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

Introduction.

Tell me more about your work at ZS.

What are your top 5 strengths?

Godrej wants to launch FMCG products (soap and shampoo for this case) and wants to leverage analytics for the same. Where all can we use analytics?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I- Pan India. Consider generic product here and anyway I am looking for ways where we can deploy analytics – not particularly around product specific analytics. So, be as diverse as possible.

C- *Asked for a minute*

Okay, so there are following areas where we can take help of analytics –

To start with –

i) Demand forecast.
ii) Supply chain management & inventory optimization.
iii) Marketing mix.
iv) Salesforce deployment.
v) Customer service - Sentiment analysis & feedback.
vi) Pricing strategies.

*Interviewer stopped me in between and asked for more details on demand forecast and salesforce deployment*

Demand forecast – I would take data from competitors’ sales which have been operating in our product category. Plus, there are industry specific reports by several firms which can guide us with the same. This would enable the company to manufacture optimum quantity of goods thereby reducing inventory costs. Input from the local sales team will also act as an input while creating the forecast.

Salesforce deployment – I would create two teams for salesforce.

Wholesale team – Focused on major brands such as Dmart, Big bazaar, Star Bazaar and so on. If we can push for the shelf space in just the HQ, it would ensure that we have ample shelf space in all their branches.

Retail team – Focused on retailers. Identifying the right set of retailers or wholesalers to have a tie up with. Analytics can also be used to identify the right margin for them. Concentrated sales team would be required in places with high demand and analytics can be used to decide upon the frequency of visit based on relationship, influence of the retailer, and generated sales.

What have you done during your college life?

What challenges did you face while working on your NGO?

How did you land up at ZS?

The transition from Engineering to consulting?

So, you have worked at Tata Steel. What did you learn over there?

How would you determine the profitability of an investment?

Why do you want to join Accenture?

GTM strategy for a product with reference from my work experience.
Talked about the steps we followed during the drug launch and which part of it we worked on. Started with segmentation, pilot launch, co-launch with existing team and then full-fledged targeting.

Went onto talk at length on targeting.

• Q1. What other projects have you worked on at ZS?
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• Q2. Which one did you find most challenging?
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• Q3. How is pharma targeting different?
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• Q4. Had it been a different product, what would be your approach?
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• Q5. What was your project at Tata Steel?
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• Q6. Why did you form an NGO?
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• Q7. What challenges do you face?
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• Q8. Who is running it now that you are here? How do you finance it?
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• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. Tell me about the work you did in your previous company?
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• Q3. Tell me about the committee you are part of at IIM Lucknow. What all have you done till now for that?
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• Q4. Any questions that you have for us?
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• Q5. What did you like at Deloitte? What was your role?
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• Q1. This was supposed to be case solving round (as told by other candidates). For me, it was more conversational and less Q&A.
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• Q2. How are you doing today?
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• Q3. You have exactly one minute to tell me about yourself. So, keep it crisp and short.
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• Q4. Why Accenture?
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• Q5. Any academic project that you did in your college?
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• Q6. Did you appear for any process before this? Which company did you sit for and how was the process?
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• Q7. The Q&A were followed by some conversation about myself to end the interview with.
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• Q1. This was the partner round. Go in with the same energy as the previous interviews
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• Q2. So how has your day been? Must have been pretty tough going through multiple interviews?
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• Q3. So, tell me a little about yourself.
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• Q4. You said that you are into reading. What was the last book that you read and what did you learn from it?
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• Q5. What do you write? Can you recite some of your writings?
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• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. What are your strengths/weaknesses?
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• Q3. I had 6 case competitions on my CV, so questions were asked as to what the business problems were and how did you go about it?
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• Q4. Ever reflected on any of the failures; what did you learn from it?
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How would you use the competency of telecom industry to help SMEs grow?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Tell me about yourself and what are your strengths and weaknesses?

C: Introduced myself and touched upon my past experiences.

I: Let’s do a case. How would you use the competency of telecom industry to help SMEs grow?

C: I linked the data & reach of telecom industry with SMEs using the example of Jiomart's growth through WhatsApp. I did not have any particular structure in mind, so I just explained the concept and how would I go about it if I were to implement it for some company.

Guesstimate: Estimate the annual revenue by selling musical instruments pan India.
I used the filters: urban/rural, age demographics, professional/ beginner instruments and then a percentage estimate of people that would buy the instruments. After coming down to the last filter, I took an average estimate for both beginner instruments and professional instruments for coming to a final number.

Case: If you had to go about creating an e-commerce website with music as a product, how would you go about it? Give 3 reasons why you think it would fail.
I exhaustively listed down the customer journey of for buying music from online platforms and discussed about each of the touchpoints.

• Q1. Why Accenture? and why not Deloitte?
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• Q2. What industry do you want to work in?
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• Q3. Why MBA?
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• Q4. Why consulting?
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• Q5. Give me an example of a situation where you led your team to success.
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• Q6. Tell me about your job responsibilities and projects.
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• Q7. What did you like in Deloitte? and how will you implement the same at Accenture?
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• Q8. Tell me about the current e-commerce trends in India and how they will change by 2024?
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Your client is a musical equipment manufacturing company that is undergoing a loss for the
past 2 years. Provide them a solution.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Reiterated the problem statement and confirmed the objective; also asked for any other objective.

I: Let’s focus on the profit for now.

C: Asked him about the company, competitors and products sold.

I: Keyboards are the main products. They generate 80% revenue from them. Profits have been declining since 2019. A few competitors faced this same issue, but the others did not. Our client is the biggest player in the Indian market.

C: Profits depends on revenues and cost. Is it a cost side problem or revenue problem?

I: Let’s look at revenues first.

C: Revenues depends on price sold and quantity sold. Was there any change in any of these two factors?

I: Yes, the price remained the same while number of equipment sold increased. Can you tell me the reason for this?

C: Was it sudden increase or gradual increase?

I: Sudden increase.

C: There are two possibilities that I can think of

1) Covid lockdowns made a lot of people free to pursue their interest and kill boredom

2) Schools making music as a compulsory subject.

I: It’s the first option that you mentioned. People have been buying more equipment than usual during COVID. Good job figuring it out. Now tell me what does this mean for our client?

C: If quantity sold had increased and we continue to face losses then we must be facing a bigger issue on the cost side. Let me analyze the cost side of the problem.

Was there any increase in R&D costs, salaries, or training costs?

I: Yes, there was a slight increase here but not too significant. Let’s move further.

C: What about the raw materials required? Was there any change in them?

I: Tell me what the raw materials are first.

C: The materials I can think of are plastics, wood and electronic chips.

I: You are right. These are our main raw materials and yes there was a significant increase in the cost of electronic chips. Tell me why?

C: Increase in electronic chips could be due to more demand or increase in transportation costs or increase in storage costs or reduction in supply.

I: The demand has indeed increased, and production has decreased. Do you know why? It’s related to real life scenario.

C: Elaborated on covid and how it has increased the demand for electronic gadgets. Also highlighted how covid has affected supply chains due to shut down of multiple countries.

I: You are right but I want a specific answer for electronic chips.

C: Is it about the Taiwan China issue?

I: Bang on! That's what I wanted to hear. (Explained in detail about the issue and how it caused the shortage) Now tell me what should my client do?

C: 1) Can go for new suppliers who produce for our competitors (Short term solution).

2) Can try to setup a new plant separately in India with the help of the old supplier (long term solution).

I: That's exactly what our client had in mind. They are using our competitor's supplier for the short term and that is the reason for increase in the R&D and training costs. Can you figure out why that is?

C: They might be using a different technology for producing our chips and might require training to handle them.

I: Correct! Now tell me about your long-term solution. Will your old supplier really want to come to India to setup a new plant?

C: If he can get a good RoI then he will surely consider. Since we are the biggest player in the market, he will surely get a good deal of money from this.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. How is your journey been at Coal India Limited??
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• Q3. Why do you want to join Accenture?
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• Q4. How you are coping up with the pandemic scenario?
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• Q5. Explain one scenario where you have taken out of the box approach to solving the problem?
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• Q6. What was the most challenging scenario you faced while working with coal India limited?
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Let us say there is a manufacturing company A, selling small containers to a tyre manufacturing company MRF. MRF is packing their tyres in those small containers and sending them to a car manufacturing company, Maruti. Maruti is using those containers and sending back the containers to the manufacturer A while receiving the containers, A found that they are receiving damaged containers which is increasing their product cost. What incentive scheme company A could apply to reduce the damage rate of receiving the container?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: May I know at which end the containers are getting damaged?

Option 1: While travelling from A to MRF end
Option 2: While travelling from MRF to Maruti end
Option 3: While travelling from Maruti to A
Option 4: At Maruti’s end itself.
Option 5: At MRF’s end itself.

We can have a ranking system, where ranking will be based on the damage rate of the containers. High damaged containers pack will have a lower ranking and low damaged containers pack will have a higher ranking. Based on the ranking of the containers pack received company A will give a discount to MRF, which will do the same when they will start receiving the containers at a lower cost. As soon as Maruti will notice that they are receiving discounts not to damage containers and it is reducing the product cost at their end so they will start handling the containers more safely and also try to introduce a quality check before the containers leave Maruti.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. Walk me through your achievements.
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Client is a local clothing retailer with a well-established regional brand. Got multiple retail shops across India. In the advent of COVID they want to make a move into the online platform. Suggest ways to make the transition effectively.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Tell me about yourself.

C: Gave my introduction and mentioned about my past work experiences.

I: Alright, let us do a case. Client is a local clothing retailer with a well-established regional brand. Got multiple retail shops across India. In the advent of COVID they want to make a move into the online platform. Suggest ways to make the transition effectively.

C: I would like to ask a few clarifying questions. What are the regions the client operates in?

I: We have our presence pan India.

C: Do we have any monetary constraints and what is the timeline we are looking at?

I: No budget constraints and we are looking at 6 months’ timeframe.

C: Has there been constant growth in revenue or was it saturated?

I: There has been decent growth until COVID hit. Now you can proceed to provide the suggestions.

C: There are two major options available.

First one is the existing online channels. We can leverage existing online platforms like Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart etc. to market and sell the products.

The second option is to establish a separate website and market accordingly to lure new customers and continue ties with loyal customers.

The first option is more preferred as it requires lesser time to adapt and has the potential to capitalize on the massive traffic in these existing platforms. We can offer discounts to mark the entry into the online mode and can establish more hybrid models down the line.

I: Okay, sounds good. Let’s do a quick guestimate: Size of airport terminal building in a Tier 1 city like Patna.

C: I used Supply side approach to calculate potential traffic and converted it into space required in peak hours, considered 60 % area for footfall and remainder for other areas.

Client is a FMCG good manufacturer. Has had a lot of product returns lately. What are the probable reasons?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: What are the different types of products?

I: We have dairy products like paneer, curd, milk etc. You can make your assumptions and go ahead with the suggestions directly.

C: Firstly, since our client deals with dairy products, they will have relatively less shelf life (max of 1 week).

So, the following reasons could be attributed to the return:

1. Delay in delivery – constraint in logistics

2. Not storing them in the right temperature, while transporting

3. Low customer demand, retention of product with retailer

4. Inadequate testing - Lack of R&D

I was given a case based on my work experience. Digitization in the construction industry, how would you implement Industry 4.0?
CV preparation helped me ace this interview. The in-depth knowledge of the construction sector came into use.

Client is an apparel manufacturer (clothing only) and wants to double their revenues in a 72 span of 4 years –how should they go about it?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I would like to ask a few clarifying questions. What is their current mode of operation and where are the current operations based out of?

I: Operations are currently based out of India. They are a subcontractor in the value chain and have cotton-based apparels such as tops/ t-shirts, undergarments etc.

They have 10 factories in Coimbatore, Andhra and Punjab and supply to H&M, Gucci, M&S (biggest client), VS and other local brands. They cater to both Indian and global market.

C: Do they have both online and offline presence?

I: The client does not have any online operations. Offline channels are well established through contracts.

C: Are there any budget or time constraints?

I: No constraints. Their current revenue is Rs. 2 Bn.

C: We can explore 4 different options:

• Expand our product line and introduce curtains, bedsheets, mats.

• Start own brand and market as high-quality, low-cost product (wholesale margin reduced) and sell online (Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra).

• Increase reach through online and offline channels and advertisement to reach out to more people.

• Increase capacity of manufacturing plants. It currently operates at 60%, possibility of increasing it.

• Q1. I have a varied set of experiences in different domains and I was asked questions regarding my CV.
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• Q2. I was also quizzed on the reasons to pursue an MBA after such a long break.
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• Q3. The interviewer was also curious about my career choices.
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• Q4. The interaction lasted for about 20 minutes.
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I was asked to figure out subscription plans for a new OTT platform.

The questions went into certain technical aspects of OTT platforms, like Netflix's success story, Why Amazon came out with Prime and others?
As for the case, I asked a lot of questions as I went ahead with the case.

That is a very important aspect of case solving. It might not be possible for you to solve a case but if you ask intelligent questions, it works in your favor. It worked in mine.

The case, though, came very late in the interaction. The round again had questions on my career choices and HR. The interaction lasted for about 30 minutes.

• Q1. The final round was a Partner round.
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• Q2. There were two gentlemen who started by asking me about myself.
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• Q3. During the whole interaction, they kept on repeating that I have an interesting profile, I have a very unique profile. The interaction revolved around my CV and...read more
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• Q4. Most of the questions were from what I had done in my work experience(s).
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• Q5. They asked me about some of the initiatives that I undertook while in bank and in the casting office.
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• Q6. They were also interested in my reason to pursue MBA after such a long gap in formal education.
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• Q7. They also asked me what I did here to de-stress myself and I told them that I play football and write poetry.
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• Q8. They wanted me to recite a poem of mine and I did. They looked very impressed and post that, the interview didn't go on for very long.
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Tell me about yourself.

Why consulting?

Why Accenture?

Why should we select you?

What did you like at Deloitte? What was your role?

Case : rise in levels of pollution in Delhi (no handout was given)
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C- Reiterated the case. Asked if only causes or providing solutions for each as well.

I -Solutions as well.

C- Started with the causes.

I- Grilled deep into each cause and began noting down.

I- After causes what next.

C- Understanding which cause to be subdued - based on the time required for implementing solutions, the impact needed, which cause is causing most pollution etc.

I- Grilled further on each which I was able to answer and was asked to leave.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q1. How are you liking your MBA experience?
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• Q2. What all subjects do you have now?
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• Q3. Your favorite subject and least favorite subject?
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• Q4. What subject is most interesting and what would you want to pursue?
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• Q5. Why consulting after work-ex at Deloitte?
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• Q6. Situation where you led the team to achieve something significant.
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• Q7. Situation where you faced a lot of hurdles, how you overcame it and what were your learnings?
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• Q8. What is your most significant achievement and why?
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• Q9. Do you have any questions for us?
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• Q1. Give me a quick introduction about yourself. Why MBA? Why do you want to pursue a career in consulting?
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• Q2. What are the challenges that you have been facing in this virtual learning phase and how have you managed to overcome that? What would be your preferred work lo...read more
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• Q3. What were your roles and responsibilities at Mu Sigma? Walk me through a project that you have worked on during your tenure at Mu Sigma. Few questions around ch...read more
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• Q4. How did you on board sponsors for your college fest? What were the responsibilities you handled as the Secretary of Dance Club at NIT Warangal?
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State the effects, advantages, and disadvantages of teleportation. What industries do you think will be impacted the most by this?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I think teleportation will have an impact on several industries. If the teleportation technology is inexpensive, it will have an impact on automobile industry, aviation, and hospitality. Teleportation can emerge as an alternate to conventional modes of transport and find applications in travel and hospitality.

I: Alright. What do you think will be the biggest challenge in this case?

C: The biggest challenge will be the application of this technology and how to make it inexpensive. The more expensive the technology is, the more difficult its access would be.

I: I agree to what you are suggesting. What are the major risks associated with this technology?

C: The risks associated with this technology include safety and security. The industries that will see the maximum impact will be automobile, travel, and hospitality.