Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow Placement Interview Questions

• Q1. Case based on hyperlocal
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• Q2. Growth case and guestimates
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• Q3. Guestimates on category sizing
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• Q1. Asked for a sector pitch
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• Q2. Valuation of any preferred stock which falls in the same sector I have chosen
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Evolving nature of Fintech in India

• Q1. Product Improvement of Uber
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• Q2. CV and workex related questions - grilled
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• Q1. Introduce yourself.
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• Q2. How has your day been?
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• Q3. How many processes have you gone through till now?
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• Q4. What projects have you done till now which makes you think you are fit for consulting?
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• Q5. Could you please explain the CDF project.
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Mastercard wants to launch a loyalty product for an e-commerce player. Tell me how you would go about it and how we can select the partner.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Could you give me details about what kind of loyalty product do you have in your mind?

I: This is like Smart Buy which HDFC and Mastercard have launched. (She also told me about the portal and the card's benefits.)

C: (I basically thought of going by 4P approach and wrote down some factors to be considered for each head. communicated this to the interviewer.) Do you want me to evaluate the benefits of launching the loyalty card and what forms of benefits could be provided?

I: No, That's fine. Let us just focus on how you will select the e-commerce partner and which one.

C: I would like to focus on the current offerings on different platforms and then comparing them with some benefits that we could provide. There are some other factors that we need to consider like Flipkart having its own loyalty program- super coins and said that this would cause difficulty in partnering with them.

I: Why are you looking only at Flipkart or Amazon. Do you know what an e-commerce platform means?

C: There are different aggregators in various categories like transport, food, and others, giving examples.

I: Right. Let us pick one and then see why that would be beneficial for us.

C: Let us start with Swiggy. Zomato has a premium membership while Swiggy did not which made it a good partner.

I: That's fine we can close the case here. That will be all from my side.

• Q1. Estimate the yearly revenue of Cafeteria & Co.
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• Q1. Guesstimate the sale of air purifiers in India.
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Let us quickly do a short case as we are short on time. ICICI bank has 1000 customers who use their commercial credit cards. These cards are of 2 types -

1) Purchase cards,
2) Travel & expense cards.

I want you to give me factors to look into by which we can identify which customers (companies) spend less using our cards and which have the potential for more.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: We can look into the cash flow and income statements of all 1000 companies and then compare them.

I: That's exactly right. But it is difficult to get this data as all companies might not be listed. Tell me how we can go ahead with the internal data itself.

C: I just wanted to clarify that the internal data referred to spending by different companies or not.

I: Yeah, that is right. We also can get a proxy of revenue for our clients.

C: Then what we can do is take out the ratio of revenue to expenditure for all our clients and further the percentage of their expenses that are made through our cards. We can then benchmark our clients against some high spending companies within our portfolio.

I: That's great Abhishek. That is the right way to go about it. So now ICICI has identified 200 such clients which have the potential to increase their spends. Tell me how we can come up with a strategy to target them.

C: We can further divide the expenses into various heads and then see which company is spending less where and come up with an appropriate pitch for that client.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. Why Consulting? Why A&M?
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• Q3. Why do you think you are a good fit?
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• Q4. What are your interests outside of work?
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• Q5. Tell me about your work with EY.
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• Q6. What are the projects you have loved the most?
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• Q7. How has your day been?
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• Q8. Who all have you interacted with today (From A&M)? How have your interactions been so far?
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• Q9. Tell me about your interests.
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• Q10. What do you understand about consulting and A&M? What is the job like? Have you or anybody else in your family travelled for work?
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Suppose you have a PE firm as your client, looking to invest in a company into packaging business. The client has 2 options.

• Company A: 200Cr in revenues, 15 Cr EBITDA, Growth rate 10%
• Company B: 150 Cr in revenues, 18 Cr EBITDA, Growth rate 15%

You have to assess the options. However, you cannot ask for more than two data points from me/client.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I would ask for the following two data points:

1. Purpose of the investment? I want to understand if the investment has a larger strategic motive or if it is being done purely from an investment perspective.

2. Considering we are looking at EBITDA numbers right now and not the net profit, I would want to know the capital structure of the two companies - debt/equity split and financial costs, if any.

I: The client is PE firm. They are only motive is to maximize their profits. (I do not remember him mentioning that the client was a PE firm initially. If he did, this was a blunder on my part.) Gave me numbers for capital structure, interest costs.

C: Based on the limited information available, Company B appears to be the better option. Do you want me to explore the two options further?

I: Yes, maybe we can dig deeper. What are some other factors that would affect the decision?

C: Listed factors like - revenue current and future, interest burden, volatility of revenue (risks), diversity of revenue streams (to hedge against risks), environmental factors, increasing costs, etc.

I: Asked me to think more. What would be that one piece of information that would change your decision altogether?

C: ROI to the firm (How much would I need to invest to earn x% return) - this should have been mentioned before (ideally) - defended myself by saying that I had asked for the capital structure and as per his reply capital investment was comparable.

I: Gave me feedback. You could have thought about the total capital requirement of the firm. Did not consider whether the companies would need to raise additional capital to grow at the projected rates - apart from the money they would be raising from our client.

Your client is an EPC company (construction business). They work in construction of roads, buildings, water tanks, etc. The client has heard from a friend that there are growing opportunities in water sector. The client has reached out for your help to figure out whether they should pursue this.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Started with CPCC to understand the context. Asked questions on the motives.

I: Gave me facts about the company, competition, market scenario for EPC players.

C: You initially mentioned that the client has a presence in water tanks - you mentioned projects like construction of water tanks. What are these new opportunities that we are exploring now? Are they different from the kind of work we already do?

I: Gave me a detailed description of water sector projects - different categories.

C: Asked a few questions related to each category - customer profiles, market size, growth rates, competition.

C: I believe I have got a good sense of the overall business and the opportunity we are analyzing right now. I would now proceed to analyze the factors that could have an impact on the decision.

Started with PESTLE, Porter's 5 forces. However, he asked me to quickly list all the factors - did not give a lot of information.

I: From our discussion so far, can you list the top 3-4 factors that will be relevant to the decision?

C: Listed 3 factors.

I: Alright. So, let us assume after all the discussion, we have narrowed down on XX opportunity and it requires an investment of INR 1000 Cr. The project would give the client INR 100 Cr in cash inflows for the next 15 years. Should the client go ahead with this?

C: Asked questions about equity/debt split, cost of capital, cost of debt. He gave me the numbers.

I started with the calculation at this point. I was 30-40 seconds into the calculation when he realized that the calculation had become a little complicated (because of the additional information he had just given me).

I: Let us not get into the entire calculation. That may take too much time. Tell me the approach you were following.

C: Explained IRR calculation. IF IRR> Weighted cost of capital - profitable investment. If not, the client should not invest.

• Q1. 1. Guesstimate on estimating the number of trees in Gurgaon.
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• Q2. 2. Suppose you have $ 1mn to invest and 3-4 stocks to choose from, what are the factors you would consider for selecting any stock?
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• Q3. 3. Suppose your client is establishing a hospital on a highway in India. What are the factors that need to be considered?
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• Q1. Introduce yourself.
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• Q2. What are you passionate about?
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• Q3. Why consulting?
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• Q4. Describe your role at Microsoft and their business model.
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• Q5. Follow-up questions on work experience.
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Sales, marketing, distribution strategy for low-cost water purifier. This statement was related to my CV, had mentioned a water purification project as part of social initiatives in CV.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Sales, marketing, distribution strategy for low-cost water purifier.

C: I asked clarifying questions on the company, the geography the client is planning to launch in, the cost of the purifier, competition in market, and any target customers. I then understood about the functioning of the purifier to check on constraints like the need of electricity etc.

I: There is 1 competitor in the market. Which all customers will you target?

C: I kept access to electricity and lower income group while deciding target audience to come up with distribution strategy involving government, NGOs etc. Then, I identified promotional strategy, included CSR initiatives for villages.

Sales for a candy company has dropped in past 4-5 months. Help the client with the same.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I began with clarifying the problem statement and asked questions around the company, candy variants, price, competition etc. I also included the distribution channel in my scoping questions.

I: The distribution channel is from company to wholesale to retail shops. Regarding competition, 1 competitor is gaining market share.

C: I talked about how candies are commoditized. The next step was to structure the problem into supply-demand and identified the issue from the demand side. Through probing questions identified, that the distributors are the same for various candy companies. Enquired about distributor margins etc. They were the same. I then mapped the customer journey and identified retail shop owner as the major decision maker while handing candies to customers. As next step, I asked questions about the margins for retailers and figured out that the competitor was offering double the margin as the client.

If I want to introduce calligraphy as a course in Delhi University, what factors should be considered? Had mentioned Calligraphy as a hobby.
Enrollment in a course can depend on - future job options, nearby institutes/academies offering such courses.

I mentioned that in DU course fees are less, but the total cost incurred in terms of materials etc. should be factored in.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself
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• Q2. The interviewer asked about my exposure to the retail industry based on my workex.
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• Q3. What motivates you to work?
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• Q4. Why do you want to join A&M?
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Suppose you are a consultant at A&M and your client is the Mumbai International Airport Authority. The CEO has approached you to suggest ways to increase earnings per passenger.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I would like to start by splitting the revenue into aero and non-aero revenue. Would you like me to focus on any particular revenue stream first?

I: Yes, let us focus on non-aero revenue sources only.

C: I would like to map the customer journey here and identify key factors impacting the non-aero revenue. Passenger Mix, Placement of Retail outlets and Retail Mix are the three critical parameters.

At this point, data for Retail spend per passenger, Retail Area and Passenger Mix (International: Domestic) was provided.

C: Calculated the current numbers and what incremental revenue would the airport be able to generate through changes at various steps.

I: Could you please go ahead and compare these parameters with four major airports - Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore?

C: Differentiated the airports based on available data. Provided final recommendations for increasing the revenue.

I: Assume that there is an option to place a Subway or an Apparel shop near the boarding gates. What would you recommend?

C: Calculated the monthly revenue for both options using footfalls and average bill value, splitting into the peak, non-peak, non-operational hours and came up with a final recommendation.

Our client is a PE firm, looking to invest in a mid-market player in the Cement industry. How would you form a view on its pricing growth?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Before I move on to pricing, I would like to understand a bit more about the cement company, its customers and current competition in the market.

I: Interviewer provides details of the company.

C: I now have a fair understanding of the company and would now like to move on to the macroeconomic factors impacting the industry and then would like to understand the cement industry scenario in terms of buyer, suppliers, and competition.

I: Interviewer provides details on the questions asked. How do you now approach the pricing growth?

C: Discussed the three main ways of pricing - Cost, Competition and Value based.

I: Talked about relevant concepts including asset turnover and RoI.

• Q1. Estimate the number of pressure cookers sold in a year in India.
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• Q2. List down the factors to be considered while setting up a hospital on a highway.
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• Q3. How many cricket balls are used in an IPL series?
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• Q1. Introduce yourself.
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Guesstimate the number of table tennis balls you can fit into an airplane.
I started with estimated the volume of one table tennis ball and then estimated the volume of a plane.

(Considered the plane to be made of a cylinder and two conical structures at the two ends; I simplified the streamlined body).

Then I estimated the luggage space using the estimate of number of passengers and their 15kg
luggage allocation.

I further added a threshold for the extra luggage that is allowed after payment. I also accounted for engines, wings, seats, upper cabin luggage, washroom etc.

Your client is a mall chain owner in Singapore. They have been facing a decline in profits lately. You have been asked to identify the problem and recommend solutions.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: I would like to know a little bit more about the client. How many malls do they own? Are these typical malls like we have Phoenix Malls in India?

I: Yes, similar to Phoenix malls in India. They have 3 malls in Singapore.

C: Is the problem with all the three malls or any one in specific? If all, is the competition also facing a similar issue?

I: Just one mall and the competition are not facing the issue.

C: Okay. Digging deeper into the profitability issue, is it because of the declining revenues or increasing costs or a combination of both?

I: It's a combination. I would like you to explore revenues first.

C: Okay. Broadly I can divide the revenue streams for the mall into rent and commissions from shops, advertisements inside and outside the mall and parking fees.

I: Let's look at commissions.

C: Okay. The shops can further be divided into premium and normal. For each there will be food, apparels, shoes, accessories, and shops like lifestyle, pantaloons in India where you find everything (except for food).

I: Correct. Let's look at these shops where you can find everything. This is where our commissions have been declining. Can you suggest any solutions?

C: Sure. Customers visit these shops because they can find all the brands at one location though the collection is limited for each brand. They also get discounts in these shops.

The staff can be better trained at handling the customers and identifying what they are looking for exactly.

The mannequins should be carefully displayed as they play a crucial role in converting a sale for a window shopper. (This is coming from personal experience)

• Q1. What do you know about MasterCard?
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• Q2. Why do you want to join MasterCard?
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• Q3. Where you do you see yourself 5 years down the line?
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• Q4. How do you think you did in the case and guesstimate round?
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• Q5. Tell us about your Scuba diving experience? (It was mentioned in the CV)
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