can be plotted as shown below:
Enter
Do not
enter
Competitive Positioning
26
4. Entry Strategy
Entry Strategy
Mode of Entry
Resources Required
- Greenfield
- Financing
- Franchise
- Technology
-M&A
- Manpower
- Joint Venture
Greenfield
Franchise
M&A
JV
Profits
Investment
Operational
Management Control
Expertize
Cultural fit
Strategic Vision
Risks
Lock-in
Coordination
Cross effects
Threat of competition
27
Industry
Attractiveness
Target's
Potential
Sources of
Return
Only if the industry is attractive, target has high potential and expected return from the
investment (from all sources) exceed target ROI, investment is justified.
Sourcing costs
RM Costs
Transportation costs
Supply
Demand
- Reduce Wastage
- Operational
Network optimization
- Price
- Negotiation
- Long term/ future
improvement (value
contracts
- Mode of transport
chain analysis)
- Volume discounts
- Supplier rationalization
- Suppliers
- Substitutes
- Supplier rationalization
(alternate suppliers,
consolidation etc.)
- Change specification
- Efficiency of transport
(TAT, load factor, quantity
transported per trip etc.)
- Backward integration
Demand
Forecasting
Sourcing
Warehous
ing
Logistics
(inbound)
Manufact
uring
Logistics
(outbound)
Distributi
on
After
Sales
service
A few important questions to ask under each part of the value chain will result in insights for
problem solving:
29
Demand Forecasting
How volatile is demand?
What is the method used for high demand and high volatility raw materials?
Recommendations Careful estimation of raw material quantities for high profit margin
and high variability products
Sourcing
Refer sourcing framework
Warehousing
Manufacturing
Benchmark all costs with industry average
o Direct Labour
o Direct Material
o Overheads
Reason for higher costs?
o Process (process parameters, sequence of operations, utilization etc.)
o People (Incentives, skill, motivation etc.)
o Technology (obsolete, inefficient etc.)
Recommendations Make vs buy (outsource?), Consolidate manufacturing capacity
(Economies of Scale and Scope), upgrade technology, people management and training,
process redesign etc.
Logistics
Efficiency of transport (TAT, load factor, quantity transported per trip etc.)
Distribution
Penetration (no of distributors)
Shelf space (% of own items vs % of others items)
Recommendation look at distributor commission structure (push), discount schemes
(pull), expand distributor network etc.
After Sales Service
VI - Pricing Framework
Product
Pricing
Cost Plus
Value Based
Competitive
31
Once you understand the nature of the product, then try to assess what kind of pricing
methodology would work best (in any case you should price the product based on all the
methods and give your final recommendation based on a price range based on the three
methods)
Product type:
Standard/Commoditized
product
Pricing Methodology:
Cost Plus
Competitive
Differentiated
product
Value Based
Tips:
1. Many pricing problems are masked market size estimation problems. When the
conversation goes in that direction, ensure you specify that youd calculate the market size
before pricing the product
2. Theres no single price Always offer a price range. Mentioning the sensitivity metrics in
calculations would fetch additional brownie points.
3. Think about competitive reaction in the market
4. Topics like bundling and other innovative prices (discount scheme etc.) will fetch brownie
points
5. Price the product based on consumer psychology (for example - use $5.99 as the price to
indicate that consumers are more willing to buy at $5.99 instead of $6)
32
List down some criteria to select the businesses to acquire and rank them. This
approach can be used either when there are multiple businesses to select from or same
business but different companies to select from. Some criteria could be as follows:
o Synergies from costs
o Synergies from customers in terms of revenue you can add a wow factor that
you would generally be cautious here since revenue synergies are hard to
materialize
o Level of competition
o Extension of existing strengths into the new business
o Use of existing competitive advantage
o Risks in the business
Compute the net benefit of such acquisition based on the costs incurred to acquire
them v/s the potential synergies that could be realized. Remember to mention that
estimating synergies is a tricky business (this is the wow factor here)
Once you have identified the synergies you would like to focus on the valuation
o Discounted cash flows method
o Market multiple method (has the issues associated being a historical number and
also the possibility of being inflated)
The next thing that you would want to focus on is how you plan to finance the
acquisition
o Finance acquisition through stock to be used when the acquiring company
stock is overvalued
o Finance acquisition through cash (a combination of equity and debt) - to be used
when the acquiring company stock is undervalued
o Finance acquisition through both stock and cash
The next step would be to perform the due diligence and then consummate the
transaction.
33
Guess Estimates: Do not neglect this section and be thoroughly prepared with the same. A
guess estimate can be asked in multiple ways, even while solving a normal profitability case.
Once you have completed the guess-estimate then try to include the following to make your
analysis much richer
a. Verification of data Identify a few sources from where you can get the right numbers to
further refine your estimate.
b. Sensitivity Analysis Conduct a basic sensitivity analysis and identify the most critical
assumptions you made.
Such an extended analysis shows that you have thought through all the assumptions made and
are not arbitrarily using any number to estimate. Although the numbers do not matter here but
having a basic sense of the numbers used and identifying the potential areas of over/under
estimating helps a lot.
Sales Force Effectiveness: You may use this to identify the reason for low sales force output.
34
Sales Force
Effectiveness
Motivational
Monetary
Efforts/Skills
Non-Monetary
Training
Salary
Perks
Recruitment
Incentives
Career/Growth
Organization
Structure
Recognition/Awards
Sourcing Strategy: Such types of cases are relatively rare however can be solved using a
standard approach outlined below
Sourcing
Strategy
What to source
How much to
source
Whom to source
from
How to Source
Mode of
transport
Others
Same Raw
Material
sourced
Wastages
Backward
Integrate
Centralized
Govt
Alternate Raw
Material
Process redesign
Current
Suppliers
De-Centralized
Macro trends
Quantity
Bundling
New Suppliers
35
CASE INTERVIEW
EXPERIENCES
36
Aditya Shrivastava
Accenture Management Consulting
Partner from Operations Practice
First
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Introduction
Why Consulting & Why AMC
Learning from ISB
Past Work Experience
Biggest Strength
What went Right
Was very thorough with my resume and hence
was able to handle questions on projects that
had undertaken.
- What Went Wrong
I was asked to defend my GPA, specifically why I
was not in the top 10 % considering I wanted to
be in consulting. Wasnt prepared for the
question and mumbled a very unconvincing
answer
Case question (as narrated by the It was a short case, probably to check my comfort level with
interviewer)
numbers and understanding of operations.
Questions- A packaged water manufacturer wants to reduce the
cost at which plastic bottles are reduced. How would you
approach the problem
How did you define the scope of the
Clarified the focus of the case Only cost reduction in
case
plastic bottle or I needed to look at other aspects as well.
Clarified what was the clients expectation for the
reduction. Ball park figure mentioned was 5-7 %
Case Analysis presented by you
38
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Aditya Shrivastava
Accenture Management Consulting
Amit Engagement Manager Operations Practice
Second
1. Introduction
2. About my past work experience
3. Why I move from R&D to a B-School and why do I want
to join consulting
4. Details of all my Patents expected business ,
commercialized or not etc
-
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Aditya Shrivastava
Accenture Management Consulting
Jasjit Parmar HR Manager
Operations Partner ( Not the one who interviewed my in the first
round)
Third Round
1. Introduction
2. Defend your GPA
3. Why Accenture
4. What was my contribution to Consilium
5. Why was I under pressure / why do you look under
pressure
- What went Right
Defended my GPA pretty well,
Knew multiple alums in Accenture and hence
when they were trying to push me I could use
one of them as an example for why I wanted to
join Accenture
- What Went Wrong
It was a classic good cop-bad cop interview to
create a stressful situation and at one point in
time I became very serious.
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
40
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Maan Bodawala
Accenture Management Consulting
Not a partner
First
Personal interview questions (please Apart from general questions like walk me through your resume,
write the questions only)
strengths, Why consulting, etc was asked Example of conflict
resolution, Team support and Team Leadership experience.
Comments on the PI rounds (please Was confident, which was the most important thing. On why
elaborate on what went right and consulting, I provided a really rosy picture as to the greatness of
what could have been done better)
the role, like learning, ambition, networking etc. The interview
through agreed informed me a lot of downsides, like work life
balance, commitment and I was required to defend why I was a
suitable candidate to handle them.
Case question (as narrated by the Relevant to my experience, Possible reason why an Oil & Gas /
interviewer)
Power plant is delayed.
How did you define the scope of the Project Management
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Value chain Basis: Actual Bidding phase, Planning, Engineering,
Procurement:
Technical/Commercial,
Manufacturing
&
monitoring, Quality Checks, Logistics, Construction, Pre
commissioning, Commissioning and Final Testing before actual
startup. Took the interviewer through all reasons of delay and
multiple reasons for checks and corrections if any
Final recommendation / summary
The interviewer was very pleased, No cross questions asked.
What do you think went right while Elaborate and thorough knowledge of your previous industry/
solving the case?
function a must.
What do you think could have been done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Selected for Round 2
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Maan Bodawala
Accenture Management Consulting
Partner
Second
General Questions. Experience and resume related. Also inquired
about vertical/horizontal preferences at Accenture and why.
By the 3rd question told me that there was little energy level
visible. I apologized and responded that I am generally calm and
soft spoken, which may be why the interviewer may feel that I
am showing lesser energy. Also told him that there were some
41
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Maan Bodawala
Accenture
Manoj - Senior partner
3rd
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the None
case
Case Analysis presented by you
None
Final recommendation / summary
The interviewer was very pleased; by the middle of the interview
only I could sense an FIF but still remained calm and composed.
What do you think went right while Smiled when was asked the inflation question, the interviewers
solving the case?
were intrigued, asked me why I smiled and I calmly responded
that I did not expect this question. The fact I was able to nail the
same showed I was able to manage some sort of ambiguity.
What do you think could have been done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Made an offer
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushagra Gupta
Accenture Management Consulting
Kaustubh Verma, Manager
Round 1
Kaustubh started out with the usual PI questions:
1. Walk me through your resume.
2. Why consulting?
3. You must have shortlists from other consulting firms. Why
Accenture?
4. How many consultants currently work at Accenture? Who is
our CEO?
This was my first interview of the day and it was already running
a bit late so my responses were not quite up to the mark. I felt I
answered questions 1-3 quite well (tip: personalize your why
consulting/ why this firm responses). I had not read up on
Accenture so did not know answers to question 4. I told
Kaustubh so that I did not know. It is better to honestly admit if
you dont know something.
Our client is family-owned Indian conglomerate. Suppose that
they have insider knowledge that a scientist has developed a
technology that provides an eternal source of energy to any
device that it is plugged to. You are called in to advise the client
on how he can benefit from this opportunity.
I started out by asking the standard questions of what our client
was currently into (food and electronics) and what was the
nature of this new invention (it provided a portable unlimited
power source to any device it was connected to). I hypothised
that our client could partner with the scientist to take this new
technology to market and build power devices that encapsulate
44
45
AT KEARNEY
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Pratheek Hegde
A T Kearney
Ayushman, Partner
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Pratheek Hegde
A T Kearney
Shiv Shivaraman, Partner
First
He focused mostly on my extracurricular activities. I had
mentioned my NCC experience, flying and shooting there in
detail. He found it interesting and we had a long chat about it.
Comments on the PI rounds (please Build a connect with the interviewer during PI. It really helps to
elaborate on what went right and break the ice and build a rapport.
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the A chemicals manufacturer has hired you to audit the companys
interviewer)
performance and provide a long term strategy
How did you define the scope of the This was one of the cases which required quick on the spot
case
thinking and altering the framework. After few scoping questions
I realized he was looking for me to evaluate its entire value
chain.
Case Analysis presented by you
I laid out a detailed value chain and asked questions about each
activity. I zeroed in on manufacturing and used the profitability
framework. Through the analysis it turned out that the company
had an old plant and was fully depreciated. It did not have any
debt on the books. Thus it was recording profits quarter on
quarter for the last 2 years. Volume of its sales had stagnated
since capacity was fully used.
Final recommendation / summary
Invest in a new plant. The profit is a symptom rather than a
result. The actual profit by including interest payments and dep.
Was lower.
What do you think went right while He liked my value chain and the way I used the profitability
solving the case?
framework. He was impressed by the way I related operations to
the financial statements
What do you think could have been Nothing really
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Moved to next round
2nd
He started the interview with a formal chat and we spoke about
Bangalore and the university. (he was from the same university
as I was in BE) I had built a very good rapport with him during
the dinner that ATK held for shortlisted candidates. He was a
46
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Pratheek Hegde
AT Kearney
Nithin, Principal
3rd
No PI
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushal Patwardhan
AT Kearney
Nitin Chandra (Principal)
First
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushal Patwardhan
AT Kearney
Shiv Shivaraman (Partner)
Second
Tell me about yourself
Why did you come back to India?
Why ATK?
Comments on the PI rounds (please PI questions I had prepared well so had no trouble there. I had a
elaborate on what went right and really nice discussion with Shiv. He had also worked in HVAC
what could have been done better)
consulting so we talked a bit about that.
Case question (as narrated by the Estimate the market size for small car in India in 2020
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the Just had to establish what a small car is. he said priced between
case
3lakh - 5 lakh
Case Analysis presented by you
This is a standard guesstimate. I don't remember all numbers but
this is how i went about it
1. No .of Households in india in 2020 ~ 300mill
2. Income distribution (told me to assume more or less same as
today)
160 million - <1.5lakh per annum
49
50
AMAZON
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Daniel Fernandez
Amazon BDM Amazon Associates Program
5 rounds in total
Your biggest achievement professionally? One time when your
POV was different from your manager and you were
right/wrong. Most challenging situation at work.
Comments on the PI rounds (please Know the Amazon core values, each interview is designed to test
elaborate on what went right and your outlook and the fitment. Last round can be a stress
what could have been done better)
interview, important to stay calm as the interviewer is likely from
a non-related background and may not be able to relate to your
work or achievements.
Case question (as narrated by the Suppose Dance India Dance would like to sign up as an affiliate
interviewer)
for the Amazon Associates program. How would you value the
deal and how would you structure it?
A large upstream provider which accounts for 30% of your
overall traffic in the Associates Program has started sending you
fraudulent traffic. What do you do? Do you suspend his account
immediately and lose 30% of your traffic or find a way to keep
him on.
Youre starting the Amazon Associates Program in India. How do
you decide which partner to prioritize and try and sign up first?
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while Cases in all rounds had an ethical contention to it it really
solving the case?
helped knowing the Amazon core values and doing the right
thing. Ask yourself, what would Jeff Bezos do?
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional)
51
APPLE
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Vijay Bansal
Apple SDM Team
Senior Execs from SDM Team Singapore
First & Second
Why do you want to shift to Supply Chain?(I had no prior
experience in Supply Chain Industry)
Why do you think you are a write fit for this profile?
DELOITTE
Name
Bhavana Jayanth
Name of company interviewing with Deloitte S&O
Name and designation of the Dont remember (Senior partner)
52
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third) First
Personal interview questions (please Something unique about you?
write the questions only)
Any other hobbies?
Why consulting?
Comments on the PI rounds (please I had practiced the answers to all these questions and that
elaborate on what went right and helped.
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the Guesstimate: Number of books (non-academic) that people in
interviewer)
Mohali campus would read in a month (Question linked to my
hobby)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Identified students, spouses, faculty, admin etc and gave
approximate number for each. Went ahead to estimate
percentage of people who would read books in each category
and then estimated average number of books per month
Final recommendation / summary
Came up with a number (which I felt was slightly on the higher
side) and told the interviewer that it was an optimistic estimate.
He agreed.
What do you think went right while It was an easy straightforward guesstimate and I structured the
solving the case?
whole thing as a tree.
What do you think could have been He asked me for any alternative ways of arriving at the number. I
done better while solving the case?
came up with one but it was not what he was expecting:
Calculating the number of free hours that each student/ spouse
would have in a month and then estimating how much time in
that time people would devote to reading, then calculate
number of pages read per hour and number of pages per book to
arrive at a number. I couldnt have thought of that one on my
own but when he explained it to me, I agreed that it was a good
approach.
Outcome of the interview (optional) Went through to the next round
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Bhavana Jayanth
Deloitte S&O
2 interviewers
Second
Tell me something about yourself?
Where would you fit in in Deloitte?
Again, prepared answers
different markets.
How did you define the scope of the Repeated the question. Ensured that I understood the expansion
case
meant geographic expansion. Clarified the kind of clients the
company had (firms or individuals). Deloitte has quant heavy
cases so I knew from the beginning that I would be given data as
I went along.
Case Analysis presented by you
I initially considered internal and external factors while choosing
the geographic market and listed quite a few (about 12). They
agreed and gave me details about the population, growth rate,
profitability, competition etc. I ruled out some companies and
shortlisted 2. They told me to proceed with Australia. They then
provided me more detailed statistics about Australian
customers, competitors and segments they were in. I had to
decide between starting from scratch, acquisition and alliance.
We chose an alliance with a company of suitable size. (I say we
because it was more like a discussion and I took them through
my thought process and they agreed with my logic). They then
told me to switch hats, assume that our client has decided to
start from scratch and that they have already made an
investment. They gave me a future investment to be made and
profitability of customers, discount rate etc. Had to do an NPV
calculation to see if the investment was justified (ignoring the
sunk costs). It was. That was the end of the case
Final recommendation / summary
They did not want a summary. It was a pretty long case with
quite a few numbers and percentages. 35 mins or so. They
simply said thank you.
What do you think went right while The interviewers were quite happy with some details and points
solving the case?
which I captured (mainly from solving other cases). For example,
I considered the average age of the population in the country
that we sought to enter as it was an insurance firm. I was also
very quick to neglect sunk costs (a core economic concept) which
they were happy to see. These small things are the things which
set you apart.
What do you think could have been One number that I calculated: I said roughly 33 million and the
done better while solving the case?
interviewer said why roughly? because that was the exact
number. I could have shown more confidence in saying 33
million
Outcome of the interview (optional) Went through to the next round
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Bhavana Jayanth
Deloitte S&O
Santosh and another partner
Third and Last
None
54
Elevator pitch: present the case that you solved in the second
round in 5 mins (because they had to go golfing! )
Checked if I could use flipcharts I did
Quick summary of problem, some numbers and final
recommendations
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushagra Gupta
Deloitte S&O
Santosh, Practice Lead & Principal, Deloitte S&O US India
Round 1
Santosh remembered me from an interaction session that
Deloitte had organized on campus after the short-listing process.
He went through my CV and nevertheless asked me the
following PI questions:
1. Why consulting (since I worked with an investment bank
before).
2. Why Deloitte?
3. Work experience-related questions.
4. How was it like working with Deloitte consultants (in my
previous role, I had worked on the client side with consultants
from Deloitte UK)
5. Questions on my hobbies and interests (Formula 1).
6. Questions on a consulting panel discussion that we had invited
Santosh to as a part of the course curriculum.
Comments on the PI rounds (please Since I had met Santosh before, the PI was more like a chat and I
elaborate on what went right and was very relaxed during the whole process. A tip is to know your
what could have been done better)
CV in and out and have one or two spikes that really
differentiate you from the rest. In most of my PI-based
interviews, I could weave an interesting story around these
spikes that impressed the interviewers.
Case question (as narrated by the None
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the None
55
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while
solving the case?
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional)
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
None
None
None
None
Advanced to Round 2.
Kushagra Gupta
Deloitte S&O
2 S&O consultants from IIM (dont remember their names)
Round 2
Both the interviewers had gone through my CV and asked only
the basic tell me something about yourself question.
By now I had narrated this answer so many times that I could do
it in my sleep!!
FIRST
Read my resume for 2 minutes. And then asked me to connect
the dots.
The interviewer was silent for the first 2 minutes. This was my
first and only PI question. My answer was for about 2 minutes
and I based it on the standard Walk me through your resume
answer I had prepared. This was immediately followed by the
guesstimate question. The interviewer maintained a poker face
throughout our conversation.
Case question (as narrated by the Calculate the number of 3G sites that Vodafone has in India
interviewer)
(Note that I came from Telecom Services background. The
manager also had experience in TMT Consulting- hence this
question)
How did you define the scope of the Quick Guesstimate
case
Case Analysis presented by you
I started by taking few assumptions, such as the distance
covered by one site (1 sq. km), Vodafone having its presence in
15 telecom circles. I took 5 circles with the size of 1000 sq. km
and rest as 10000 sq kms. Also made certain assumptions on the
density of the towers within the circles. I came up with an
answer of 1,50,000 sites. I had this number in mind as I knew
Vodafone had ~ 25% market share and there are total of
~6,00,000 sites in India. I believed that the no. of towers should
be in similar ratio. I used my assumptions to arrive at the above
57
number.
Final recommendation / summary
This was a stress interview. The total interview was less than 10
minutes! Was not allowed any time to think and my questions
(on case) were mostly dismissed.
What do you think went right while My initial assumptions and the fact that I divided the circles into
solving the case?
two broad sizes struck a cord.
What do you think could have been I wasnt given any time. Only 2 minutes to come up with a
done better while solving the case?
number. I took around 3. Note that I completely forgot that I had
to calculate 3G sites and not 2G! This was a mistake I realized
when I was done with the interview. The time pressure caused
me to slip the 3G part.
Outcome of the interview (optional) Invited for Round 2
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Harsh Parikh
Deloitte S&O
Sanchit Agarwal Manager
First
The interviewer enquired about my experience at the previous
firm.
Post this, Sanchit asked me to take him through the CV
He asked - what was one word that I would like to associate to
myself which was another way of asking what your strengths
are?
Next question Why Deloitte? (He mentioned that he knew I
had an answer prepared but still wanted me to answer that)
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Harsh Parikh
Deloitte S&O
Cant recollect 2 Sr. Managers
Second
They asked me to quickly take me through the CV
Replied the shorter version of take me through your CV (Prepare
for a 5 minute and a 2 minute version separately)
It was a two member panel for case discussion where they
explained that one of the interviewers would help me crack the
case while the other would give the case details.
61
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Harsh Parikh
Deloitte S&O
Santosh and another partner (Both were partners)
Third
No PI question
No PI question
They explained that one of them was the CEO of the company
where you conducted the review and asked you to present the
finding in 5 minutes.
How did you define the scope of the I used the Issue Analysis Root cause Recommendation
case
approach to explain the problem at hand and used the white
board to explain each. While doing the presentation, I
Case Analysis presented by you
mentioned that I had a lengthy discussion with my colleagues
Final recommendation / summary
(named my round 2 interviewerssome schmoozing helps) and
then suggested recommendations. Santosh then asked me if it
was safe to outsource work to India. I had read a report on
outsourcing work to India and quoted the policies being set up to
take care of these problems.
What do you think went right while The partner chuckled when I referred to the previous
solving the case?
interviewers as my colleagues. Stick to case methodology as
much as you can.
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Offer extended
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Manasi Narang
Deloitte USI
Round 1 Senior Manager Supply chain vertical
Round 2 2 Managers from the Finance vertical
Round 3 Santosh Anu (Partner S&O)
Interview round (first/second/third) First/ Second/ Third
Personal interview questions (please First round write the questions only)
Take me through your resume.
Why did you switch from audit to M&A diligence?
Why did you decide to pursue an MBA?
Second round
Tell me something I wouldnt know from your resume
Comments on the PI rounds (please The PI went well. I wasnt nervous at all. It helps to look calm and
elaborate on what went right and greet the interviewer with a smile. Interview processes can last
what could have been done better)
for over 12 hours especially if you have multiple shortlists, its
important to be as stress free as possible, else you will burnout
by the end of the day.
62
I worked with Deloitte India for 7 years and was able to relate to
the Deloitte processes and practices, hence the conversation
was very relaxed in each round.
Case question (as narrated by the Round 1 - It was a short guesstimate case
interviewer)
How many lamp posts are there between Marriot Chandigarh
and ISB Mohali
Round 2 A US based telco, which was the market leader for
almost a decade is now seeing deckling revenue trends for the
last 2-3 years WHY?
How did you define the scope of the Round 1 I assumed that the distance between the Hotel and
case
campus is 10 km and that there is a lamp post at every 100
metres. Did the math and multiplied by two since there is a lamp
post on both sides of the road.
Round 2 Broke it down into industry trends, market share,
competitor performance, revenue components and asked
questions around these parameters.
Case Analysis presented by you
After much probing and questioning I understood that the
Company was heavily dependent on call and message revenue
whereas the customer was moving towards applications like
viber, whatsapp and skype. Also it was targeting only 60-70% of
the smart phone customers.
In the end I was also asked to calculate the expected revenue
based on my recommendations and additional information
shared during the discussion.
Final recommendation / summary
Round 3 Presentation on case analysis to partner and director
Recommended that the company should focus on acquiring
more smart phone consumers, offer better value added services,
can possibly bind consumers with attractive contracts and
postpaid offers ( better than those offered by competitors)
What do you think went right while The case prep really helped. It is advisable to sit with a bunch of
solving the case?
friends and try to solve cases. Discussions with others help you
gather various view points. You are also more structured in your
approach and are able to break down the problem statement
into logical steps.
What do you think could have been When I started asking questions around the case, I realized I was
done better while solving the case?
scribbling all over that piece of paper. The interviewers do peep
into that paper every now and then to see what your thought
process is. It would have been better if I were more organized in
jotting down information and creating buckets of information
shared.
Outcome of the interview (optional) Received an offer.
63
Shirish Damani
HUL Internal Consulting Role
Dont Remember
65
Nishant Kedia
Company
Interviewer
Round
Round 1 Interview 1
Comments on PI Interview
Case Question
Scope of the case
Case Analysis
Ind. 1
A. Fundamental
Attractiveness
Financial
Revenue
Revenue growth
Profitability
Industry Structure
Competition
Customers
Sourcing
Distribution
Entry Barriers
Regulation
Manufacturing technology
Investment
Brand
loyalty/
stickiness
customer
B. Competitive Positioning
Revenue synergies
Cross selling advantages
Effect on product quality of the
67
Ind. 2
68
Name
Nishant Kedia
Company
Interviewer
Round
Round 1 Interview 2
Comments on PI Interview
Case Question
I told him that price increase for the current customers is not an
advisable option as it will bring a lot of bad publicity in the market.
My recommendation was to segment the market by using certain
additives and changing chemical compositions to increase the
price for newer customers. For this the client should build a
demand curve by:
- Studying the manufacturing costs for all the
manufacturers in Gujarat. The bigger suppliers will be able
to manufacture at a lower price as compared to the
smaller ones. Plotting the total capacity with the
manufacturing costs gives the supply curve
- Plotting customers willingness to pay gives the demand
curve
Since the industry had excess demand at current prices, I advised
to look at the excess demand with increasing prices. Based on the
size of demand and ease of differentiation, we can decide
whether manufacturing should be undertaken or not. Assuming
certain market share for the excess demand at a price, profitability
as a function of price can be found and maximized.
No specific recommendations as the numbers were not available.
Recommendation was to look at ways of differentiating and
choosing a price to maximize the profits.
Name
Nishant Kedia
Company
Interviewer
70
Round
Round 2 Interview 1
Case Question
NA
Case Analysis
NA
NA
My performance in the first two rounds strengthened my chances
NA
Made an offer
Comments on PI Interview
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Anshul Malik
McKinsey & Co.
Sujit Chakrabarty (Partner)
Leads McKinseys Outsourcing and Offshoring Practice in Asia
and our Business Technology Office in India.
Interview round (first/second/third) First Round First Interview
Personal interview questions (please The interviews were running a tad late, hence, Sujit asked me to
write the questions only)
get going with the case and if there is some time left we can take
up interview questions later on. This was my first interview of
the day. He said since your background is IT lets do an IT
services case. I said that I know how IT services firms work,
however, I am from a software product background which is an
entire different world. Sujit said it is fine as he understood my
background.
Comments on the PI rounds (please No PI
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
71
Case question (as narrated by the There is an IT services company with $3Bn in revenues and a
interviewer)
growth rate of 20%. It is among the top 6 players in its area. The
current margins are 17%. CEO thinks that he can increase the
margin. What do you think CEO should do, should he increase
the margins?
How did you define the scope of the I asked initial questions regarding how other firms in the top 6
case
bracket are doing, what is their revenue, growth %, margins. One
objective is to see whether we can increase margins is there any
other objective? No. of employees. He told me that we are
growing well on the revenue side, however, the top player has a
margin of 25% and average margin is 20% and margin is the only
objective. He gave me some figure for total number of
employees. On this I said that we are on the lower side and
probably, we do have a scope of increasing our margins. I further
asked him: Where does our client operate? What is the business
model? He told me that it is an India based IT company with
clients in the US. Sujit then asked me to come up with the
business model.
I drew the following:
Acquiring Clients -> Negotiating the contract and finalizing the
requirements -> Developing and Testing -> Deploying the
solution -> Maintenance
He was satisfied with the model.
Case Analysis presented by you
at every point.
What do you think could have been The calculation part.
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Next interview of the same round
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Anshul Malik
McKinsey & Co.
Rajat Dhawan, Director
Leads McKinseys Operations Practice in Asia and has deep
experience in helping clients in the automotive and industrial
sectors achieve global success. Plays an active part in catalysing
the growth of Indias manufacturing sector.
First Round Second Interview
Before going into the interview room I asked the alums about a
brief one liner about the interviewers area of work. Alums told
me that Rajat has worked mostly in the manufacturing sector
and not in IT. (this helped to shape my PI answers according to
the interviewer which in turn helped both of us to talk on the
same page).
Rajat seemed a very serious guy initially. He had my resume and
started asking me about the process improvement initiatives
that I had taken. I told him whatever I did without using
Software jargons. He continued asking me what else I kept on
telling him the projects that I did. After a point he was silent and
I was silent (trust me a silence of 2 seconds seems like 20
minutes). I then changed the tone by saying let me tell you
something I do apart from academics and professional
experience. I told him that I mimic bollywood actors. Listening to
this Rajat kept the resume on the table and said why dont you
mimic right now. :O . I started in full flow and he didnt
stop me till I finished the act. After this point there was an
instant rapport that was build between us. He asked me how did
I mimic? I narrated him the incident after which I started
performing on stage etc.
It was the most amazing PI round. And once I mimicked I was
99% sure of getting in (mimicry has helped me in all the
interviews till date)
While talking there was some instance when he asked me to
guess his age. I said, Sir you are a director, however you look
quite young, somewhere around 35-36. He said you are close,
what do you think would be my years of experience in McKinsey.
I said around 14 years. On which he said how did you guess it. I
said well since you are a director, I assumed your years of
experience must be above 10 years for sure.
Rajat then said let us do a quick case on finding my years of
experience in McKinsey.
74
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Anshul Malik
McKinsey & Co.
Renny Thomas, Director
Supports the rapid growth of Asias financial services sector,
helping build new institutions from scratch, boost small and
medium enterprises (SME) access to finance, and grow regional
and international champions in banking, insurance, and private
equity.
Second round First Interview
Personal interview questions (please None. It was a dream come true. As soon as I sat, Renny spoke
write the questions only)
the exact words which I wanted to hear : Welcome to the firm
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
None
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
Got the offer.
Kushal Patwardhan
Mckinsey & Co.
Jaidit Brar (Senior Partner)
First round- first interview
Tell me about yourself
Why did you return to India
Jaidit is a really nice interviewer. He put me at ease and when he
casually asked to tell me about myself, I almost forgot it's an
interview :-P.
India wants to become energy independent by 2030. How should
they go about it?
I asked clarifying questions about what is meant by energy (both
power & transport) , independence (zero import of inputs) , who
is the client (Govt. of India) .
I asked about primary motivation . I was told that CAD was the
main reason and also instability of countries from which we
import the inputs puts India at risk.
Environmental
considerations were not that important & any recommendation
should be economically viable.
I laid out my approach that I will look at today's energy demand
and supply and find the demand and supply in 2030 and find the
most important issue to attack. He told me go ahead.
Today's energy demand 100 MTOE (million tonne oil equivalent)
Power : 50 MTOE
Transport : 50 MTOE
50% of it is imported. I asked import percentage in transport . it
was 80%
76
So,
Power : 40MTOE inhouse 10MTOE import
Transport: 10MTOE inhouse 40MTOE import
I asked growth in demand, it was 10% YOY for both power and
transport. 2030 was 16 years away, so using rule of 72 I
calculated that demand will quadruple to 400 and a bit more
(72/10 = 7.2 years to double)
I asked about growth in supply , for power we have unlimited
coal so we can ramp up faster and meet all the demand. For
transport our supply can grow at 3% YOY . Which I calculated to
go approx from 10 to 15 over 16 years (again rule of 72)
So in 2030
Power Demand 200 inhouse supply 200
Transport Demand 200 inhouse supply 15 import 185!!!
So this is a huge amount. We can tackle it either from supply
side or demand side
Supply side : We can increase production by existing fields
(insignificant) or hope to find a jackpot field (unlikely)
Eliminated supply side since 10 to 200 jump is impossible with
either solution.
Demand side : We can think about reducing consumption by a.
reducing demand by promoting public transport etc b. increasing
efficiency of engines etc to consume less fuel per km
But these are very small & incremental changes and are not
going to bring 200 demand down to 15. So I eliminated these
options.
So only alternative to reduce demand is to find a substitute
He said ok, so what substitutes can you propose.
I said I'll look at what resource India has in abundance &
inexpensive and utilize it
1. Coal - we already established that we have unlimited coal , so
perhaps we can have coal-based fuel.
2. Renewables - We can explore solar powered cars etc.
He said apart from coal-based fuel, what else do you think we
can do with coal. I was so into the case it took me 1 whole
minute to find the obvious answer ! Of course! Unlimited coal =
Unlimited power, we can use electric vehicles!
That ended the case :-)
- Electric cars
What do you think went right while Almost everything. I never went on tangents or jumped to
solving the case?
solutions. Clarifying questions helped separate out power &
transport.
I established the size of shortage first hence was able to
confidently reject solutions pertaining to reducing demand and
increasing supply because of the impact was too small.
What do you think could have been Not much. I think even the time taken by me to say 'electric
done better while solving the case?
cars' was actually appreciated by Jaidit because I hadn't
approached the case with a solution in mind and had reached
there in a very logical manner.
Outcome of the interview (optional) Everyone had to do 2 interviews in Round 1
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Kushal Patwardhan
Mckinsey & Co.
Renny Thomas
First round- Second interview
Tell me about yourself
Why consulting
Renny looked very tired. PI was very formal. I didn't really get a
chance to establish any connect with him.
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Amit Gupta
Mckinsey & Company
Somnath Chatterjee (Associate Principal)
India
How did you define the scope of the Case: Interviewer was looking for more of an approach to solve
case
the problem of bench strength. So I didnt spend too much time
in scoping. I just enquired about current operations and if there
are some issues we are seeing for which answers were either
irrelevant for the case or Assume anything
Case Analysis presented by you
Case: After the scoping I thought about the problem for some
time and then told interviewer that I would like to apply the
concepts of supply chain in it. Somnath smiled and asked me to
explain the approach.
I assumed that one single pool of bench is there and used to
satisfy all the demand. Then I drew following diagram:
Recruitment (Procurement) -> Training (Processing/Packaging) ->
Bench (Inventory Management) -> Project Deployment
(Demand)
Then I listed down the factors affecting the bench strength
(safety stock + cycle inventory) are:
1. Recruitment lead time and its variability
2. Training Lead time and its variability
3. Employee cost (salary + overhead)
4. Different skill levels required
Then he asked me ways to reduce the bench strength:
1. I first suggested the usual suspects, reduce variability
and lead time
2. Then I talked about cross training. (To get the benefits of
aggregations)
GuessEstimate: Pretty standard approach. Divided the potential
customer into urban and rural and then high income and middle
income families (Used facts learnt in GSBC to calculate the
number of potential homes). From there calculated the market
size of DTH.
Final recommendation / summary
Summarized the Inventory Management approach to plan for
bench strength
What do you think went right while Case: Using supply chain approach for solving the case.
solving the case?
Guess Estimate: Didnt fumble with numbers and showed clear
step by step calculations.
What do you think could have been Case was fine but in case of guess estimate initially I made one
done better while solving the case?
assumption (DTH penetration) which was practically not true.
Outcome of the interview (optional) Outcome after 2nd interview of first round
80
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Amit Gupta
Mckinsey & Company
Sasi Sunkara (Partner)
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Amit Gupta
Mckinsey & Company
Jaidit Singh Brar (Partner)
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Mayank Bishnoi
McKinsey & Company
Renny Thomas, Director
First
Tell me about yourself
Renny asked me just one question before jumping onto the case.
This is one question you need to prepare really well as it is going
to come in almost every interview. I usually approach PI
questions in a story format rather than bullet points but you can
do it in whichever way you feel comfortable. The interviewer
should catch at least one point out of the whole story on which
you can have further discussion.
Case question (as narrated by the A consumer finance company wants to double its profits. Help
interviewer)
them out!
How did you define the scope of the I asked some company specific questions first - current product
case
line, geographical presence, current profits, customers, channels
& timelines. Turned out that the company had a pan India
presence and offered 2-wheeler and 3-wheeler loans. It wanted
to grow its profits from 1000 cr. To 2000 cr. in 5 years.
Then, I looked at the industry performance for the last couple of
years and since the industry was growing at 10% p.a, it became
quite clear that the company needed to expand to other
segments if it wanted to double its profits.
Case Analysis presented by you
I told Renny that the company can grow in two ways - organic &
inorganic and since the industry is not growing that fast, we
need to venture into different business. I gave him certain
suggestions like venturing into 4-wheeler loan segment or may
be mortgage business.
He then asked me to list certain factors I would need to look
before entering a new business. From then on, it was a standard
market entry problem and I followed the standard framework
including industry attractiveness, companys strengths and
weakness and mode of entry.
I mentioned one additional point in the whole discussion about
liquidity needs for the company before entering into a different
business, which I think Renny liked a bit.
Final recommendation / summary
Final recommendation included venturing into a new loan
83
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Mayank Bishnoi
McKinsey & Company
Shirish Sankhe, Director
How did you define the scope of the I asked Shirish to define the adequate return the company wants
case
to earn but he instead asked me to define the adequate return
for a cement manufacturer. At that moment, I was stunned and
thought that this interview was a goner. I then asked him for
some time to think about the problem and I then realized that it
was a simple NPV analysis where I first needed to calculate the
IRR company should earn and then calculate the price for that
IRR.
Case Analysis presented by you
I told Shirish that I would first calculate the cost of capital and
then would add some margin over it for calculating the IRR. He
then told me that the cost of capital would be the adequate
return and there is no need to add any margin.
M: I will calculate the cost of equity first and then cost of debt to
calculate WACC
S: lets calculate cost of equity first
M: I need risk free rate, so in India it would be around 8-9%
looking at the government securities. Is that fine?
S: ya, take it as 8%
M: I need to estimate the beta now. For cyclical industries it will
be greater than 1 and for stable industries, it will be less than 1.
S: What do you think of the cement industry? Volatile of stable
M: I think its a volatile industry. So beta should be more than 1
S: Correct, it is very volatile. Can you give an example of a stable
industry?
M: Healthcare industry is very stable
S: Right. So now estimate the beta of cement industry
M: I think it will be around 2.
S: Smiled and told me that its not that volatile either
M: I corrected it and said that it would be around 1.3
S: Ya, take it as 1.3
M: Now, knowing the risk free rate and the beta, I need to know
the historical market return.
S: So, what do you think will be the market rate of return
M: In US, its around 10% for the last 30yrs, in India it should be
around 15%
S: Ya, take it as 15%
M: I calculated the cost of equity and then moved to estimate
the cost of debt. I said since the risk free rate is around 8%, the
cost of debt should be around 10-11%.
S: Take it as 10%
M: I then calculated the WACC. Now I needed to use the NPV
equation to calculate price. So, I asked him about the variable
costs and other fixed costs.
S: He asked me to assume the gross margin to be 30% and fixed
costs to be INR 100/yr and lets do it for one year.
M: I thought that he is just looking for logic and I oversimplified
things, ignoring taxes and depreciation in the calculation and
came out with an answer.
85
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Mayank Bishnoi
McKinsey
Rajat Dhawan, Director
it clear that at least one of the directors had given his nod. Rajat,
while asking all the above questions was checking out his Ipad
and he seemed to be a little distracted which somehow made
me lose my enthusiasm and my voice dropped a bit. But I was
lucky enough to realize well within time that I needed to speak
loud and clear and still carry the same enthusiasm whatever be
the outcome.
Case question (as narrated by the No Case
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while
solving the case?
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Rajat extended his hand and the offer was made.
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Nidhi Arora
Mckinsey & Company
Ruchi Kalra, Associate Partner
First
Tell me something about yourself?
What was XYZ project at Essex (pre ISB firm) all about?
What was your biggest achievement at Essex?
Of the many things mentioned in your resume, what are you
most passionate about?
Why do you want to do consulting?
Comments on the PI rounds (please Ruchi is a very warm and friendly person who makes you feel at
elaborate on what went right and ease right from the word go. Hence, was able to build a good
what could have been done better)
rapport with her right from the first question.
Described the project very crisply. It is very important to prepare
short and effective answers to all possible questions from your
resume.
Case question (as narrated by the The interview involved 2 short cases:
interviewer)
Case 1: How will you go about opening an NGO for abandoned
elderly people? Particularly focus on how you will make it
financially sustainable.
Was asked this case question because of a stint with an NGO.
Solution: Since this was one of those unconventional open ended
cases, I avoided using any framework.
87
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Nidhi Arora
Mckinsey & Company
Shirish Sankhe, Director
Second
Walk me through your resume.
What was your biggest achievement at Essex?
Why did you quit Credit Suisse in 8 months?
Tell me about your leadership skills.
Again it is important to be prepared for all sorts of questions on
your resume.
I was prepared for the quitting Credit Suisse question as well and
Shirish was fairly happy with the response
A cement company wants to price cement/bag for its new facility
setup somewhere in South India. Shirish gave additional
information that the company had a capex of some XX crs. in the
plant and life of the plant is 25 years.
I asked the total capacity of the plant and the quantity per bag.
This helped me get the number of bags produced annually. Next
I asked Shirish how should we depreciate the capex on the plant
he asked to use straight line depreciation.
Additionally I also asked whether we need to consider any
89
90
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Nidhi Arora
Mckinsey & Company
Jaidit Brar, Partner
Third
Jaidit is one of the nicest persons to talk to at Mckinsey. He is
extremely friendly and it helps a lot to calm down your nerves!
How many interviews have you given today so far?
What was your experience of the first 2 interviews at Mckinsey?
Why do you want to do consulting?
What is your biggest achievement at ISB?
Comments on the PI rounds (please The PI part went very well and I could strike a connect with
elaborate on what went right and Jaidit. He was smiling all through after this during the case
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the Before giving the case, Jaidit said that we will do a simple case
interviewer)
and we will try to do it jointly and that I can take as much time as
I needed. This made me feel all the more comfortable.
The case question was that we need to reduce the waiting times
at the Delhi-Gurgaon toll. How should we go about it?
How did you define the scope of the I asked Jaidit a few opening questions:
case
1) What are the current wait times?
2) By how much do we want to reduce it?
3) What are the times of the day when the problem is most
acute?
Case Analysis presented by you
I then listed down the various reasons due to which long waits
occur:
1) Lower capacity
2) Variability in demand/arrival rates
3) Variability in servicing rate
I told Jaidit that we can see what measures can be taken to
address each of these issues and reduce waiting times. He was
very pleased with this approach and asked me to consider the
last point.
I asked him what causes the variability in service rate. He asked
me to come up with a few and I listed the below two:
1) Variability in processing time of the server
2) The price charged per trip as sometimes giving back the
change in coins becomes time consuming
Jaidit was happy with what I came up with and added one more the different times taken by car drivers to position the car
correctly besides the booth.
After this Jaidit just closed the discussion saying that the way you
are analyzing the problem you will be able to solve it.
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while Jaidit was not really looking for a solution but the approach and
solving the case?
how I was communicating it to him.
One thing that really helped me here was OPMG as I
91
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Shirish Damani
McKinsey & Company
Sasi Sunkara, Partner
Round 1, Interview 1
I went into the interview a little nervous as I knew Sasi was in the
Financial Services vertical and knew the case would be from that
sector and coming from a manufacturing background myself this
was not my most comfortable area. However, I quickly took that
off my mind and the interview started off with a general
discussion on the cold in Mohali and I told him that I was used to
it since I was working in Chandigarh for close to 3 years. Further
we discussed how the entire placement process with ~450
students from Hyd going to Mohali seemed like a grand wedding
and not placements. And how the expenses associated with it
resulted in the Merit List scholarship getting cancelled. After
8-10 mins of chit chat we finally started with the regular PI
questions.
1. About yourself. (have a common theme flowing across your
answer)
2. Detail about your work. (esp prepare anything which stands
out in your CV)
3. Why consulting? (Try and personalize the answer apart from
the regular stuff)
This was my 3rd interview of the day and hence I was already in
flow. I was well prepared with all 3 answers and at the same
time made it a point to not come across as if I had mugged the
answers. Prepare well for PIs with buddies and in case groups
and make sure you take feedback from multiple people. V
important is to have structured, complete yet concise answers so
that the interviewer does not get bored.
Client is CEO of a NBFC and is concerned that the loan collection
process of the firm is not ok.
Asked basic questions,
SD: To whom does the client lend?
SS: mostly to transport companies to buy trucks and other
transport vehicles.
92
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Shirish Damani
McKinsey & Company
Jaidit Singh Brar, Partner
case
AAP should avoid UP and other such states. Next, we can look at
a state where resources required will be relatively less and
probability of winning is higher. West Bengal/Kerala could be an
eg. of this as people are more educated and hence AAPs anti
corruption image might strike a chord with the voters.
Moreover, caste based politics being minimal in these states
might work in AAPs favor. In addition frustration with the
existing political parties and lack of a good alternative could be
perfect for AAP.
JB: Ok good. (He seemed convinced with the discussion). Would
you like to add anything else to this?
SD: Yes. There are some watch-outs (there always is). Things AAP
needs to be careful about while scaling up. For eg.
1. While recruiting people for the party they need to ensure
people do not have any controversial background as their entire
campaign is based on anti-corruption.
2. Similarly while tying up with other organizations it needs to
ensure similar anti corrupt background.
3. When fighting at the national level it will need to make it
stand clear on other issues of national interest and not just talk
about corruption.
Jaidit seemed to be satisfied with the discussion and asked me to
ask any questions which I had. I thought of a good question
there. I had mentioned in my Why Consulting answer that I
want to become an entrepreneur in 3-5 years time and hence
consulting will help me with industry knowledge, problem
solving and contacts. Taking this forward I asked.
SD: With your experience in consulting what are some of the
things you fell you have learnt which will help you as an
entrepreneur?
Jaidit was very impressed with the question as it was not one of
the regular ones and talked in detail about what he felt. He went
ahead and even spoke about things one learns in consulting
which will hamper someone as an entrepreneur. We had a good
5-7 minute discussion on this.
Final recommendation / summary
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Shirish Damani
McKinsey & Company
Rajat Dhawan, Partner
Second Round
This was my 7thcase interview of the day and was hoping that
this would be a simple case interview. To my delight this turned
out to be just a PI and no case and also my last interview.
Rajat asked some standard questions,
1. Which firms are you interviewing with?
2. How many interviews have you given till now?
3. Tell me about your work in P&G.
Comments on the PI rounds (please As I was talking about my P&G experience Rajat was working on
elaborate on what went right and his iPad and at that time I got really nervous coz I thought that I
what could have been done better)
am boring him to death with my answers. As I was answering he
suddenly looks up and tells me,
RD: Ok thats good. Now tell me what is the process of extending
an offer to you.
I was a little surprised and spoke about the FIF process which I
myself was not 100% clear about and confused him.
RD: Anyways, my team will take care of this, I am pleased to
welcome you to the firm.
That was it. I shook hands and left the room.
Case question (as narrated by the NA
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the NA
case
97
NA
NA
NA
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Venugopal Balasubramanian
McKinsey & Co.
Rajat Dhawan, Director
NA
Made an offer
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Venugopal Balasubramanian
McKinsey & Co.
Shirish Sankhe, Director
First Round Second Interview
PI focused almost entirely on academics/achievements in
college.
Greatest academic achievement
Was my CGPA good?
What had I enjoyed learning at ISB?
Why did I choose to become President of the Fin Club
instead of the Consulting club
Again entering the interview with some calm and confidence
makes a lot of difference. I think keeping my answers frank also
helped a lot, as it makes you seem more genuine.
Having met Shirish at the networking dinner also helped in
making conversation, and more generally, helped me feel on
familiar ground.
You have an acre of slum land in Mumbai, and it needs to be
redeveloped. Find the breakeven FSI that you have to apply for.
Basically the slum dwellers would be given
compensatory flats on a 1:1 basis
No land cost to be included
Ignored costs due to corruption etc
My basic approach would be to look at the costs and revenue.
99
Sources of revenue:
Sale of apartment primary source of revenue (ignored
the rest)
Sale of parking space, etc
Fees for club facilities, security, etc
I said about Rs. 40k/sq ft would be reasonable in Bandra (kept
the context to a neighbourhood I was familiar with).
Cost heads:
Construction cost
o Material
o Labor
o Utilities charges
o Overhead
Land cost to be ignored
Registration and other regulatory charges also to be
ignored.
So the main job was to estimate construction cost. I tried to
estimate using a profit margin and then back-calculate. The
figure was wildly overestimated, so Shirish corrected me and
said that about Rs. 1200 2000/sq ft would be reasonable,
depending on quality of construction. He also pointed out that
the quality of apartments would be low for the slum dwellers
rehabilitation and high for the apartments to be sold ( a point
that I had overlooked).
The breakeven FSI came out to be some fraction just over 1. It
was so low, that I went back and rechecked the numbers.
Final recommendation / summary
An FSI of just over 1 would be more than enough to breakeven.
What do you think went right while Kept the business perspective in mind when discussing issues.
solving the case?
Moved the discussion at the end beyond case assumptions and
showed interest in what the real-world dynamics of this problem
would be.
Remained very systematic in my approach.
What do you think could have been My arithmetic I repeatedly had to go back and check because I
done better while solving the case?
was afraid that I was messing up the zeros.
Outcome of the interview (optional) The interviewer seemed happy.
After the second shortlist was put up, I had a short discussion
with a third partner, Sujit, after which they made an offer.
100
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Pranav Mathur
McKinsey & Company
Rajat Dhawan (Sr. Partner)
First
The discussion started with standard questions about me, why
consulting etc etc. Rajat was interested in knowing in detail about
my work experience. He asked me a few questions on the same
which I answered easily. Rajat seemed a little distracted and was
working on his ipad throughout; I kept my cool and answered all his
questions.
Comments on the PI rounds (please I explained my work well. Since I had worked on the shop floor, he
elaborate on what went right and asked me specific questions on issues faced in
what could have been done better)
operations/manufacturing. I was able to defend these questions
well. This was the first interview of the day for me and I was a bit
nervous (something which Rajat could notice easily). It took me
some time to warm up after which the discussion went smoothly.
My Advice - prepare your resume inside out and know your work
well. The first few minutes of the interview can really help you gain
confidence for tackling what comes next.
Case question (as narrated by the Estimate the number of luxury households in Chandigarh-Mohali
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the This was a standard guess estimate which I had practiced many.
case
Me: What is a luxury house-hold ?
RD: Houses with more than INR 4 Crore value.
<Asked some basic questions that I cannot remember now and
then took some time to think about the structure>
Case Analysis presented by you
Me: There are two ways to approach this problem, from the
demand side and the supply side.
RD: Proceed with the demand side approach
< I explained my logic of starting with the population in Chandigarh
Mohali and dividing the same based on income distribution of
households. He nodded and asked me to proceed.
I assumed the population as 5 Million, taking average 4 people per
household = 1.25 Million Households. Since financing a house is
done by taking loans, I assumed that the loan is paid over 10 years
with equal monthly installments. This gives us = INR 4 Crore/10
yearly payments = INR 40 Lakhs/year. Now since this money comes
from the disposable income of the individual/household. I assumed
that 40 Lakh would constitute 1/3rd of the disposable income of the
household. => Minimum household disposable income to afford a
luxury home = INR 120 Lakh.
Rajat all this while was doing something else on his ipad and gave
me a nod and an occasional ok to validate my approach.
Next, I divided the 1.25 Million households based on annual
disposable income with 60% below 120 Lakhs, 30% between 120
250 Lakhs and 10% above 250 Lakhs.
101
At this point, I said that people in the mid/high segment can afford
this but might not necessarily buy a house and hence we need to
factor that in. I drew a structure stating the kind of people who
would be interested Who currently are in rental accommodation,
who are looking for only an investment opportunity plus some
more which I cant remember now.
Rajat asked me to tell him the final number as he wanted to finish
the interview fast. I took some percentages and arrived at 10% *
1.25 Million = 125,000 households. This number seemed very large
to me and hence I told him that the number looks too big and that
might be because of the percentages we have assumed and we can
validate the same from publically available information on income
groups in Chandigarh/Mohali.
Rajat ended the case and asked me if I had any questions for him.
Final recommendation / summary
Final answer 125,000 houses
What do you think went right while I did not get nervous when Rajat started working. Took a lot of time
solving the case?
to think and neatly drew down my structure. Struck a good rapport
with Rajat in the beginning which really helped.
Rajat liked the disposable income approach that I used. Since my
final number seemed too large I qualified it by admitting that the
number is large and the assumptions should be ratified once again
something which he liked in the analysis.
What do you think could have been Rajat kept asking me to hurry up and give him an answer fast. It
done better while solving the case?
took me some time to narrow down on a number in the end (made
the calculations a bit complicated) something which I should have
thought through before starting the case itself.
Outcome of the interview (optional) Called for next round
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Pranav Mathur
McKinsey & Company
Renny Thomas (Sr Partner)
I was told before walking in that my first round had gone well
hence I was fairly confident right from the beginning of this
interview. Struck a good rapport and answered all questions.
A chemical company also makes cement and uses the same
distribution channels to reach end customers. Their main business
in Chemicals, but they manufacture cement as one of the waste
products from the chemical manufacturing is used as input RM for
Cement. Lately the firm has seen an increase in cement demand
Second
Standard questions about myself, why consulting etc etc. He
asked me how I found the ISB experience different than my IIT
experience to which I gave him a couple of points. He asked me
what aspect of ISB I liked the most.
102
and has asked you to evaluate what they should do about it.
How did you define the scope of the I started by asking basic questions on the company and its relative
case
standing in the market. I was told that they are the leaders in
Chemicals and Cement is not their main focus. The distribution
channels are the same and they operate in only one geography. I
enquired regarding profitability and was told that chemical is more
profitable than cement. I also confirmed that the key ingredient in
manufacturing cement is the waste produced in chemicals
manufacturing.
At this point I took some time to think how to approach this.
Case Analysis presented by you
I started with analyzing the industry, company, competition and
customer. It turned out that the demand for cement was expected
to go up in future and the client had a very strong name in the
market. Customers were price conscious when buying cement and
our cement was at a premium price as compared to competitive
products.
I told Renny that we have the following options 1. Open new
plant for cement 2. Expand Capacity in current plant.
In either case, the major challenge was the chemicals waste used as
RM as we would need more of this to manufacture more cement.
This was the crux of the problem. Renny told me that the Chemicals
demand is also increasing however the current plant does not have
space to expand and is running optimally.
I told him that in case we do put up a new plant for Cement, we
would need to establish a chemical plant as well or procure the
waste from outside which would raise costs.
He asked me how will you evaluate this situation to which I
responded saying that I would conduct a financial feasibility study
to check this and compare that with any other opportunities for
investment that I might have. Renny asked me to tell him some
more to which I mentioned about capabilities/resources required
etc.
Renny told me that assume that the project is financially attractive
even if we procure the waste from the market.
Since procuring waste would increase costs, we had three options
1. Reduce price 2. Retain Price 3. Increase Price. I talked briefly
about each option and finally suggested that we should conduct a
market research to understand consumer buying behavior better
and then decide what to do with the prices.
Renny asked me if this was my final advice to which I said yes. He
then asked me why we could not just increase prices as there was
increasing demand in the market. I replied saying that directly
increasing prices would be too risky as there might be long term
implications with distributors etc and we should only do that once
we are fairly confident on the consumer perceptions about price.
Final recommendation / summary
Names
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Abhishek Ahuja
McKinsey & Co.
Sujit Chakrabarty (Principal)
First
Tell me about yourself
How did you plan this day? How has it gone?
These are standard PI questions so it wasnt very difficult and
went well
The PI was brief (about 5 mins) as the interviewer wanted to
get on with the case
Case question (as narrated by the Your client is the CEO of an IT company, who has a week to
interviewer)
present to the board on the weak performance of the company
and recommendations that would help turn things around
How did you define the scope of the Started with general questions on the company, as little was
case
provided in the case. The company was a US based IT company
providing solutions across the globe.
It was placed 2nd by market share and had impressive revenue
growth of 20% but profitability was a concern. There were a few
other figures provided but not very relevant.
This clearly paved way for approaching the case through
standard profitability framework. We started with revenue that
was growing well, so I agreed with the interviewer to eliminate
this aspect and move to costs. Finally, on costs objective was
clarified the board expected lower costs.
Case Analysis presented by you
At this point I listed the broad cost categories and was asked to
assign weights to the same. I had listed the following with
weights:
104
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Abhishek Ahuja
McKinsey & Co.
Shirish Sankhe (Director)
Second
What have been the recent events at ISB? How has hosting
Progressive Punjab helped ISB?
Provide an example of a leadership experience outside of
work?
Briefly take me through your CV and elaborate on one of your
sections in the CV
What was the rationale behind the job shift?
Do you really think consulting is your calling or is it a stepping
stone?
(At the end) Any questions for me specifically?
Comments on the PI rounds (please This was a PI heavy round with various cross questioning and
elaborate on what went right and
discussions on my perspectives on multiple topics
105
106
What do you think went right while Staying calm while solving the numerical portions was critical to
solving the case?
getting the calculations right. There are no excuses for having
inaccurate calculations and are best done slowly as there are no
points for speed.
The assumptions I made were based on my work experience and
I justified each one of them through examples and logic.
What do you think could have been This was a PI heavy round with a number heavy case. I had gone
done better while solving the case?
through Casebook 2013 but never expected that I would be
made to recall facts. I did hesitate initially but with the
interviewers help recovered and was able to solve it relatively
smoothly.
Outcome of the interview (optional) This was my second interview with McKinsey, and both went
well. Offer was made after this interview !
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushagra Gupta
McKinsey & Co.
Renny Thomas, Director Head of Financial Services Practice
Round 1 Interview 1
Renny was very warm in welcoming me and put me at ease by
starting out with the standard PI questions such as tell me
something about yourself, why consulting, why McKinsey, CVbased questions on work experience (probably since my prior
experience was in financial services)
PI was mainly to put me at ease and to have an informal
conversation regarding my interests, prior work experience and
motivation for taking up consulting having worked with an
investment bank before. This was my 3rd interview of the day
and the good thing was that I was very conversational and
involved Renny in my PI answers. It is very important to keep the
interviewer involved in the conversation and to treat the
interview more like a chat.
Our client is a family-owned chemicals manufacturer in Gujarat.
The waste product from the manufacturing process is used to
manufacture cement in an ancillary plant attached to the main
chemicals manufacturing plant. In the past 6 months, the
demand for the clients cement has increased two-fold. The CEO
has approached McKinsey & Co. to advise him on the future
course of action.
I started out by asking questions about the client such as what
chemicals business they are into, who are their clients and how
is this cement manufactured. I also inquired about the
distinguishing characteristics of this cement and what macroeconomic factors have led to this sudden spurt in demand.
It turned out that the client was manufacturing chemicals for the
construction industry and that they were a well-known local
107
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushagra Gupta
McKinsey & Co.
Rajat Dhawan, Director Head of McKinseys Operations
Practice in Asia
Round 1 Interview 2
This interview was a complete PI based interview. Some of the
questions that Rajat asked were:
1) Tell me something about yourself.
2) Grades and academic/research experiences at ISB and VJTI.
3) In-depth discussion about my work experience with a focus on
leadership traits.
4) Leadership positions at ISB with the Finance Club.
5) My interests in Formula 1, travel and volunteering
engagements.
The interview was more like an after lunch chat (he did have
lunch prior to my interview!!) on my CV.
Comments on the PI rounds (please I think the interview went quite well. My advice for PI would be
elaborate on what went right and to not leave it till late to prepare for it since it is a very important
what could have been done better)
part of the consulting interview, especially for McKinsey. Try to
prepare your stories well and intersperse them with humorous
comments/interesting/unique facts. Personalize all your answers
to Why McKinsey? Why consulting?, etc.
Case question (as narrated by the None
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the None
case
Case Analysis presented by you
None
Final recommendation / summary
None
What do you think went right while None
solving the case?
What do you think could have been None
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Advanced to Round 2
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushagra Gupta
McKinsey & Co.
Abhijit Kulkarni, Engagement Manager with the Mumbai office
Round 2 Interview 1
Abhijit is an ISB alum and also an alum from VJTI, my engineering
school. The interview started out as a discussion of VJTI, how
things have changed there, professors from his time, etc. We had
a discussion around his McKinsey engagements and work-life
109
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Vishal Anand
McKinsey & Co.
Shirish Sankhe (Director)
Round 1 1st interview (1st interview of the day)
Whats the secret of CGPA 4.0/4.0? Why your academic record
at IIT is not as outstanding as it is in ISB? How should I go about
investing my personal wealth (Because I was an i-alpha analyst)?
A bit of smile and a bit of excitement always helps. Do prepare
for all typical interview questions but dont be too dependent on
it. Be honest in whatever you say.
A cement manufacturer is setting up a plant in Chennai and
would be selling the cement in Mumbai. He wants your help in
determining the price.
The question was quite straightforward.
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Vishal Anand
McKinsey & Co.
Sasi Sunkara (Senior Partner)
Round 1 2nd interview
It was more of a chit chat. Was asked personal questions about
my family, my education etc.
He was very chilled out. My 1st interview went well and I was
quite confident in this one.
111
PWC
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Rachit Raj
PWC Strategy & Research
Anuraag -Principal Consultant
First
Had the basic personal interview questions Tell me about
yourself, Previous role, How will you connect it to the role being
offered?
PI is very important to connect with the interviewer.
It is very important to get your story correct. In my case the
interviewer wanted to understand the connect between my
previous sales role and the consulting role on offer. For people
with multiple shortlists Dont ignore any organization/role
specific prep
A paper manufacturer in India is losing Market share (MS) due to
competition and you are consulting the head of Marketing
division of this company.
I first nailed down the objective Is it to arrest MS decline or do I
need to look at other aspects?
So I started with scoping questions that were :
Segmented the products any particular products losing MS
Segmented by geography Any zone losing MS
Decline in MS happens when your growth is lesser than the
market growth so I clarified if any particular competitor was
doing very well . The answer I got was new set of competitors
came in the market 2-3 years ago. They are slowly growing and
eating into the clients MS.
During the scoping questions I had found out that we were losing
MS across products but in a given geography North and west
zone.
So it as a case where a pioneer in a market was losing MS to new
comers and the pioneer was unable to differentiate its products
as it was the paper industry.
I asked for the details of how sales were done in the industry and
realized that distribution was done through dealers and this was
the critical point in the case wrt. to recommendations.
Finally I used a tabular approach to clearly identify how the client
was different from the competitors.
Client
Capabilities
Competitor
Capabilities
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Rachit Raj
PWC
Dont remember the name -Principal Consultant
Second
No PI, only case
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Rachit Raj
PWC
Shashank Triphaty - Partner
Third
This was mainly PI and went smoothly
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Siva Sakthiraj
PWCs PRTM Management Consulting
Mr Chenincherry, Director
First round (~50 mins)
114
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Siva Sakthiraj
PWCs PRTM Management Consulting
Mr Lakshman, Director
Ms Srivastava, HR Manager
Second round (~45 mins)
Director
Why should we hire you? (considering that my prior
consulting experience was skewed towards energy,
infrastructure, cleantech sectors that were not of much
focus at PRTM then)
Again, some specific questions on my previous work
assignments
HR Manager
Two areas that I would focus on apart from the standard
advisory assignments/BD work while at the firm?
Instances when I was upset/stressed out during my prior
consulting assignments?
Few other standard HR questions that I dont remember
Comments on the PI rounds (please Again being prepared for these questions helped. Having done
elaborate on what went right and considerable research on the consulting assignments carried out
what could have been done better)
by PRTM, I was anticipating questions such as the fitment one.
All interviews at PRTM were highly conversational. Though the
above were the major PI questions, all of them naturally fit into
our conversation. Hence, you could drive the discussion towards
areas of your strength if you are cognizant.
116
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Siva Sakthiraj
PWCs PRTM Management Consulting
Mr Singh, Country Managing Partner
118
Vikas Pavankumar
Siemens Management Consulting
Stephen VP SMC/India Office Head
First
The interview revolved around PI
A large number of generic questions such as
Why Consulting? Why SMC?
About yourself?
A large part of my interviewed revolved around Stephen
discussing one of my projects that I had mentioned on my
resume
The fag end of the interview was questions that I had about
Siemens Management Consulting and my view on certain
business units of Siemens. He also discussed about his
experience of consulting Siemens businesses in India versus in
Germany
Comments on the PI rounds (please It is very important to have your story in place. It will help you
elaborate on what went right and answer important questions such as Why SMC and Consulting?
what could have been done better)
Especially for Siemens the importance on personal interview is
extremely high since they evaluate candidates on the cultural fit
since eventually a candidate is expected to move to a Siemens
Business
Case question (as narrated by the No Case
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while
solving the case?
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Selected for Round 2
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Vikas Pavankumar
Siemens Management Consulting
Nishant Gupta Consultant
Second
The interview revolved around PI
A large number of generic questions such as
119
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushal Patwardhan
Siemens Management Consulting
Apeksha Khadelwal (senior Consultant)
First
Tell me about yourself
Biggest failure
what frustrates you
Biggest accomplishment
Three words your friends would use to describe you
Tell me something that is not on your resume
Why Consulting?
Why SMC?
Hobbies
Comments on the PI rounds (please It was an extensive PI (Close to 40 mins) . This interview was a
elaborate on what went right and month before day 1 so I had not prepped for PI too well. Except
what could have been done better)
'Why SMC?' which I was able to answer very well
120
121
10
12
14
122
Nishant Kedia
Company
Interviewer
Round
Round 1 Interview 1
Comments on PI Interview
NA
Case Question
After a few hicupps I was able to point out that manpower costs
has increased because of the organizational structure of the
company, wherein the organization had become top heavy.
Recommendations included:
- Increase in variable and reduction in fixed component of
compensation
123
Name
Nishant Kedia
Company
Interviewer
Round
Round 1 Interview 2
Comments on PI Interview
Case Question
Scope of the case
Case Analysis
124
o Technology
o Consumer Knowledge
o Manpower
o Infrastructure etc.
Mode of entry
o Own
o Franchise
o M&A
o JV
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
Sarvesh Rathi
The Boston Consulting Group
Bitan Dutta, Project Leader (PL)
First
Tell me about yourself
125
Your first interview will be usually case focused. Having said that,
prepare well (rehearse it a few times) for the basic interview
questions like tell me about yourself, why a particular firm, why
consulting and the like. Not answering these questions
appropriately would most certainly impair the interview.
A Company manufacturing hand tools have not been able to
meet their revenue targets
Was not a very open ended question. I discussed with Bitan
about the background of the Company and established that the
Company entered the market 4 years back and have consistently
been missing their revenue targets.
I started the question by asking questions to understand the
company and its product lines. From further discussions I
gathered that the market was competitive and fragmented with
the top 3 players having close to 40% market share. Our client
was the 2nd largest player in the market. It was also established
that the industry was growing and industry growth was in line
with our expectations. From here on I started to lay down the
structure for the case.
Told him that the inability to match budgets could have been on
account of three factors:
Ambitious budgets
Internal factors like product / service / distribution /
promotion related problems (share of voice * share of
mind * share of distribution)
External factors like macro economic factors / declining
industry / substitutes / change in preferences
We quickly ruled out factors like ambitious budgets, product,
service and promotion related problems. I figured out that the
product offerings were much superior to customer expectations
and competitor offerings. I recommended that the Company
could explore the option of reducing product quality to industry
or slightly better than industry levels because hand tools are a
commodity and better than industry quality / brand do not make
a difference to the buying decision. The recommendation was in
line with blue ocean strategy to reduce features that the
customers dont value.
We started discussing about distribution related issues. Bitan
highlighted that the Companys offerings were available across
all channels and stock outs were not an issue. This left us with
the issue of aligning distributor / retailer interests with that of
the Company. We ruled out the possibility of profit margins
being an issue profit margins were in line with what
126
competitors offered. I felt like I had hit a dead end here. Bitan
prodded me in the right direction and asked me to think about
what the distributor / retailer looks for while pushing a
Companys product. I replied revenue potential leading to higher
profitability and return on capital employed.
Bitan had given me my hint while the profit sharing ratios were
similar, capital deployment required to stock the Companys
products were higher. Upon further discussion, I discovered that
the Company required its distributors to make payments with 2
weeks as against the industry standard of 1 month, thereby
doubling capital requirement and reducing ROCE. At this point
Bitan smiled, indicating that I had reached a logical conclusion. I
recommended that the Company should relax its credit policy.
However this meant higher capital deployment for the Company.
This is where the recommendation about reducing product
quality to industry standards / customer expectations came in
handy (Please note that it doesnt always pay to have the best
product in the market especially for commodities. Meeting
market-standards is sufficient). I pointed out that enhanced
profit from higher sales and also from reducing product quality
would more than take care of interest costs if any from the
additional capital deployment.
Bitan then questioned me about what could be a potential M &
A strategy the Company could pursue. I highlighted that while
buying out the biggest company was an attractive option, it
would come at a significant premium. In a highly fragmented &
competitive industry, it might be difficult to justify the deal.
Buying the insignificant (smaller) players would bring no
capabilities to the Company (the smaller players typically have
limited brand presence and brand loyalty is also insignificant.
Hence a viable strategy could be to try and acquire the 3rd largest
player in the market. My background as an investment banker
came in handy here.
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while
solving the case?
As stated above
Was able to lay down a coherent MECE structure
I had interviewed with Deustche Banks investment banking
practice before I attended the BCG interview. That interview
went very well and gave me a lot of confidence for all other
interviews. I was not a bundle of nerves when I started my
interview process with BCG.
In the hindsight it seems very obvious that a distributor will try
to optimize his capital requirements. I should have highlighted
this possibility without Bitan having to prod me in that direction.
127
Next interview
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Sarvesh Rathi
The Boston Consulting Group
Burjor Dadachanji, Principal
Second
What other interviews do you have today?
Tell me something about yourself that I wouldnt know from
your resume
Why do you want to move from investment banking to
consulting, when most people try to move from consulting to
investment banking?
The above questions were not asked one after the other. They
were asked during the case discussion, thereby making the
personal interview section a stress interview. You will have a
stress interview at some point. So watch out and be prepared.
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
A serial entrepreneur with excess cash (to the tune of INR 50 crs)
wants to invest in the call taxi business. Advise.
I asked questions about which city was the entrepreneur
targeting, what were his strengths and the investment
timeframe. Also does the client want us to advise him about
whether he should enter the business or not or also about how
he should enter the business.
Burjor clarified that the entrepreneur was looking to invest the
entire amount within one year and the client was seeking our
advise on both counts. The client was good at obtaining licenses
and managing man power intensive businesses.
By now it was clear that it was a market sizing and market entry
case.
I listed down the entire structure of a market sizing and market
entry case and started with market sizing.
128
As stated above
Be prepared to answer PI questions / discussions while solving
the case. Most importantly, you should be able to go back to the
case without forgetting where you left the case conversation. Its
a way to test your capability to manage yourself under stress.
It helped that I had noted most of our case discussion on the
white sheets provided to me (in an organized fashion). Hence
even when I was interrupted by PI questions, I was easily able to
go back to the case facts and pick up from where we left the case
conversation.
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Final recommendation / summary
What do you think went right while
solving the case?
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Next round
Sarvesh Rathi
Boston Consulting group
Suresh Subudhi, Partner
Third
Tell me about yourself
Case interviews are more like discussions and the recruiters are
looking of problem solving skills. They dont expect you to know
everything. In the hindsight I should have asked Suresh what
channel sales meant. IF YOU DONT KNOW SOMETHING ASK!
Sent for one more interview
Sarvesh Rathi
Boston Consulting group
Navneet Vashisth, Partner
Fourth
There was no personal interview. We got started with the case
immediately. This was my last round and being administered
only a case meant that all I needed to do from now on was to
crack the case!
An IT majors profitability is lower than its peers. Advise
Upon further discussion, Navneet clarified the following:
1. The Company is engaged in provision of IT services
2. All contracts are time and material based
3. Profitability is lower in percentage terms
4. I was expected to advise on why the profitability was
lower and what could be done to set it right
130
131
Offered a job.
General pointers that helped me during preparations:
1. Dont fret about the number of short lists you have
received. I had only one consulting shortlist and
managed to convert it. The more the number of
shortlists, the more the pressure of managing interviews
on Day 1. This is not to say that you shouldnt have
multiple shortlists. Everyone likes the cushion offered by
multiple shortlists. But you would do well to remember
that multiple shortlists dont guarantee you a role and a
single shortlist doesnt make you ineligible for any role.
Be careful what you ask for!
2. Dont fret if you have messed up your 3rd or 4th round. If
you have done in your other rounds, chances are that
they will give you another crack at the cases.
3. From the day you receive your shortlist, nothing in the
world matters (including classes and assignments) apart
from case preparations. Doesnt mean that you flunk
classes / miss assignment deadlines. Just accord the
highest importance to case preparations
4. ISB casebooks are more than sufficient for your
preparations. Finish all ISB casebooks before you
proceed to do others. Structures laid out in the CO 2010
/ 13 / 14 casebooks are comprehensive. A word of
caution here while its great to follow casebook
structure, formulate (consistently review / revise) your
own structures it will give you a lot of familiarity and
confidence
5. Doing cases in groups is very helpful. But your group may
not always be up for case preparations. They have their
own academic and other commitments. Reading and
trying to solve cases on your own is as helpful as doing
them in group. Utilize every opportunity you get to read
cases on your own
6. Day one (when consulting interviews take place)
happens usually in the middle of Term 6. So try to ensure
that you take only 3 papers during Term 6 (that way you
132
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Sidharth Gupta
The Boston Consulting Group
Yashraj Erande, Principal
was trying to answer. I said I was trying to look how the change
in interest rates would affect the banks profits. He told me to
first answer whether or not it affects the banks balance sheet,
and if so, how. And we could look at the profitability later.
Case Analysis presented by you
I had started off with a traditional framework, but was made to
realize that this case required not a regular framework, but
simple straightforward thinking.
So I decided to look at what all items on the balance sheet could
possibly see a change in their value due to the interest rate
change, and it was clearly only the government bonds (worth Rs.
25,000 cr) on the asset side that would be affected, if at all. Now
the job was to identify how. Here, I faltered when I said that the
value of the assets would increase as the bank-owned bonds
yielding 9% would now yield 11%. Yash pointed out that this was
not the case, and the bonds owned by the bank were bought
when the interest rates were 9% and the bonds would continue
to yield only 9%. I thus had to think about this again. This was
when I realized that the value of the bonds owned by the bank
had actually gone down as the bonds available in the market
would yield more. Yash said that this was right and asked me to
talk more. I said I would look at the situation from the point of
view of an investor. Anybody looking to buy bonds would buy
from the open market and not from our client to get 11% yield.
Yash said this was right and asked me to now calculate the fall in
the value of the bank-owned bonds. I did this by equating the
NPV of a bond bought for Rs 100 in the open market to the NPV
of a bond bought for Rs. X from the bank.
Time for which to calculate the NPV = 2 years (time to maturity
of the bonds asked Yash for this)
Discount rate to be taken = 11% (Risk-free rate, same as the long
term bond yield rate in the market)
This helped me get the value X, and consequently the fall in
value of the banks assets.
With, this part of the case over, and almost 25 minutes into the
interview, Yash asked me to just quickly list the various options
available to the bank at this point in time. I listed the following
options:
1. Hold on to the bonds and wait for the rates to go back
down
2. Sell them off and take the loss. Will help reduce tax
liability
3. Another one or two options that I dont recall now.
He seemed happy with the case overall. Towards the end, he
asked me if I had any questions for him. We spoke for another
couple of minutes and the interview was over.
Final recommendation / summary
Covered above.
What do you think went right while The interview lasted about 30 minutes. I hadnt started off very
solving the case?
well. Was a little nervous, which probably contributed to me
134
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Sidharth Gupta
The Boston Consulting Group
Bitan Dutta, Project Leader
had:
etc.. I was again shown data which basically pointed out longer
lead times compared to competitors. This was a problem
because it would lead to either frequent stock-outs or high cost
of capital and warehousing for the distributors as they would
need to maintain larger inventory. I was told that this was
indeed the problem, and distributors were not stocking the
clients products due to the high costs involved.
Lastly, I was asked to give a 60 sec summary of the identified
problems to the CEO of the company.
Final recommendation / summary
Direct solutions to the two big problems identified Reduce
prices and lead time. We didnt really discuss these.
What do you think went right while Everything. I knew I had cracked this case. Bitan too seemed
solving the case?
happy with the quick thinking
What do you think could have been Nothing I can think of
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Moved to Round 2
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Sidharth Gupta
The Boston Consulting Group
Navneet Vasishth, Partner
How did you define the scope of the I asked questions similar to the previous case in order to
case
understand the industry and the company.
Findings:
1. Products are customized, and each project is different
2. There are 2-3 other players in the market of comparable
revenues, but higher profitability
3. All sales are B2B, and there is a dedicated team for sales
and marketing efforts
4. I also understood how the projects were executed. I stated
my understanding on how I would do it: The sales team
pitches projects to clients. Projects then go to the Product
development or Technical team who develops the product,
in coordination with the Project Management or clientfacing team. These are then implemented on-site by the
client but with extensive support from a support team.
Navneet confirmed this project cycle.
Case Analysis presented by you
I now drew a simple profitability framework. Revenues Costs.
Revenue was comparable to competitors, so the bigger issue lay
in the costs being higher. I confirmed this with Navneet and
moved ahead.
To understand the costs, I drew upon the value chain of any
project in the company which I had drawn above.
The major cost heads included:
1. Employee costs
2. Technology costs servers, softwares, etc.
3. Sales and Marketing costs
4. Rents, interests, etc.
I decided to focus on the employee costs as I knew these would
be the major chunk. Navneet agreed.
Employee costs included: Hiring costs, Training costs, Salaries
and Attrition costs. Of these, salaries would be the major chunk.
On asking Navneet if the salaries were more than the industry
average, I was told that they were as per industry standards. The
attrition also was not more than the industry average. At this
point, I decided to take a different approach.
I decided to create an employee pyramid to understand if the
number of employees in each salary band was sub-optimal. The
thinking here was that if the issue isnt with the amount of salary
being paid, it has to be with the number of people being paid.
I took the analogy of a consulting firms employee pyramid which
would look something like this
138
On asking more about the idle time and team structures within
the organization, I found that the idle time was high not only at
the higher levels but also at lower levels, because of 2 reasons:
1. There were separate teams for each specialization. For
eg. GPS, Audio, etc. and the resources werent shared
among these teams
2. Resources were dedicated to projects as well and
nobody worked on 2 projects at a time. This meant that
even if one person wasnt required full-time on Project
A, if a new project started that required similar skills, a
new employee would be hired instead of sharing the
existing ones.
The recommendations I gave included:
1. Effectively use the large number of senior people to
acquire and manage more projects, and if that is not
possible, lose some of them
2. Use an organization-wide capacity management tool to
keep track of employee utilization by project, skill,
department, etc.
a. Break down projects into modules and allocate
employees of different departments to these
modules as required, rather than allocating for
entire projects
3. Establish a smaller set of super departments, rather than
139
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Abhishek Ahuja
The Boston Consulting Group
Suresh Subudhi Partner
First
Tell me about yourself?
How has the day been for you so far?
PI was very brief and we moved to the case almost right away
segments.
Case Analysis presented by you
Based on the case facts and clarifications this was a new market
entry case and as we know, there is a broad framework for this. I
started by following the same to determine whether it would be
a good idea for this company. Accordingly, I started with Industry
attractiveness.
Followed the basic questions of industry attractiveness:
competition, existing players, market size, segment shares and
growth trends. The main information was with regard to
competition: two major players had duopoly in premium
segment; Indian exporters were in competition for standard and
Chinese exporters for budget. Then tried to understand whether
the company had competence to source and manufacture tyres
but interviewers asked me that was not a constraint.
Concluded that market was developed and with growth
opportunities, the market was attractive but depended on
market positioning.
Interviewer agreed and wanted me to delve deeper into market
positioning and determine the factors for market positioning. I
then moved to price points and the three different categories in
the market. My question on price elasticity brought discussion of
farmer perspectives that farmers assigned higher price to higher
quality.
I then explored option of possibility of going in between existing
segments and the interviewer agreed.
Final recommendation / summary
Final recommendation on summary was to enter an in-between
price range as farmer demand is relatively inelastic with a
premium on the price. The case was stopped abruptly without a
synthesis.
What do you think went right while Involved the interviewer at each stage and took buy ins as a lot
solving the case?
of information was required to move forwards and judgments
needed to be made.
What do you think could have been I took my time in analyzing the problem especially towards the
done better while solving the case?
end in making the recommendations. Ideally this time should be
less than a minute at a time but I may have gove over.
Outcome of the interview (optional) I was called for the next round
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
Abhishek Ahuja
The Boston Consulting Group
Yashraj Erande Principal
Second
What are your interests
What do you think of recent announcements by RBI Governor?
Again PI was brief but could establish a rapport as he was an ISB
alum. We talked about recent developments and placements
141
that an offer was likely. However, before the last interview I had
received McKinsey offer and communicated to BCG alums that I
would not be continuing further.
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the
case
Kushagra Gupta
The Boston Consulting Group
Sachin Kotak, Principal
Round 1 Interview 1
Sachin started out with standard PI questions such as tell me
something about yourself and CV-based questions related to my
prior work experience.
The PI questions were pretty standard but BCG gives very little
importance to PI other than being an ice-breaker. Sachin showed
me an assessment sheet that they use to grade candidates and
most criteria related to case-solving skills.
I am an entrepreneur who has been thinking of launching a car
hire/cab service. I am approaching you for advice in this regard.
On the face of it, this case seems to be a typical new market
entry case. So I started out by asking about what kind of cab
service he had in mind, in terms of which clients (C-suite
executives, mid-management professionals, tourists, etc),
locations (metro, 2nd tier cities), current competitors, etc.
Sachins responses to these questions were quite vague and I
guessed he wanted me to suggest a business model and
proceed. So I chose one business model (C-Suite cab service) to
outline how I would go about organizing the venture.
I drew a bit from the New Market Entry framework and New
Product Launch frameworks. I structured the analysis under
following buckets:
1. Attractiveness of the business: Customer segments I will be
targeting (C-Suite professionals), existing competitors
(Unorganized sector of unorganized cab providers, newer players
like Uber), USP of my business (luxury sedans with online
booking and low advance booking time), etc.
2. Product: Location (Metros and Tier 1 cities), Price (Premium
pricing), Sales channel (transportation departments of MNCs,
travel aggregators, premium concierges and 5-star hotels)
3. Financials: Revenues based on distance travelled and type of
vehicle, Costs leasing of cars, drivers salary, maintenance of
cars, technology investment for booking and tracking.
4. Risks/Challenges : Regulatory risks in procuring driver licenses
from government agencies, training of drivers, high upfront costs
of acquiring cars and customers.
At this point, Sachin asked me to generalize these factors which I
143
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Kushagra Gupta
The Boston Consulting Group
YashrajErande, Principal
Round 1 Interview 2
Yashraj is an ISB alum so we started off on an informal note
discussing ISB in general. The standard questions of tell me
something about yourself and why consulting.
Comments on the PI rounds (please The PI questions were pretty standard but BCG gives very little
elaborate on what went right and importance to PI other than being an ice-breaker.
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the Our client is a bank. In the past 6 months, the value of the assets
interviewer)
on their balance sheet has shrunk. You are called in to advise the
client on the cause for this devaluation.
How did you define the scope of the I asked the basic scoping question such as what kind of bank this
case
was (retail/investment), was it a nationalized bank (it was) and
what assets were affected on the balance sheet (50 crore of 10year Indian government bonds). Hence, I deduced that these are
the cause of the problem.
Case Analysis presented by you
I suspected that the devaluation must be due to interest rate
changes and asked Yashraj on the interest rates 6 months before
and now on 10-year government bonds. He gave me figures of
8% and 10% respectively. Then I presented my analysis that the
change from 8% to 10% in interest rates meant that the bond
prices decreased. Yashraj asked me to calculate the balance
sheet impact. I tried to explain using the bond pricing formula of
how change in discount rate would affect the price of the bonds
but could not put a figure to the impact without a calculator. He
then mentioned whether I had leant about some ratio (I forget
144
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Vijayalakshmi (Viji)
The Boston Consulting Group
Karthik Valluru, Project Leader (PL)
First
A brief introduction about myself
146
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Vijayalakshmi (Viji)
The Boston Consulting Group
Sachin Kotak, Principal
Second
A brief introduction about myself and the kind of deals I had
looked at in the Private Equity fund where I worked before
He questioned about my views on being an entrepreneur in India
and how I used to evaluate business models
The interviewer had worked in an investment bank in the past
and he asked me about the current industry trends etc.
Comments on the PI rounds (please Ability to talk about the industry I came from helped me a lot to
elaborate on what went right and connect with the interviewer. I discussed with him my opinions
what could have been done better)
on current trend and he appreciated that I had a view on the
events happening.
It helps to read newspapers and keep yourself updated about
economy in general and especially events in the industry you
came from. It shows that you are overall good rather than just
being academically bright.
Case question (as narrated by the A small company wants to start taxi operations in a city. How will
interviewer)
you go about it?
How did you define the scope of the Another open ended case and I defined the case by asking
case
questions about the taxi company. I gathered that they are new
players and wanted to start fresh with the idea of going for
investment in the near future
Case Analysis presented by you
I started the question by asking questions to understand the
market first. He asked me to take a city like Chennai and that it is
a very crowded market
From what I gathered about the market from him I put down the
broad segments of the market within city commute, outside
city commute, corporate travel and on-demand radio taxi
market.
Once I put down the segments, I outlined the broad frame work
with which I was going to approach the case:
Analysis Current market scenario in these given
segments
Estimation of demand in these segments
Factors on growth of the segment
Then I would give him the final recommendation of which
market can the taxi operator target and proceed.
Analysis of market scenario: I asked a series of questions about
each of these segments and wrote down factors that he should
consider targeting each of the segments. Some of the factors
147
the interviewer became very relaxed and the rest of the case
was more like a conversation and that helped me a lot.
What do you think could have been I could have thought of better suggestions on the factors I
done better while solving the case?
provided on differentiation. I was very tired since this was the
fifth interview and was not able to be very creative in solutions
Outcome of the interview (optional) Next interview
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Vijayalakshmi (Viji)
The Boston Consulting Group
Navneet Vasishth, Partner
Third
I was asked to introduce myself.
The next question was why do I want to get into consulting when
I worked for a PE fund which is exciting in itself. What are my
real motives behind this decision
What are the reasons that would stop me from pursuing a
consulting career. This was a tricky question and I answered very
openly on what would prevent me in the long run.
to help the client. I listed down a lot of ideas and some of them
are as under:
Cutting down employees may send a wrong signal to the
market that the company is not doing well and hence
the team members who have grown up in hierarchy
needs to be given alternative projects / roles justifying
their costs
Newer industries/sectors where the current skills can be
used need to identified and new clients should be
pursued
Employees can be trained and made more fungible that
they can be rotated between the divisions and overall
costs can be retained
The rotation can be formalized and the employees can
apply to such roles within the company and they will be
selected on based on the need and their ability
Employee-appraisal process should be relooked into to
check whether the promotion policies are too liberal and
whether they need any changes
Final recommendation / summary
As stated above
What do you think went right while Be prepared to answer PI while solving the case as well. Most
solving the case?
importantly, you should be able to go back to the case without
forgetting where you left the case conversation.
I had made slide like charts on paper when the case interview
was happening and charted them out on the table one after one.
So I was able to go back to the case easily synthesize and then
solve it even after interruption by PI.
Be a good listener and that helps in building rapport with the
interviewer. The case was not straight forward in terms of
dropping profitability since the costs and number of people were
the same per project. Listening and attention to detail helped me
figure out the problem from interviewer.
At the end the partner asked if I have any questions for him. I
discussed with him about Big data and consulting since the
partner was primarily into technology sector clients. He was very
interested to explain his views on it and talked about his recent
engagements. I was able to engage in conversations with him
about Google and their plans etc and he was very happy that
inspite of coming from a finance background, I understand
technology and the outlook of the sector. This closing note gave
me the confidence that I am moving to the next round.
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional) Next round
151
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Vijayalakshmi (Viji)
The Boston Consulting Group
Yash Raj Erande, Principal
Fourth
What was your GMAT score?
He asked me why was I not in 99 percentile though I was an AllIndia rank holder in CA exams.
It made me very unsettled. Also in only one of the earlier
interviews with another firm I made a computation error and
that started playing at the back of my mind the minute he asked
me my GMAT score.
You are the CEO of a 50,000 crore bank. Raghuram rajan has
passed some changes in the central banking system which has
pushed the yield rate by 0.5% (dont remember the exact %).
What will you do?
The question was very clear that we have to chart a course of
action for the bank based on the recent changes made by RBI
governor.
I asked him basic questions about the composition of the assets
and liabilities of the bank and noted it down.
I told him that I will first understand the impact of the change on
the various items on the Balance sheet before I proceed with the
analysis. He nodded to it.
He told me the various items on asset side such as loans given,
investment in government securities for CRR ratio, fixed assets,
etc and their composition % on the overall balance sheet size.
He told me the various items on the liability side such as deposits
from retail customers, corporate, loans from RBI and other
banks, equity capital and their composition.
I told him that the yield curve change would affect the asset side
because there are no items on the liability side that would get
affected by this change.
He said ok and asked me what are the items on the asset side
that will be affected by this change in yield rates. I said that the
investment in government securities will be affected since their
market values are based on treasury yield curves. I asked him as
to why does the bank invest in government securities - the CRR
ratio he mentioned was xx% and the bank had a higher % in the
152
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
asked me to crystal ball gaze the nos and not use any
multiplication etc on papers and guess estimate the amount. I
got tensed here and started taking more time as I felt cornered.
But since I identified modified duration correctly, the interviewer
was happy and I gained my cool later.
I think it is very important to keep cool even when asked
unsettling questions as most of the times he is trying to check
whether you have the fortitude or not.
Moved to next round
Vijayalakshmi (Viji)
The Boston Consulting Group
Suresh Subudi, Partner
Fifth
1. Tell me about yourself
2. Where did you do your schooling and education
3. Why do you want to do consulting when you were
working in a PE fund earlier
4. Why did you change jobs -You have shifted three jobs in
four years what is the reason
5. What if you dont like consulting and think PE fund is a
better alternative
Comments on the PI rounds (please The entire interview was a PI round. He argued otherwise for
elaborate on what went right and every reason I gave. I stuck to my reasons and logically explained
what could have been done better)
him my move and how it fit into my overall career goal.
Knowing yourself well makes a lot of difference. Interviewers are
also looking for consistency in your performance and thoughts.
Some of these questions were asked earlier and he had listened
to the other interviewers before he interviewed me. So he asked
me questions mainly on my job shifts indicating to some answers
I gave to his colleagues. Consistency helped me present my case
well and also gave me a lot of confidence
Case question (as narrated by the No case
interviewer)
How did you define the scope of the None
case
Case Analysis presented by you
None
Final recommendation / summary
None
What do you think went right while None
solving the case?
What do you think could have been I was carrying my phone with me into the interview room by
done better while solving the case?
mistake and it started ringing loudly during interview. I stood up
apologized calmly and left the phone outside before I continued
154
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Shirish Damani
The Boston Consulting Group
Navneet Vasishth, Partner
Round 1, 1st Interview
Navneet wanted to do the case first followed by the PI. So these
questions were asked post the case.
1. About yourself. (have a common theme flowing across your
answer)
2. Why consulting? (Try and personalize the answer apart from
the regular stuff)
3. Why do you think you will not become a good consultant? 2
reasons
Navneet is from Chandigarh and I had also stayed in Chandigarh
for ~3 years during my work after P&G. After the about yourself
answer we discussed a few things about Chandigarh that helped
me connect with the interviewer and eased me out. This
always helps. As per popular belief consultants like people whom
they can talk to and if you can show them that quality it is always
a plus. But mind you, this is no substitute for case solving.
Comments on the PI rounds (please I think it was good and the discussion on Chandigarh helped.
elaborate on what went right and Moreover I asked him about how he managed travel with family
what could have been done better)
and kids and he was more than happy to share his personal
story. Again what I learnt from my buddies is that consultants in
general and partners in particular like to talk about their
experiences and guide others. So ask them some relevant
questions and turn the interview into a discussion.
Case question (as narrated by the Our client is CEO of an IT services company and is concerned that
interviewer)
his profit margins have been going down. Wants advice.
How did you define the scope of the This was one of the more standard cases. So I started with asking
case
the basic scoping questions.
SD: What are the revenue streams of the company
NV: It has two broad divisions IT services and Engg services
SD: Is this a problem across both the divisions
NV: Yes
SD: Where does the company operate
NV: India wide but most clients are international
SD: Since when has the profit margins decreasing.
NV: Last 2 years
155
Software
Development
Cost
Servicing Cost
Misc
Today
40%
3 years back
35%
15%
5%
15%
5%
157
I again took a 30 sec time out and was starting to get a bit
nervous as this was my 5th back to back case interview and I
could hardly think of anything new. But then I thought of
another reason.
SD: Maybe the company has aggressive growth plans for the
future and in order to be prepared for it the company has hired
over skilled employees or has promoted people in advance to be
ready to take on responsibility.
NV: Yes this could be another possibility. So what will be your
recommendation for all the possible issues identified.
SD: For overtime and more employees v/s competition the
company should start charging a premium so that it can maintain
its profit margins. If the companys clients do not value the faster
service and is not willing to pay a premium then it should stop
offering that. For higher cost/employee due to faster promotions
in order to meet future expansion company should not be too
worried as long as the expansion/growth is happening as per
plan. The management should be aware and should
communicate to others the higher costs is due to the investment
in manpower to meet future expansion plans.
NV: Ok.
Navneet looked satisfied with the discussion and asked me to
summarize the case. At this point I took a minute break and
made a note of all the points I intended to cover in my final
recommendation.
Final recommendation / summary
The client is facing lower profitability due to increased employee
cost. So it should start charging premium for the faster and
better services if its clients value the same. And if the increased
costs are due to higher employee costs keeping future expansion
in mind the company needs to be patient and communicate the
same to its share holders as not much can be done now. It just
needs to ensure that the anticipated growth is on its glidepath.
What do you think went right while I think keeping cool helped me. I made some minor calculation
solving the case?
mistake and was stuck a couple of times. At these points I took a
break and engaged the interviewer which helped.
Taking breaks at the right moment is very critical as it allows you
to think comprehensively before you start presenting your
thoughts. It is always advisable to make a note of all you think
during these breaks so that you do not miss out on a point later.
Before making the final recommendation it is always advisable to
take a break and think of the key point you want to cover in your
final recommendation. It needs to be crisp and concise and at
the same time cove the key points/findings. NEVER include
something in your final recommendation which you have not
discussed during the interview.
What do you think could have been Avoid calculation mistakes. However, if you do happen to make
158
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Shirish Damani
The Boston Consulting Group
Vipin Gupta, Project Leader
159
At this point I had no clue what he was asking for and how I was
expected to solve this. This happens with most people and is
fine. The key is to keep your cool and not to show any signs of
nervousness.
SD: I think they should do it on a state level basis as people travel
within state a lot and hence if they have to pay roaming every
time they move out of their network it will not be affordable for
the customers.
VG: Yes thats there. So how it works is that if the customer
moves out of the network provided of our client he/she gets
hooked onto the network of some other service provider and the
client pays the charge to the other service provider but does not
charge the customer anything extra. Therefore the clients profit
reduces if the customer moves out of his network and is using
some other network.
Now I understood a little more about the problem and asked for
data on the costs associated with maintaining a tower. To this
Vipin gave some numbers on installation cost, monthly
maintenance cost etc. But again this did not have much to do
with the case and we discussed some points on this with little
progress. At this point I started to get a little nervous as I felt I
was not moving in the correct direction. I took a minute to think
and finally realized that this had got to do with the contribution
margins associated with each scenario.
SD: We need to look at the Weighted Average Contribution
Margin (WACC) in each scenario and make a decision
accordingly.
VG: Why are we looking at the contribution margins and not the
net profit margin.
SD: Because the fixed costs will remain fixed in the short run and
the company might not be able to immediately realize the
benefits as some fixed costs like salary of top management,
employees will not be omitted immediately.
VG: Ok
SD: Do we have data on the contribution margins for self
provided calls and those provided by other service providers.
And do we know the % call volume in each case between self
provided calls and those provided by other service providers.
VG: Yes.
The he gave the following data to me.
%Call volume of %Call
volume
self provided calls provided by other
service providers
160
State Wise
District Wise
Tower Wise
90%
85%
75%
10%
15%
25%
I think Vipin was looking for the WACC approach and he was
satisfied that I finally got to the crux.
The client should go on a piece wise service strategy based on
the strategy with the highest WACC. However there are a few
watch-outs as mentioned above.
End of case.
What do you think went right while I think keeping my cool during times when I was a little clueless
solving the case?
and nervous helped.
Moreover, knowing concepts such as WACC clearly and being
clear on how and when to apply them is critical so do a revision
of all the core term courses.
Whenever faced with a road block engage the interviewer and
draw him into a discussion v/s trying to solve the case all alone
to little effect.
What do you think could have been As mentioned I went into the interview thinking about my
done better while solving the case?
energy level going down as that was the feedback I got from the
last interviewer via my buddy. Due to this I was not focusing on
the case at hand during the initial part of the interview and
hence drifted a little initially. Avoid this, such things will always
happen. The crux is to forget about the last interview and take
each one as it comes (esp. if you have multiple shortlists).
Remember SUNK COST (again core term revisions will help )
Outcome of the interview (optional) Moved to next round. However, since I had accepted an offer
by then, did not go for the next round.
Name
Pranav Mathur
Name of company interviewing with The Boston Consulting Group
Name and designation of the Vipin (Project Leader)
interviewer
161
N/A
Your client is a telecom service provider who has been facing losses in
Maharashtra. They need your help.
I asked the basic questions on company, customers and competition. I
was told that the company has always made losses and had only 3%
market share. I was also told to only concentrate on the Maharashtra
market.
I took some time out and drew out the standard profitability framework =
Profit = rev costs.
I started with revenue = Price * Quantity.
Here I broke the quantity into Voice, SMS and Data and asked vipin if any
one of these was an issue. He replied that we are at par in terms of price
across the three.
I looked at quantity in terms of market share and market size. Did the
basic analysis (as per the casebook framework) and tried to segment the
market based on geographies within Maharashtra, type of service, type of
customers etc so that I could identify a segment that was less profitable.
However, Vipin told me that all segments are equally divided.
At this point I was stuck as I had finished the framework evaluation and
nothing seem to fit. Vipin hinted that the client has 5000 towers in
Maharashtra to provide the service. This was the cue to look at the
problem from a value chain point of view. I said that typically a tower has
high costs (variable and fixed) and the same provides service to a
particular area. Vipin asked me what number would you look at to judge
the performance of the tower. Since we had already established that all
customer segments are equally profitable and equally distributed within a
geography, I said I will look at population density/tower. Vipin was happy
to hear that and asked me to go on.
I said that there might be areas where there is low population density and
hence we are not able to recover the costs of the tower.
I would prioritize the towers based on population density in the coverage
area and then decide. I also mentioned that the analysis should be
forward looking and take into account new developments in those areas
to account for higher population density later.
He asked me to talk about costs/customer. I said that there are variable
and fixed. Vipin told me about the various cost heads and asked me which
ones would I consider. I said Variable as rest were all allocated fixed costs
and hence not impact the decision (MADM fundas)
162
Name
Pranav Mathur
Name and
interviewer
designation
of
Second
Personal interview questions (please General chit-chat regarding my institute rank and how I managed to
write the questions only)
get that (rank - 7 ). He asked me what I felt about Arvind
Kejriwal (The Delhi election results were in the news at this time). I
told him my views on the same. Suresh said that he wanted my
views on Arvind Kejriwal since he and I both are alums of IIT KGP).
Comments on the PI rounds (please Struck a good rapport with Suresh. Was up to date with the current
elaborate on what went right and news on elections and hence was able to have a decent
what could have been done better)
conversation on the same.
Case question (as narrated by the A tyre manufacturer wants to enter the global agricultural tyre
interviewer)
business. Help them.
How did you define the scope of the I approached this through the standard market entry case. Initially I
case
asked him about the company, customers and competition. I was
told that the company currently makes only light motor vehicle
tyres for Indian market. It also does a bit of exports.
Agricultural tyres are used in tractors etc. There are a few Indian
companies who have gone global and earned 20-25% returns. Our
current ROI = 10-12%.
I jumped into the framework and analyzed 1. Industry
attractiveness 2. Resources required and 3. Methods of entry
Analyzing the size, scale and growth of the industry we realized that
the USA/Europe market was growing at 2% and rest at 10%. Further
analysis revealed that there are two types of tyres sold new
163
Moved to round 3
Name
Pranav Mathur
164
Personal interview questions (please Sachin seemed disinterested and sat down on the sofa next to me.
write the questions only)
This was my 7th interview of the day and I was very tired by then.
Comments on the PI rounds (please I guess Sachin was just testing me on how I can handle a case in a
elaborate on what went right and different setting this was not a traditional case across the table since
what could have been done better)
Sachin was sitting on the Sofa right next to me.
Case question (as narrated by the I want to open a car rental service in Delhi. Tell me whether I should
interviewer)
do it or not.
How did you define the scope of the Asked standard questions on what does a car rental service does etc.
case
Case Analysis presented by you
Standard framework based questions. I however could not think
anymore and made a mess of the case. Sachin was looking for creative
segmentations and approaches which I could not come up with. He
did not seem too happy with my standard approach and said that I
was unable to think.
He was looking for customer segmentations based on type of
employment I could not comprehend what he was looking for. We
had a brief discussion on the case and that was it.
Final recommendation / summary
No recommendation
What do you think went right while I started off well with the framework approach however could not
solving the case?
understand what Sachin was looking for.
What do you think could have been Try to be creative!
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional)
Surprisingly, I was called for the fourth interview which I did not go to
as I had another offer at hand.
165
Shirish Damani
The Parthenon Group
Danish Faruqui
First
Interview started with the standard take me through your
resume question. This question I was not answering very well
and thankfully the interviewer interrupted in between and asked
me to explain my work in P&G in more detail.
Being an engineer and having done capital management at P&G
helped me in quite a few interviews as most people were
intrigued by the work profile. I was well prepared with my
answers
and
hence
worked
in
my
favor.
Could have done better with the take me through your resume
question as most of my buddies told me that interviewers will
ask more pointed questions and hence was not very well
prepared with this answer. But I will recommend all to prepare
answer to this question as it becomes tricky to judge which parts
of the resume to focus on and at the same time ensuring that
the answer does not turn into a speech.
A PE firm is considering investing into a Brazilian company which
provides standard education applications to schools. They want
you to help them understand if they should go ahead with the
investment or not. More particularly by answering these
questions,
1. Why will this application be/not be successful?
2. How can the firm gain competitive advantage over its rivals?
3. Will this application work in India? Why/Why not?
Since this was my first case of the day, I was a little hesitant to
start off. Took a min and then started by asking more about the
application and its utility.
SD: What does the application do?
DF: This is an application which standardizes the course
curriculum and instructs teachers what to teach and how to
teach.
SD: Who pays for this application?
DF: The school doesnt pay. The app. Provider directly charges
students. The school just provides the app provider with a
platform ie. A student base.
Then I took a couple of mins. And started with my analysis.
Since this was not a regular framework case (hardly any case will
be a regular one) I was engaging the interviewer a lot more than
normal.
SD: The app will be used for 3 main purposes
166
167
End of case.
Final recommendation / summary
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Shirish Damani
The Parthenon Group
Mayank Gupta
Second
This was a quick 30 min interview without any PI.
NA
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Ridhi Gupta
The Parthenon Group
Pranav Saxena
First (Interview 1)
None, Mostly Case Based
So the school had two campuses, one in the city and the other in
the outskirts.
While the school in the city offered Math and Accounting, the
school in the outskirts offered Business, Math and Accounting.
So it was observed that most of the growth was coming from
Business enrollment which our campus in city was unable to tap.
Further because the 2nd campus in outskirts was at a remote
location, students did not prefer it. In terms of students, we had
regular students and some part time enrollments coming from
older people looking to upgrade their skills. The sudden increase
in number of part time enrollments was driving the overall
growth number up. These people also preferred to attend school
in the city over the set up and preferred studying Business. So
since our city set up was not catering to their needs, we saw a
relatively less growth compared to the overall growth numbers.
Final recommendation / summary
To start Business as a subject in the city campus and attract full
time students to the outskirts campus by providing better
residential facilities etc
What do you think went right while Asking the right questions and getting the right analysis that the
solving the case?
interviewer had in mind.
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Outcome of the interview (optional)
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Ridhi Gupta
The Parthenon Group
Mayank
First (Interview 2)
None, Mostly Case Based
Name
Name of company interviewing with
Name and designation of the
interviewer
Interview round (first/second/third)
Personal interview questions (please
write the questions only)
Comments on the PI rounds (please
elaborate on what went right and
what could have been done better)
Case question (as narrated by the
interviewer)
Ridhi Gupta
The Parthenon Group
Mayank/Jasdeep
Two
in core terms.
What do you think went right while
solving the case?
What do you think could have been
done better while solving the case?
Partner Round
PI Completely
Was asked about my motivation to join Parthenon, general
interest in the firm, things I knew, career aspirations etc
173