IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

Table of Contents

1 MCKINSEY CASELETS / QUESTIONS 2

2 BCG CASELETS / QUESTIONS 5

3 MISCELLANEOUS 9

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

1 Mckinsey caselets / questions

1. An insurance company in England has been loosing money over the last five years insuring
boats that operate on the rivers. What price changes should they make to the insurance
policies? (McKinsey 2nd round Nov 04)

2. A European iron mining company bought a piece of land in Australia with a high content of
iron. Should they proceed with extraction of the ore or not? / (McKinsey 2nd round Nov
04)

3. A PC manufacturer wants to add a new line of pocket PCs. Should they do it? What do you
tell the CEO? / (McKinsey 2nd round Nov 04)

4. Our client is Burger King. Their growth has been slower than expected. They want to know
why? And estimate for me the size of the hamburger market. (McKinsey July '04)

5. Tell me the annual revenues of a company you're following? (McKinsey July '04)

6. A health and fitness center, a chain of gyms, like Bally's is considering building more tennis
courts. The cost of the land development is 2.5 million for 10 tennis courts per gym.
Determine if the gym would break even if they charged an additional fee of $7 per game.
(McKinsey 1st round - March '04)

7. Assuming zero costs. What are the first three industries that will appear in outer space?
(McKinsey third round - Nov 03)

8. The law has recently changed. Consumers can now switch cell companies and keep their
phone numbers. What is the effect of this legislation? What is the cost of this legislation?
And can you recommend any options for the cell phone companies? (McKinsey 2nd -
round 11/04)

9. A healthcare company that sells to individuals and small businesses has seen growth in the
last 5 years, but this last year there has been a decline. What is going on? What sort of
incentive system do we have and what kind can we create? (There were a number of
graphs and charts that the student had to review (McKinsey 2nd - round 11/04)

10. Our client is a retail brokerage. We have seen our customer base decline over the past 18
months. Why is this happening and what can we do about it? (McKinsey - first round
Korean office 11/03)

11. The client owns mines that produce high and low grade ore and processes it into an alloy
that is then sold as an additive to strengthen steel (sold directly to steel manufacturers). A
new foreign competitor has shown up in the market and the company is losing profits. A
general manager of one of the processing plants asks what he should do to maintain
profits. (McKinsey -first round 11/03)

12. The past few years a Health Insurance Company has been growing at a rate of about 15%
a year. This past year it only grew by 1%. Costs are rising 12% each year. What is the
problem and what should the company do? (McKinsey -first round 11/03)

13. A steel producing company wants to cut costs. It currently operates 2 large mills at 75%
capacity and four small ones at 100% capacity. It is experiencing profitability issues. What
action would you recommend it takes? (McKinsey - First round 10/03)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

14. "First, I would say that globally, the cases had a bit of a different feel to them than many I
had worked on. All three were business cases, however, in two of the three, there was less
opportunity to structure the cases--the questioners asked specific questions about data that
they presented to me a bit at a time—usually in graphic format. In two out of my three
cases, there were multiple graphs and charts that built on one another. Conclusions drawn
from the first graph were applied to graphs presented later in the same interview. Also,
when I analyzed the data, I was usually given a ratio or series of ratios that I needed to
calculate. At the beginning of each graph/data series, the interviewer would explain the
significance of each of the ratios I was to calculate. When I finished calculating them, he
asked me to explain what the results meant. To be honest, the ratios may have been quite
common, but they were new to me." (McKinsey 2nd round Spring 2003)

15. Company X is a chemical manufacturer. They make a product that is very similar to
Company Y’s product. Company X and Y are direct competitors in many geographic
markets, but each also has unique areas in which the sales forces do not face direct
competition. Company X buys Company Y. How do you integrate the sales forces?
(McKinsey 2nd round Spring 2003).

16. Our client is a travel agency in NYC which employs 25 people. They have seen their
commissions cut from 10% to 8%. They are wondering what strategy they should adopt to
increase their profits, and what else they should do to remain profitable and grow their
business? (McKinsey second-round 11/02)

17. You are working for a Brazilian soda manufacturer that is experiencing declining profits
over the last two years. Why is this occurring? [competition from generics] What is the size
of the market for canned cola? What are the company's options for improving profitability?
What are the possible effects of a change in the cola's price? (McKinsey - first round
10/02)

18. You and your colleagues are McKinsey partners trying to decide which nonprofit to help.
Your goals are doubling their revenue and improving their management. Each participant
has information the others don't have. Which one should you pick? [what criteria to use,
etc.] (McKinsey - second round 10/02)

19. Our client is a mid-Western HMO. They have 300 doctors and 300,000 subscribers. They
handle mostly checkups and routine visits. The HMO outsources specific cases to local
specialists. Over the last two years the HMO has seen their profits decrease. They've
called us in to find out why. (McKinsey - first round 10/02)

20. Here are three market-sizing questions that were asked by the international offices of
McKinsey in 2002.
(a) How many windows are there in Mexico City?
(b) How many airport conveyor/luggage belts are there in the US?
(c) How many gas station are their in the Czech Republic?

21. The year is 1998. Our client is a German Helicopter Company. Last year their revenues
were $700 million making them the second largest firm in the country. This year their
revenues are down by 60 percent. What's going on? (McKinsey)

22. A major manufacturer of premium large kitchen appliances has been losing market share
over the past 2 years. They have hired us to find out why, and what can be done about it.
(McKinsey)

23. Our client is a women's retail store. Over the last six month our sales have fallen forty
percent. What's wrong and how can we fix it? (McKinsey)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

24. How many travel books were sold in the US last year? (McKinsey)

25. It's October 2001, with the current gloomy economy. One of the most affected industry is
the luxury industry: People tend to postpone buying luxury goods, and even if they have the
money, after what happened it is not the right time for them to buy something which is
unnecessary. A client approaches our firm and asks us to increase his sales. What do we
tell him? (McKinsey, third round case, international office)

26. Your client wants to start a taxi service. What does he need to know? (McKinsey, second
round case, international office)

27. We are back in the 80s, and Daewoo wants to enter the Italian market. They approach you
and say that they want to sell 100,000 cars after one year. What do you tell them?
(McKinsey, first round international office)

28. Our client is thinking about moving into a new office space. How many square feet should
they rent? (First round case)

29. How many chopsticks are sold in the US each year?

(McKinsey, First round case - international office)

30. How many ball point pens are sold in Korea each year?
(McKinsey, First round case - international office)

31. Our client is an independent distributor of music CDs to large chain department stores like
Kmart, Target and Wal-Mart. Their company handles 10 percent of all CDs sold. Thirty
percent of all music CDs are sold through large stores. They're worried that within the next
five years 75 percent of all music sold will be downloaded through the Internet. What
should they do? (McKinsey)

32. Our client is an entrepreneur who wants to start an urban delivery company in Boston (i.e.
Kozmo.com). He wants to be able to deliver “products” to his customers in under an hour.
His research showed that there is a demand and that people are willing to pay a premium
for this service. What are the key elements to the business started? (McKinsey)

33. Our client has invented a device that you can attach to the lens of a regular camera that
can record a digital picture. What is the market size and how would you price it? (1st round
case)

34. Your client just invented a drug that cures lung cancer. He wants you to come up with a
pricing strategy. What do you tell him? (1st round case)

35. How does American Express make its money on travelers’ checks? (McKinsey)

36. Our client wants build a high-speed railway from Toronto to Montreal. Should they make
the investment? (McKinsey)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

2 BCG caselets / questions

1. A cleaning product supply company's profits and revenues have been falling, but market
share has remained the same. What's going on? (Charts and graphs given) / (BCG 2nd
round Nov 04)

2. Our client owns 120 hotels. He has left the management of the properties to a
management company. Since 2001 they haven't broken even even though occupancy
rates averaged 80 percent. - Charts given (BCG 2nd-round Nov 04)

3. Our client is a mid-sized manufacturer of industrial batteries for the aerospace and defense
industry. For example, the company's batteries can be found in various military missiles as
well as in the Hubble Space Telescope. Over the last few years, the defense and
aerospace industries have been flat or declining, so the client is looking for high-growth
industries that might be able to make use of its battery technology. After a review of
possible industries, the client wants us to look at whether they can enter the market to
provide batteries for implantable cardiac defibrillators. Estimate the size of the market for
implantable cardiac defibrillators, and then tell me how you might go about helping the
client decide whether or not this is a good market to enter. (BCG 1st round Nov 04)

4. A music company is bringing out a CD for a new artist. How would you market and price,
knowing that you'd like to charge a premium for the cd? (BCG 2nd round Nov 04)

5. Our clients are a consortium of 10 commercial real estate companies (2-3 big companies,
4-5 mid-sized companies, and 1-2 small companies) that collectively own 350-400 buildings
in downtown areas of cities all over the country. Together, they spend $1 billion/year on all
of the non-sexy aspects of owning commercial real estate: cleaning and general
maintenance, plumbing and electrical repair, etc. They have come together to explore the
possibility of setting up a "buying pool" to realize cost reduction by achieving economies of
scale in purchasing products and contracting for services to conduct this general
maintenance. This "buying pool" will cost $40 million (one-time fixed cost) to set up and will
cost $10 million/year to maintain. Is this a good idea? What kind of information do you need
to know to help your clients decide if this is a good idea? (BCG 1st round Nov 04)

6. BCG gave me a lot of data to sift through to determine which demographic of cell phone
users it should target to increase revenues.
(BCG - First round - 10/03)

7. The industry is the Yellow Pages. What is the business? What do they do for money? What
is their profit? (BCG -first-round 2/02)

8. The client is a four-year music university in Boston that specializes in classical music for
pre-professional students. The university is under performing in three key areas when
compared to its biggest competitor. The areas are: applications per seat, high-quality
applications, and accepted applicants that enroll. The mission of the university is to
increase the number of high-quality students. (BCG -first-round 2/02)

9. Our client is a mutual fund that owns various stocks, including GM. GM's profit margin is
much lower than Toyota's. Our client has to determine whether to hold on the the GM
stock, so she wants to know why the low margins, and whether GM can improve their
margins. (First-round 12/02)

10. Our client is a player in the consumer electronics industry (say Philips) and they came up
with this new storage device format that is somewhat similar to a CD, but much smaller.

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

You will have to figure out whether such a new product will be a success. For now, before
you start doing the complete research, you should give them an initial assessment of this
new opportunity. (third round 12/02)

11. Our client is a local monopoly in gas distribution. Their problem is, their clients do not pay
on time. There have been numerous attempts in this respect but nothing worked so far.
Most recently the company set up a task force to call up customers and offer them
incentives to pay. The conclusions of this attempt were that there are not enough people
within the task force to make the necessary calls. Is this really the problem? Is there
another way of solving the problem? (third round 12/02)

12. You are consulting to the manufacturer of airplane engines (2 main engines: for wide body
planes and narrow body planes --> regional and low cost airlines, which are growing, use
the narrow body planes). The client is considering entering the airplane leasing market,
because one of its competitors (GE) is already there, and the client hypothesizes that GE's
presence in leasing helps its engine sales. What do you tell him? (BCG final round 11/02)

13. Case 1 (BCG 11/02) we have been hired by a Mexican company that has a dominant
position in all of its markets but one: ketchup. Although its ketchup sales have been
increasing, its market share is stagnant (10%) and its profit margin remains below that of its
competitors. What do you think might be happening? What would you suggest the client do
in order to increase market share and profits?

14. Case 2(BCG 11/02) A small pharmaceutical research company is about to start clinical
trials for a new and promising molecule. The trial process has three phases, with different
associated costs and probabilities of success:
Costs (million) Pr. Success
- Phase 1 $10 .40
- Phase 2 $5 .2
- Phase 3 $80 .105

If the process is successful and the new drug is introduced in the market, it would
generate total income flows of $300 million.

+ Draw a graph showing the income stream for the next ten years (assume that full
adoption is reached in year 7)

+ The pharmaceutical company is looking for a buyer. How much should it ask for?

15. A small agrichemical company wants to triple its revenue by 2005. What are some of its
options, and how would you evaluate those options?
(BCG - first round 10/02)

16. A Vietnamese manufacturer of cooking oil wants to improve its revenue. How would you
figure out how big the domestic market is [not a back of envelope calculation; assume you
had a week-- whom would you talk to?]? (BCG - first round - 10/02)

17. The oldest Opera House in San Francisco is failing and might have to close it's doors. How
can we save it? (BCG)

18. You are the CEO of a national hotel chain. After September 11th you have seen your sales,
like most in the travel and leisure industry, drop significantly. Your occupancy rate has
dropped from 75% to 50%. The breakdown of customers has also shifted. Before
September business travelers made up 70% of your clients, while vacationers made up
30%. It is now 60/40. What can we do to get our sales up? (BCG)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

19. Our client is the CEO of a chain of Do-It-Yourself stores. Sales have been flat and profits
have really taken a hit. Last year you had revenues of $280 million with a profit of $10
million. He has hired us to make some short-term improvements that will increase profits.
He doesn't want you to fool with store locations, store format or the brands that we carry.
What can you tell him? (BCG)

20. The Tube, the London underground is a mess. It’s too crowded, too expensive, and
constantly breaking down. The government is fighting over how to fix and fund it. The train
drivers’ union says it will go on strike unless the government guarantees that there will be
no layoffs. What steps would you take to "fix" the problem. (BCG)

21. How would you increase recruitment and retention in the military?(2nd round)

22. Last year, lawsuits cost corporations $200 billion compared with $70 billion in 1990. How
would you advise a roundtable of CEOs to attack tort reform. (3rd round)

23. The U.S. Post Office lost millions last year. How would you advise the new CEO to turn the
Post Office around. (3rd round)

24. How many airplanes are in United States airspace at 10:00 on a weekday morning? (1st
round)

25. A mobile phone manufacturer is trying to decide whether or not it should reduce prices to
gain market share. What do you tell him? (3rd round)

26. How many pounds of chocolate does America eat each year? (1st round)

27. A computer manufacturer such as IBM has developed a new computer that is 100 times
more powerful than existing models. What should be their marketing strategy and how
should they price it? (3rd round)

28. A major manufacturer of premium large appliances has been losing market share over the
past two years. They want to find out why, and what they can do about it. (2nd round)

29. AOL wants to increase its membership. It is thinking of giving a computer away with each
new account that signs a three -year service contract. Is this a good idea? (2nd round)

30. A coal mining firm wants to diversify. It is thinking of expanding into the kitty litter market
because it makes great use of it's coal chips. How big is the kitty litter market? Should the
coal firm enter the market and if so how is the best way to enter the market? (2nd round)

31. Hindustan Motors of Madras, India has been bleeding for the past 18 months, losing a lot of
money and experiencing declining sales. Why is this happening and how do we fix it? (1st
round)

32. A man who owns an oil and gas platform is offering to sell it. Would you buy it? (1st round)

33. Your client is a large food manufacturer that has had pressure from shareholders to
increase revenues. The manufacturer has had slow growth in North America and Europe
with top line growth of 2%. Your client has heard that the developing markets can be
profitable, and they want to know if they should invest? (2nd round)

34. Your client is in the cash management business unit of a major bank in Brazil. They sell
software to streamline the cash management of companies such as Carrefour, Nestle and
other small businesses. How would you structure a new customer service center? ( 2nd
round)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

35. A company developed a prototype of what it hopes to be an innovative medical product.

Designed to address serious injuries, the product is a malleable material that can act as a
synthetic bone, replacing a severely fractured bone and eliminating the need to fuse it back
together with a cumbersome and painful process of rods and pins. The company is in the
early stages and would like to know what some of the issues might be around this product.
What are some of the things you’d like to know before proceeding with this venture? (2nd
round)

36. Company Q manufactures wheel chairs. They’ve designed the ultimate wheel chair that
can climb stairs and can raise its seat to 6 feet in the air so the occupant can reach upper
shelves. A regular wheel chair costs x, a motorized wheel chair costs 2x, and this ultimate
wheel chair costs 4x. Who is the market? What is the market size? And should company Q
proceed with the rollout of the ultimate wheel chair? (2nd round)

37. Assess what factors need to be considered for a manufacturer who wants to possibly get
into the super sonic jet business. (2nd round)

38. Estimate the size of the moving industry. (2nd round)

39. A chemical company recently developed a road-surfacing compound designed to extend

the life of major highways. Currently, the Federal government must completely dig up and
replace its highways every five years. If highways are treated with this chemical, their
effective life-span increases to 20 years. Currently, the government spends $1,000 / mile to
replace the its roads. The total costs of the chemical (production and application) amount to
$50/mile (500 gallons of product used per mile). The management of the Chemical
company would like to know the following:
• Estimate the number of miles of Federal highways in the US
• How should management price the product?
• What other issues should the company be aware of
(a 2nd round case)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

3 Miscellaneous

1. Estimate the number of travel guides sold each year. (Katzenbach 2nd round Nov 04)

2. You have $50 million dollars to increase youth voter (18 to 29) turnout by the next presidential
election in 2008. How do you spend that money? (Katzenbach 1st round Nov 04)

3. Should Kraft Foods expand and incorporate ice cream into their product mix? If yes, how
should they enter this market? (Mercer 1st round - Nov 03)

4. You are starting a new business, a gourmet coffee shop. The shop is located next to a train
station. You're building the business with the hope of selling it within two years. What is your
strategy? (Mercer 1st round - Nov 03)

5. How big is the market for window display marketing books? (Mercer 1st round - Nov 03)

6. Our client is Apple Publishing, the largest publisher of children’s fiction in the industry. Seven
years ago the CEO became concerned that childhood literacy rates were low and decided to
make a difference. He entered the telemetry textbook market. He thinks they are the best now,
but hasn’t been rewarded. Seven years later he has 70 million dollars in sales and 20 million
dollars in losses. They are less than 5% of the market, but the CEO wants to stay in the market,
how can he do it? (Bain - first round -11/03)

7. The CFO of a top 3 retailer wants you to evaluate the viability of developing exclusive contracts
with distributors. The three questions you should address are:

1. Pro's and Con's of pursuing exclusive contracts

2. Identify the categories that should be explored for exclusive contracts

3. How would you operationalize these contracts?

(AT Kearney - First round - (10/03))

8. A New England telephone company is thinking of entering the home security market. What is
the potential market size and what would you recommend they do? (Mercer - First round
10/03)

9. How many checking accounts do you think there are in the United States? (LEK - First round
10/03)

10. "I had two interviews, each one lasting 45 minutes. Both cases lasted at least 35 minutes of the
time, so it was relatively case heavy. The cases were also a bit more technical than I had
practiced for, in terms of the interviewers presenting total market distribution and market share
graphs and calculating different metrics from those graphs. One case was about expanding into
a new market, the other about making a sales force more effective.

11. Our client produces 2-inch wrenches. They sell to Home Depot and also to auto-mechanics
directly. If you were a store manager at Home Depot, how many varieties of wrenches would
you display to sell and at what price points? How are the Home Depot wrench buyers different
from the auto mechanics? If you wanted to provide discounts to the auto mechanics, which of
them would you target and why? What information would you want from them first? (Bain -
first-round 2/2003)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

12. Your client sells coffee on the five Japanese Bullet trains (high speed trains). Estimate the size
of the market. How would you advise them to increase sales? (Bain - Tokyo office - 11/02)

13. You are the pastor of a church. Attendance is down. What would you do? (Parthenon - first
round - 11/02)

14. Our client, a private equity firm, is considering an investment in a manufacturer of digital inkjet
printers (printing large billboards). The manufacturer wants to enter the screen printing market
(printing signs and point-of purchase posters, e.g. for supermarket sales). How big is the
screen printing market? Which particular segment is the most attractive?

15. Estimate the market size of printers in Hong Kong. A U.S.-based PC manufacturer now wants
to get into the printer market. Assess the opportunity.

16. University town has a population of 40,000 students. Currently there are nine restaurants.
You're client is thinking about opening up the tenth. Is this a good idea and should she open up
a fast food or a specialty restaurant? (Bain - first round European office 11/02)

17. A major airline is thinking about going head to head with the discount airlines by offering
"cheap" fares. Does this make sense? Estimate the size of the European "discount" airline
market. (Bain - first round European office 11/02)

18. Our client is a company that makes telephone dial pads. They've decided to cut their price by
10 percent. Currently cost equal 40 percent of revenues. How much would they have to
increase their volume to reach the same revenues? (Katzenbach - first round 10/02)

19. We have been hired by a global wealth management company that has 2 divisions: asset
management and private banking. Our asset management profits have been decreasing, and
our private banking profits have been increasing. We need to help our client determine strategy
to increase all his profits. (Bain)

20. We have been hired by a client to help her evaluate his product mix and determine the best one
going forward. Refer to graphs. (Mercer)

21. We have been hired by the Board of a company that is loosing money. The Board has asked us
to determine whether any of this loss can be attributed to the Leer jet that the management
team uses. (Bain)

22. We have been hired by a company that has just finished making the Millennium Eye, a large
Ferris wheel that will be placed in the middle of London. Our client wants to know how big the
market is and how much we should charge per ticket. (Bain)

23. Our client is a magazine publisher. They are considering a new pricing program where the price
for subscriptions would increase every year. Evaluate how such a decision would impact their
business. Would you advise they do it? (Booz Allen, first round)

24. If I gave you $10 million dollars to invest in any one business, which would it be? (Mercer, first
round)

25. We have been hired by a computer manufacturing company that is thinking of entering the PDA
market. Our client wants us to give our recommendation - specifically, should we enter this
market, and if so, how much revenue/profit can we expect from the next three years? (Bain)

26. We have been hired by a company that makes glass bottles for the Folger's coffee company.
They are Folger's exclusive supplier for glass bottles in Massachusetts. We need to evaluate
whether this is a good business to be in, and what are the areas for growth? (Bain)

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IIM Kozhikode Interview cases/questions

27. A motorcycle company had 43 percent of the market in 1943. They stopped operations in 1953.
In 1998, a group of investors acquired the the brand name and restarted the company. In 2000,
they sold 5,000 motorcycles and had $90 million in revenues, but a 30% loss before taxes.
Should the investors throw in another $15 million in the company or shut its doors? Also
estimate the size of the US motorcycle market. (Parthenon)

28. Imagine a business that sells wrenches. We sell them through retail channels. What sorts of
things do you think about when setting price? Now imagine we have a new channel - a van
that sells wrenches onsite at construction sites. How does our model change? Is either
business attractive? Which one is more attractive? (Bain)

29. AOL wants to increase its membership. It is thinking of giving a computer away with each new
account that signs a three-year service contract. Is this a good idea? (Bain)

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