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

• Q1. What is your understanding about the role?
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• Q2. Explain the audience & customer strategies you used in your work ex.
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• Q3. Tell me something about yourself apart from CV.
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• Q4. What skills have you learned in your work-ex & how will you apply them at PwC?
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• Q5. Have you ever managed a team/people?
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• Q6. How do you manage conflict in a team?
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• Q7. How do you make sure your point is heard across in a discussion?
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• Q8. Have you ever faced a challenging situation?
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• Q9. List out some points of learning from the two companies you have worked with. How different was the experience, what did you notice about the two industries?
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An AI Solutions Provider is facing profitability issues. Help!
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Our client who is an AI solutions provider is recently facing profitability issues.

C: Clarified the problem statement and asked since when the client was facing profit issue & by how much.

I: Profits have fallen by approx. 20% in the last 1 year.

C: When we say the profits are declining, is it revenue which is getting impacted or the costs are rising for the firm.

I: Primarily, it is a revenue side problem.

C: Where is the client based out of, how long has it been in the market?

I: Client is based out of the US, is an established player in the AI industry with a good client base.

C: How is the industry trend? Since it is an AI solutions provider, I believe the industry would be growing – has there been a new competitor which has entered?

I: Great, as you rightly pointed out, the industry is growing but we are facing issues.

C: When we say AI solutions provider, what does the company essentially do & who are the customers & where are they located?

I: It caters to AI technology requirements of industries, they serve a wide range of businesses mainly in the US - Retail, Manufacturing, Logistics, IT.

C: What are the different product offerings & revenue streams of the company?

I: There are a wide range of products which the company offers, major revenue streams of the company come from a) Selling hardware b) Contract or subscription basis c) Services.

C: Is the drop across all these buckets or should we focus on a particular segment first?

I: Focus on the services side.

C: Revenue from services only comes from customers having a contract or subscription or there are also companies with which we have a service only relationship?

I: We only offer services to companies with which we have a contract.

C: Within services these can be the possible segments where the company needs to look at in terms of improvement: - Maintenance - Data & Insights - Complaint Resolutions - Technology Upgrade. Have I missed anything?

I: These are all valid in the given context, you have rightly pointed out some of the possible reasons which are leading to a downfall in services revenue. Technology upgrade & complaint resolutions are something which the firm is struggling with. Can you frame some solutions to the problem statement?

C: As far as our discussion goes, the client is primarily facing problems in the services domain and needs to retain services from its existing partners. I suggest below pointers as solutions:

- Strengthen feedback mechanism for queries & complaint resolution.
- Make a separate department to identify current advancement in technology & incorporate those suggestions in current service offerings.
- Establish a ticketing system to see what the possible queries in different industries are (manufacturing, retail, IT etc.), automate some processes to improve the resolution efficiency.
- Speak to BD team & identify partner issues in real time so that there is no lag in information flow across product & market.

Market Estimation & Pricing of a Food Delivery Service in Pune.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: The food delivery service is a personal venture (from home) or we are looking at an established restaurant entering food delivery?

I: It is a personal venture, to be carried out specifically from home & to serve the local population (typical dabbawalla or tiffin system).

C: First, I would like to estimate the market size for the service & then would move to the pricing part.

I: Please go ahead.

C: Assuming the owner is living in a 5000 (population) strong locality, we will segment the population basis demographic factors: Occupation. Divided the locality into 4 parts - a) Family b) Students (age>15 yrs.) c) Working people living alone d) Others.

Since Pune is a Corporate hub & also has many colleges and institutes, I took an appropriate % for each of the mentioned buckets.

Family - 40%
Students - 20%
Working People living alone - 20%
Others - 20%

Primarily, our target market is students & working people living alone, which constitutes 40% of the locality = 40% (5000) = 2000 Total potential consumers for our business = 2000.

Now, I followed the awareness - consideration - conversion framework.

Owner, through his own contacts & referrals, can reach out to roughly 200 people without any promotion activities (banners, paid posts etc.)

Through promotion he can further reach out to 400 more.

Hence total size with awareness about the service = 600.

Further, segmented the awareness pool into people who are a) satisfied with their food service, b) not satisfied & c) do not have any regular system & rely on office & online orders. For the sake of simplicity, assumed this to be equal % i.e., 1/3 (600) = 200 for each segment. Only people who are not satisfied would be willing to try our offering, hence Consideration = 200.

Finally, they would evaluate multiple alternatives. Asked a question about the no of competitors to which the interviewer asked me to use my knowledge about the area.

As Pune has multiple food delivery alternatives, I assumed it to be a competitive market & only 25% of the consideration pool would finally convert as customers. Hence, 50 people per day would be our customers initially.

Pricing: Did a cost based & substitute-based pricing here. Calculated price per meal breaking down into segments:

1. Raw material/ Material 2. Labor 3. Logistics 4. Promotion Cost per standard meal (regular ingredients) came out to be around Rs 80, adding a profit % of 20, gave the final price ~ Rs 100.

I: Okay, now that you have the no of consumers you would have for the service can u think of increasing customers for this business?

C: Gave ideas around menu diversification as we were primarily focused on students & working population gave ideas which would suit their requirements.

- For working people: Fresh menu kind of service where they would get healthy food.
- Students - Protein rich diet (nonveg).
- Promotions: Leverage Social Media, ask customers to post positive reviews, have a good feedback mechanism & focus on quality packaging as its important for people who travel for work.

Calculate the volume of paint needed to pain a Boeing 747.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Asked whether we must paint the jet only on the outside or completely.

I: Only on the outside.

C: Approach - We will calculate the total surface area of the jet, dividing it into constituent parts - (Cabin - Cylinder, Cockpit - Hemisphere, Wings - Triangle, Stabilizers (for brand logo) – Triangle).

Used my height as reference to calculate the radius of the cabin (3 meters), length of the cabin = 70 meters, assumed wings to be equilateral with 30 meters side, stabilizers ~ 1/4th size of wings, cockpit - hemisphere with radius 2 meters).

Used formula is for Surface area (Hemisphere, Cylinder, Triangle).

Assumed 1 sq meter of area to consume 200 ml of paint & multiplied the total surface are by 200 to get volume of paint in ml.

• Q1. What was your daily work management (DWM)?
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• Q2. Introduce yourself and don't stop till we ask you to.
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• Q3. What do you see yourself as? Marketer, consultant, HR person, what exactly?
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• Q4. Give us 3-4 values basis which you function.
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• Q5. Tell us of some instances wherein you handled people and a lot of people management was required.
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• Q6. Justification of numbers on CV.
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• Q7. In-depth questions on all work-ex section.
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Imagine a situation on a shop floor wherein you see a defect in functioning or something which is malfunctioning; help us out with a detailed root cause analysis (RCA).
I used a scenario of oil leakage from a CNC machine and used 3 RCA tools: 5 Why analysis, Fishbone diagram and FMEA.

Types of poka-yokes and explain how exactly you can implement at least 4-5 varieties of poka-yokes at vendors location.
I gave one example each of implementation (end to end) of poka-yokes such as

1. Elimination poka-yoke

2. Replacement poka-yoke

3. Prevention poka-yoke

4. Facilitation poka-yoke

5. Detection poka-yoke

6. Mitigation poka-yok

There is demand in market, but the manufacturer is not able to supply the goods. Find probable reasons (raw material, manpower, logistics and financials are not the reasons).
I used value stream mapping, 4M-1T conditions, process capabilities and all 8 TPM pillars such as JH, QM etc.

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q2. Tell me about your past work experience (mostly on numbers that I mentioned).
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• Q3. Why do you want to join Accenture and why do you think consulting is the best fit for you?
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• Q4. What did a typical day in your life look like, in your previous organization?
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• Q5. Do you have any questions for us?
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• Q1. Introduce yourself.
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• Q2. In depth questions about internship and live project. They asked how those things can be applied to some real-world problems.
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• Q3. About my reading hobby and a few follow up questions about Khaled Hosseini's books.
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• Q4. How was your internship at Microsoft?
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• Q5. If you would have met Satya Nadella in a lift and he asked you that Microsoft has a lot of cash and wants to spend the money. Suggest 5 ways in which he can, an...read more
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• Q6. What 5 things did you learn at your internship at Microsoft?
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• Q7. Tell me something about yourself and your family.
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• Q8. Where do you see yourself in 15 years?
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• Q9. What hidden agendas do you have that Accenture can help you achieve?
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Guesstimate the market size for an e-tailer selling plants, seeds, and pots for domestic gardens in Delhi. Then after the Guesstimate they asked me to come up with products that the e-tailer should sell
Asked a few clarifying questions about the business. Then did a standard guesstimate. Divided the population based on income and worked my way forward.

For different products, I again used consumer insights and what are the requirements of the consumer. And based on that suggested an exhaustive list of products.

Mitsubishi motors wants to enter into the auto-finance market in India. Should they or should they not?
I started with the CPCC framework. Then followed the market entry framework and tried to explain everything because the interviewer could not see my page as the interview was online. She asked me various grilling questions and came up with counter arguments.

Try to give some logical explanation and if completely cornered accept your mistake and correct it as per the suggestion.

This shows your honoring other's opinions and accepting your mistakes. After a long discussion, I suggested that they should not enter the market, after analyzing all the aspects of the Market-Entry framework.

Guesstimate the number of readers of an English men's health magazine in India.
The guesstimate was straight forward.

• Q1. Briefly walk us through your professional life.
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• Q2. Tell me more about this academic research project that you have mentioned in your CV.
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• Q3. What were the variables considered, tools used, modelling done, and conclusions drawn?
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• Q4. Tell us about some of your learnings from team projects and individual assignments that you may have taken up during the course of your graduation.
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• Q5. How has your IIM Journey been so far?
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• Q6. Tell us a bit more about your role in the PORs that you have mentioned. How do you think they can help you while you aim to pursue a role in consulting?
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A firm that has 2 divisions. Each division produces 2 products, A and B. The first division is more profitable than the other, what is the reason for this?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Sure, so the firm in consideration has 2 divisions with 2 products in each of them and we wish to find the reason for a greater profitability of the first division. Could I ask a few clarifying questions in order to understand the problem in hand?

I: Yes, go ahead.

C: I would want to know a little more about the company? Is it a new company or an established one? And about the divisions, is any one of them more recent?

I: The company is an established one and both divisions have been operating since inception. You can move on; the divisions are similar in terms of their product designs. You need not take the revenue cost approach here; it is a customer-centric case. To add in some information, the customers of the firm are government as well as private sector companies.

C: Oh, I see. On those lines, is there any particular division that each of these segments focus on?

I: They do buy a mix but one of the divisions sells imported products and one sells local made products.

C: Understandable. Considering the difference in imported and private products, I believe this is quite important as government sector would prefer buying local made products over the imported ones. Is there a difference in the prices offered by the divisions as well?

I: Yes, you can assume that.

C: Okay. So, I assume that the division with local made products would be selling a greater quantity to the government sector customers at a significantly lower price while the imported goods and services are comparatively costlier and procured majorly by the private customers. Assuming the quantity to be the same, this difference in price would be one of the major reasons for difference in profitability. In addition, we could also look at other factors.

I: That's alright, you arrived at the major reason.

1. A company has a manufacturing plant in Pune while it serves the customers in Gujarat. It wants to shift the plant to Sikkim. Could you highlight some key implications of the same?

2. A company has its marketing activities running across television, social media, blogs, websites etc. How can it optimize their marketing spend?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Let us solve some cases. First, a general one and then one in marketing. Is that okay?

C: Sure.

I: A company has a manufacturing plant in Pune while it serves the customers in Gujarat. It wants to shift the plant to Sikkim. Could you highlight some key implications of the same?

C: There are various implications that the company would have in terms of business, economic, financial etc. but I would also want to know what is the reason of this shift? Are they planning to venture into another market or any such plans?

I: No, everything remains the same. Just that there have been certain issues with the Pune plant and want to relocate.

C: Alright. Considering the two locations are quite different geographically as well, firstly, there would be financial implications in terms of the costs associated with buying the land, machinery etc. The governmental norms may be different for operations, the technological requirements.

I: That is perfect, tell me a bit more on the cost side.

C: In terms of cost, the company needs to probably purchase a land, the price for which may be different as compared to Pune. It would then need to purchase the machinery and equipment. New licenses to operate would need to be bought. The labor charges and training charges would be different. All these could either be disposed of at Pune and a new set may be purchased at Sikkim or the same may be transported, both may have different implications, positive/ negative. Further on production, the costs incurred would be different to transport the goods and services to Gujarat would probably be more from Sikkim due to the distance and as per the inventory, further logistics cost shall be considered.

I: That seems enough, great. A quick question now: A company has its marketing activities running across television, social media, blogs, websites etc. How can it optimize their marketing spend? Just touch upon the points, you need to delve deep into any.

C: Oh sure. In order to optimize the marketing, spend, the company must proceed in three phases- Analyze, Plan and Spend. It should first analyze if the current expenditure on various media and channels are effective to their target customers they plan to reach and the forecasted response. This can be done by checking the TRP for televisions, number of visitors on websites, number of clicks on display and search ads and the revenue earned from the same.

Using the results of this analysis, planning needs to be done on understanding the improvements, switching of channels.

• Q1. I have gone through your CV, but can you tell your life story and some key things from your resume?
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• Q2. If we don't make an offer to you today, what will you do and how would you react?
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• Q3. You said that McKinsey is your dream company, what is that about McKinsey?
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• Q4. Tell me about a situation when you were leading a team, and the team didn't perform to its potential, what did you do?
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I am running a very niche NBFC targeted at MSMEs. I offer hassle-free small ticket loans of about 5-10-15 lakhs through digitization. We are not growing as per our expectations, please help.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Since when are we facing the problem and what is our target for growth?

I: We want to grow 3x-4x in a year, and the problem is happening for the last 12-18 months.

C: Which cities are we targeting currently? And MSMEs in which sector particularly?

I: We are currently focused on top 10-15 cities of India, on front end, we don't have any sectoral preferences, however, in the backend, most of our loans have been granted to MSME construction firms, restaurants and garages.

C: Can I know more about the loan terms: Collateral, documentation needed, time taken to disburse loans, Interest rates, payment terms etc.?

I: Loans are collateral free, we do full documentation check: where we need bank statements and P&L statements of the MSME for cash flow estimation, GST linkages etc. As I told the process is hassle free, we provide loans in 1-2 days, and since the loans are provided quickly, interest rates are little on higher side.

C: What is the time frame we are looking at? Is there any budgetary constraint?

I: Time horizon is 6-12 months and definitely no NBFC would be burning money like that.

(CASE SOLVING: STRUCTURE)

C: As we wish to grow the number of loans disbursed, we can divide it into: Number of customers * number of loans per customer
Focusing on number of customers: we can look at 3 dimensions:

1) New markets: Outside India and Inside India (Tier 2-3 cities where most of the MSMEs are based out of)

2) New products: Expanding into banking, Fintech (Digital payments, digital insurance, wealth tech etc.)

3) Market penetration: Attracting more no. of customers in the existing market.

I: Start with 3rd part.

C: Can I know more about the distribution model, is it all digital or we also have salesforce?

I: We operate largely online, however, salesforce is used to spread word amongst MSMEs.

C: I would like to structure this ahead in terms of

1) Awareness of our NBFC

2) Loan terms attractiveness

3) Accessibility of our salesforce and digital platform

4) Experience: issues in loan disbursal process

I: Okay, start from the first one then.

C: I would like to explore all possible mediums of lead generation like telephone calls, face to face visits, emails, website, apps and affiliate marketing. is there problem across any?

I: No.

C: Based on my prior case competition experience, where I did personal surveys with 30+ MSMEs, most of the mails etc. are made in English and loads of calls and emails are considered as SPAM by MSMEs, thus I would suggest calls and mails should be made in the regional languages of the MSMEs, and for greater trust and credibility, we should reach out to trade associations like Shankar Market Trade association in Delhi.

Generally, the MSMEs. are organized into trade associations and thus reaching out directly to these trade associations and their presidents, provide greater credibility and support from MSMEs.

I: Yes, this could be done, what else? You talked about Amazon; how can we leverage them?

C: Yes, we can do affiliate marketing on Amazon and their home page.

I: What about the various sellers who are selling on Amazon, aren't they also our target market?

C: Yes, absolutely, we should rather partner with Amazon to list us as SME loan provider while a seller is registering and creating profile with Amazon, to target them in the beginning only.

I: Yes, this could also be done. What next?

C: I would like to shift to loan terms now.

You mentioned that our rate of interest in higher, is it a possibility that we can reduce them a notch?

I: The problem is that we have little data, and thus interest rates are charged higher due to limited data.

C: In that case, for gathering more data, we should make use of open banking, partner with various digital payments providers like Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay that these MSMEs use for collecting payments so that we can estimate cash flows of the MSMEs with greater accuracy based on thus data, as a result, our interest rates can also reduce.

I: Okay, what else?

C: We can also look at the tenure and frequency of payments (EMIs), increasing the tenure of loans, provides greater cushion to MSMEs and flexible loan payment terms like balloon payments, quarterly, half yearly or yearly installments rather than monthly payments, would ease the pressure on the clients. Also, we can facilitate Auto debits, ECS/NACH mechanism so that MSMEs are regular in their payments, and they don't default.

I: We are already having auto debit facility, what else?

C: I would now like to look at accessibility part. is our app present on Android/Apple phones?

I: Yes.

C: Is there any problem with loading of the website/app and working speed?

I: No.

C: Ok, then I would shift to our salesforce. Here, I would look at quantitative and qualitative factors. Quantitative: number of salesforces, number of visits made by each. Qualitative: quality of engagement with the MSMEs, negotiation skills, training, experience etc.

I: (Abruptly ended the case, and asked to tell 2-3 major ideas from the entire discussion).

Numerical Problem

I: We are a cellphone manufacturer; we are facing the following issue -

Current price: 1000$
Margin per unit: 200$
Currently selling 2 million units:

Sales head has come with the following proposal:

Reduce price by 5%, and volume would go up by 25%.

Evaluate the proposal on contribution margin basis.

Now, if you don't want your contribution to get impacted, by what percentage should your cost reduce.
Solved the numerical based on my course knowledge.

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q2. Asked to walk through all the projects in work experience. Some cross questions on the same lines.
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Started with interviewer telling me about him and his work area in A&M.

Tell me about yourself?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Presented the prepared answer but modulated it more towards work experience and internships done in same area as the interviewer (Pharma).

I: Walk me through your CV and major projects done?

C: Started from work experience and explained all projects with an addition of projects done in internships at the end.

I: Your client is a big hospital looking to improve its operations. Come up with main 3 problems you would consider improving on by applying analytics-based methods.

C: Took a min to note down certain points. Followed the problems a normal person would face in the hospital after entering and effectively communicated my thinking for the problem with the interviewer.

Addressed problems relating to scheduling for a patient in attending a doctor consultation or lab, self-registration after entering hospital and report collection etc. and applied analytics-based solutions for the same.

You are conducting a cricket tournament in IIM Lucknow. How many cricket balls would be used in it if you want to order all at once?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Tell me about your projects in dashboarding?

C: Walked him through all the projects done in that domain with all the technologies used. Some cross questioning on hygiene check of dashboards and things to consider while developing them.

I: As you mentioned you have a liking for sports, let's do a guesstimate. You are conducting a cricket tournament in IIM Lucknow. How many cricket balls would be used in it if you want to order all at once?

C: Asked preliminary questions about the tournament pattern and number of teams involved. Calculated the number of matches that would be played and then the number of balls that would be required. Added a buffer stock at the end as a random percentage but gave reasoning on the basis of loss and wear & tear of the balls.

The Interview was basically a last round just to know me more and about my background. Asked questions on why I chose biotechnology and now an MBA and how I see the biotech space growing in near future with some new findings in that area.

Some questions were about my work experience and internships and also about the life at IIM Lucknow so far.

• Q1. Questions on CV and work experience.
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• Q2. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q3. What kind of work you did?
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Guesstimate on Number of electric vehicle sales in India in 2030.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Let’s do a guesstimate. We are concerned with passenger vehicles. We want to know what the expected number of EV sales in India by will be 2030.

C: Asked for growth trend or any data available.

I: Currently 2.7 Mn annual passenger vehicles are sold. Out of this about 15k are EV. We are expecting 10% growth in annual passenger vehicle sales in next 5 years and 8% growth in further next 5 years.

C: Considered this data to prepare an approach. Segmented number of vehicles based on below and above Rs.10 lac. Further divided into less and more premium, considered EVs in premium segment and then used the growth % here.

Skoda wants to enter Indian Market with EV. How would you proceed?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Asked initial scoping questions. Where are their current operations based and why India?

I: They have EVs in Europe, USA and see India as a lucrative market.

C: Is there any particular model or particular segment/ price range at which they are aiming?

I: Not decided yet.

C: How does the current scenario look like in India?

I: Many manufacturers like Tata, Honda, Hyundai, etc. have already started making hybrid vehicles and EVs.

C: Do they plan to import vehicles or manufacture in India?

I: Manufacture in India.

C: Prepared a framework with 3 main buckets: overall industry, competition, and company (like further analysis of what the company does well, bad, etc.). Industry bucket further had market and overall analysis, competitors had tech comparison, advantages to competitors and enablers to EV provided by each company. Last bucket was not asked much.

Case 1: Russian truck company wants to enter Indian market through inorganic route (acquire, invest). Advise them.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: I would like to get some more information about our client. Where do they currently operate from and why India?

I: They are currently present in Russia, China, USA. Seeing India as a growing market, they wish to assemble and sell in India.

C: Prepared a similar framework as above.

I: Let’s move to the second case.

Case 2: Family had a sponge iron plant. Father ran the business, and it was now being passed to son. Son has come after earning MBA degree and wants to decide whether to stay or leave the business. Client is one of the big players in the market. They are located in the Eastern part of India.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: The Sponge iron industry is scattered. Since, I was not familiar with the industry, hence asked more questions to understand what process was followed at the plant: input, process, output.

I then developed an approach based on industry level framework. I provided an overall framework with various buckets that would be relevant like demand, supply, legalities, market growth, etc.

I: What other issues can there be in the industry?

C: I touched upon substitutes, price, future usage, etc.

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q2. What are your academic interests?
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• Q3. Why McKinsey and why you?
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• Q4. Questions based on statistics.
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• Q1. The first interview was majorly an interaction on different concepts of Statistics.
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Your client is a financial institution who provides loan services. They plan to extend loan facility to lifestyle products (TV, mobile phones) in the online market. Consider they plan to tie up with e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart etc. How many loans could they expect, given that more than 50% of the market will avail the service for products over ₹5k.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Starting with India's population (took 1.4 Bn for ease of calculation), I would first split them on the basis of urban and rural population. Then I would consider Internet penetration in these regions. Further I would divide each region on the basis of age as it influences people's preference towards online medium for purchase of Lifestyle products. Am I heading in the right direction?

I: Go ahead.

C: So here we have the total market for lifestyle products. Next, the average life of a product is generally 3 years which I would factor in to get the annual demand. I would then look at income division to understand which people will actually turn towards loans for their purchases (Took the interviewer's buy in while fitting the number to get the market size)

I: So Disha, now that we do not have much time left can you summarize what steps would you take after this to get to the answer.

C: Sure, I would consider the 50% market size and considering around 80% lifestyle products (assuming phones, TVs, smart watches) are above 5K I would come up with the final market size.

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q2. Why MBA?
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• Q3. Why Consulting and Accenture?
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• Q4. What industries is Accenture into?
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• Q5. What projects did I do at Citi and their overall business impact?
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• Q6. My preferable domain to work in Accenture Strategy.
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• Q7. Why Accenture?
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• Q8. Consulting seems glamorous but it is generally not. Would you be able to cope up with pressures and different Client Expectations?
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• Q9. Extra-curricular activities I am interested in.
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DSO reduction for a client. Cost Pressure on Automotive Client. How do you go about it?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Can you please elaborate what is DSO and what exactly does the client do?

I: DSO is the Days Sales Outstanding. The client is an auto manufacturer.

C: What is the objective of the client?

I: Client needs to reduce DSO from 50 to 40. What benefits can you think of?

C: Qualitatively, the benefits I could be, extra interest income that client could earn in 10 days, leaner working capital, no cash shortages and so on.

I: Okay, Great!

Our client is facing cost pressures. Help them.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: (Asked various scoping questions, using CPCC.)

I: It is an automotive client, serving distributors and various geographies in India.

C: Could you tell me about the revenue trends and other income if any.

I: Let us just focus on costs.

C: Just give me a moment to lay out the complete value chain of Cost.

I: Surely.

C: The value chain is - Procurement of Raw Material > Inbound Logistics > Manufacturing > Outbound Logistics > Post Purchase services. (I Asked various question in each of the parts.)

I: That's okay. You understand Value chain. We can close the case here.