Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad
Hyderabad, Telangana
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Filter interviews byIndian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad Placement Interview Questions
Updated
22 Sep 2024
228 interviews found
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. Our client is a hospital based in Delhi and wants to figure out whether they should expand beyond Delhi.
- Q2. Evaluate the Indian IT majors like TCS, Wipro, Infosys: Strategically what changes should they make in next 5 years to stay competitive?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: • I started by asking what kind of hospital it is? It is a hospital focused on tertiary care: cardiac & neurology
• Then I proposed a structure: o Customers & Market o Company o Competitors o Regulation
• Was asked to focus on customers & market • Started segmenting the market – city dwellers, towns, villages
• Wanted to match the offering of the hospital with which customer would need it most and is able and willing to pay
• So tried to setup a matrix of ailments on one side and customer profiles on the other axis.
• Realized that cardiac ailments are more common in cities hence people there are better targets.
• For neurology, understood that it is very expensive hence setting up a hospital in smaller towns may not work well as hard to recover the money. Alternatives exist for towns where they either go locally or come to cities for treatment – its not an emergency treatment so people can plan it.
• At this time the partner stopped the case
Tips: Don’t be daunted if your first interview itself is with a Partner – usually these guys are more relaxed (but that’s just my take)
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: • This case started out very strangely. It felt just like a question and I suddenly realized I was in a case!
• So I evaluated this from two factors: o Services turnover (attrition, falling $) o Scale
• I also talked about who these guys want to compete with – answer HP, IBM, Accenture
• Then I did a comparison between the Indian IT majors and the likes of HP and one thing that came about was lack of products in IT majors. Also, with Accenture the ability to sign consulting deals and not just services.
• Hence, we started talking about what these companies can do from the perspective of: o Hiring o Acquisitions of products / technologies o Target customer profile o Focus on local players in India that have global ambition like ICICI and take their successes to the world
• At this time the case stopped.
Tips: Be relaxed. Sometimes the interviewer won’t even tell you this is a case. So it’s fine to go with the style of the interviewer and make it conversational.
Skills: Case Analysis, Case Solving Ability
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: • I started by asking what kind of hospital it is? It is a hospital focused on tertiary care: cardiac & neurology
• Then I proposed a structure: o Customers & Market o Company o Competitors o Regulation
• Was asked to focus on customers & market • Started segmenting the market – city dwellers, towns, villages
• Wanted to match the offering of the hospital with which customer would need it most and is able and willing to pay
• So tried to setup a matrix of ailments on one side and customer profiles on the other axis.
• Realized that cardiac ailments are more common in cities hence people there are better targets.
• For neurology, understood that it is very expensive hence setting up a hospital in smaller towns may not work well as hard to recover the money. Alternatives exist for towns where they either go locally or come to cities for treatment – its not an emergency treatment so people can plan it.
• At this time the partner stopped the case
Tips: Don’t be daunted if your first interview itself is with a Partner – usually these guys are more relaxed (but that’s just my take)
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: • This case started out very strangely. It felt just like a question and I suddenly realized I was in a case!
• So I evaluated this from two factors: o Services turnover (attrition, falling $) o Scale
• I also talked about who these guys want to compete with – answer HP, IBM, Accenture
• Then I did a comparison between the Indian IT majors and the likes of HP and one thing that came about was lack of products in IT majors. Also, with Accenture the ability to sign consulting deals and not just services.
• Hence, we started talking about what these companies can do from the perspective of: o Hiring o Acquisitions of products / technologies o Target customer profile o Focus on local players in India that have global ambition like ICICI and take their successes to the world
• At this time the case stopped.
Tips: Be relaxed. Sometimes the interviewer won’t even tell you this is a case. So it’s fine to go with the style of the interviewer and make it conversational.
Skills: Case Analysis, Case Solving Ability
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
4 Interview Rounds
Interview Questions
- Q1. Case Questions:The case was about a pharmaceutical company in Europe. The Partner gave me a lot of data upfront which I noted down. It was as follows (Case type...read more
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: personal interview
Experience: The first round was a very amicable interview where we had a general chat about multiple things. The positive thing was that I had already met interviewer and most of the other Deloitte folks at a dinner hosted a couple of days before the interview and they recognized me from there. Interviewer asked me about my background and the usual PI questions like why consulting, why
Deloitte, why I moved back from the US. We also spoke about travelling being an integral part of the job and whether I wanted to
change industries or remain in the same. We happened to live in the same places and we spoke about that. All in all it was a casual
talk where he just wanted to gauge my communication skills and readiness for a career in consulting. I asked him about the
healthcare practice and how it was in India and also how the US- Hyderabad business model of Deloitte worked.
One major thing that went right was that the rapport between me and the interviewer. He had a good sense of humor and I could
gauge his personality and talk accordingly. Also the fact that I hadspoken to him and asked questions during the dinner session
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The pharma industry is fragmented and this company is one of the larger players with sales of $5 billion a year. They have a very good brand and sell mainly branded drugs in addition into a few generics. Their end customers are mainly hospitals and distributors. They now want to double their turnover in 5 years and have decided to enter the space of medicinal cosmetics.
From here, interviewer took over from the other partner. First I summarized the case facts and clarified the objective. I asked
them what sort of turnover they were looking at and he said it was their sales. I used the 3 C’s structure and examined the Company, Customers and Competition. I went over the state of the industry (current and future) and whether it made business sense to enter the new market. . Then I went to how we would go about entering the new market. I drew the 2 by 2 – current market, new market, current product , new product and questioned whether they could exercise all the 4 options or not. Interviewer said it was a good approach but we would come to it later. He showed me a sheet of paper with some data and charts on it and asked me to interpret it and then proceed towards the analysis This is some of the data I can recall (numbers might not be accurate): Size of world market in billions. They asked me which region they should focus on
Japan: eliminated Japan due to small market size and negative growth.
Europe: Definitely enter. Have the local knowledge, established customer base and distribution networks
US: I said US is seems like good opportunity but there might already be strong competitors in this developed market and it might lead to price wars.
Rest of the world: I was leaning towards this since it was a growing market but decided against it since it had multiple challenges. Rest of the world included many countries and would be difficult to set up operations in multiple companies. In addition, regulations were not strong and piracy was high, would take time to customize to the local markets. Growth rate by Drug type and distribution channel. They asked me which drug type and channel should they focus on and I said that branded was their competency so they should go for that. The channel should be prescription and even though they don’t have experience in OTC they should, try that channel as well since it had significant growth rate Next he asked me to calculate how much their turnover would increase in 5 years through the choices I had made. Given the market sizes and growth rates, I calculated the sales and found it to be about half of what was required. So then he asked me what should be the next step now. The current solution doesn’t seem to work
I went back to the 2 by 2 of market entry matrix and said they could try to expand the current product in new markets rather than
focus on a new market. He was happy and said that it’s always better to first expand in an area which you have expertise in
provided it is profitable. Then he asked me what I would do differently to expand the current market.
I went over the value chain analysis and gave various possible options like increasing marketing spend, Joint ventures etc. I
finally zeroed in on the distribution network and he asked me to probe that further. The current issue turned out to be that they
were dealing with hospitals and were too localized. They needed to expand their network in Europe and this would give them the
turnover needed. He said that you have cracked the case and was satisfied.
I remained calm even though the interviewer was putting a lot of stress and trying to hurry me up. I came up with innovative
solutions and made sure I listened to the hints given by the interviewer about whether the direction I was proceeding on was
ok or not. Practice done on cases helped.
While practicing cases, I had not done timed practices. So when I was subjected to this in the interview, I had to make a big effort to
not let it get to me. The interviewer was very aggressive and wanted quick answers. Also, don’t get bogged down by structures,
I was letting structures determine my thinking initially but later customized by analysis as per the case.
I had a Small PI, where they asked questions related to TMAY, reasons for NOT joining deloitte if any, etc. Then the offer was made.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: The first round was a very amicable interview where we had a general chat about multiple things. The positive thing was that I had already met interviewer and most of the other Deloitte folks at a dinner hosted a couple of days before the interview and they recognized me from there. Interviewer asked me about my background and the usual PI questions like why consulting, why
Deloitte, why I moved back from the US. We also spoke about travelling being an integral part of the job and whether I wanted to
change industries or remain in the same. We happened to live in the same places and we spoke about that. All in all it was a casual
talk where he just wanted to gauge my communication skills and readiness for a career in consulting. I asked him about the
healthcare practice and how it was in India and also how the US- Hyderabad business model of Deloitte worked.
One major thing that went right was that the rapport between me and the interviewer. He had a good sense of humor and I could
gauge his personality and talk accordingly. Also the fact that I hadspoken to him and asked questions during the dinner session
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The pharma industry is fragmented and this company is one of the larger players with sales of $5 billion a year. They have a very good brand and sell mainly branded drugs in addition into a few generics. Their end customers are mainly hospitals and distributors. They now want to double their turnover in 5 years and have decided to enter the space of medicinal cosmetics.
From here, interviewer took over from the other partner. First I summarized the case facts and clarified the objective. I asked
them what sort of turnover they were looking at and he said it was their sales. I used the 3 C’s structure and examined the Company, Customers and Competition. I went over the state of the industry (current and future) and whether it made business sense to enter the new market. . Then I went to how we would go about entering the new market. I drew the 2 by 2 – current market, new market, current product , new product and questioned whether they could exercise all the 4 options or not. Interviewer said it was a good approach but we would come to it later. He showed me a sheet of paper with some data and charts on it and asked me to interpret it and then proceed towards the analysis This is some of the data I can recall (numbers might not be accurate): Size of world market in billions. They asked me which region they should focus on
Japan: eliminated Japan due to small market size and negative growth.
Europe: Definitely enter. Have the local knowledge, established customer base and distribution networks
US: I said US is seems like good opportunity but there might already be strong competitors in this developed market and it might lead to price wars.
Rest of the world: I was leaning towards this since it was a growing market but decided against it since it had multiple challenges. Rest of the world included many countries and would be difficult to set up operations in multiple companies. In addition, regulations were not strong and piracy was high, would take time to customize to the local markets. Growth rate by Drug type and distribution channel. They asked me which drug type and channel should they focus on and I said that branded was their competency so they should go for that. The channel should be prescription and even though they don’t have experience in OTC they should, try that channel as well since it had significant growth rate Next he asked me to calculate how much their turnover would increase in 5 years through the choices I had made. Given the market sizes and growth rates, I calculated the sales and found it to be about half of what was required. So then he asked me what should be the next step now. The current solution doesn’t seem to work
I went back to the 2 by 2 of market entry matrix and said they could try to expand the current product in new markets rather than
focus on a new market. He was happy and said that it’s always better to first expand in an area which you have expertise in
provided it is profitable. Then he asked me what I would do differently to expand the current market.
I went over the value chain analysis and gave various possible options like increasing marketing spend, Joint ventures etc. I
finally zeroed in on the distribution network and he asked me to probe that further. The current issue turned out to be that they
were dealing with hospitals and were too localized. They needed to expand their network in Europe and this would give them the
turnover needed. He said that you have cracked the case and was satisfied.
I remained calm even though the interviewer was putting a lot of stress and trying to hurry me up. I came up with innovative
solutions and made sure I listened to the hints given by the interviewer about whether the direction I was proceeding on was
ok or not. Practice done on cases helped.
While practicing cases, I had not done timed practices. So when I was subjected to this in the interview, I had to make a big effort to
not let it get to me. The interviewer was very aggressive and wanted quick answers. Also, don’t get bogged down by structures,
I was letting structures determine my thinking initially but later customized by analysis as per the case.
I had a Small PI, where they asked questions related to TMAY, reasons for NOT joining deloitte if any, etc. Then the offer was made.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. The CEO of a chain of private hospitals wants to reduce attrition among senior doctors. This is a serious issue because when senior doctors leave they take alon...read more
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case Structure Looked at aspects of
• Motivation
• Compensation
• Opportunities for Growth Solutions structured as short term vs. long term and economic vs. soft factors. I gave many solutions, some which he said they had also thought of, some which he critiqued and some others which he found interesting. He was looking more for ideas than approach – what was being tested was creativity and perspective in tailoring practical solutions. Some of the key points were that you needed to tie the patients/junior staff to hospital and not to doctor – e.g. through brand building, patient management systems, soft loans to junior staff, facilities for families etc. For doctors we could look at involving them in administrative activities, making the hospital an avenue for conferences, publishing papers, involving family etc.
Tips: It pays to be nice to your interviewer and appear interested in the case even if it is from an industry/function that is completely different from your background. Sometimes there is no need to structure cases because the interviewer is more interested in how creative and innovative you can be in deriving solutions.
Skills: Case Solving Ability
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Case Structure Looked at aspects of
• Motivation
• Compensation
• Opportunities for Growth Solutions structured as short term vs. long term and economic vs. soft factors. I gave many solutions, some which he said they had also thought of, some which he critiqued and some others which he found interesting. He was looking more for ideas than approach – what was being tested was creativity and perspective in tailoring practical solutions. Some of the key points were that you needed to tie the patients/junior staff to hospital and not to doctor – e.g. through brand building, patient management systems, soft loans to junior staff, facilities for families etc. For doctors we could look at involving them in administrative activities, making the hospital an avenue for conferences, publishing papers, involving family etc.
Tips: It pays to be nice to your interviewer and appear interested in the case even if it is from an industry/function that is completely different from your background. Sometimes there is no need to structure cases because the interviewer is more interested in how creative and innovative you can be in deriving solutions.
Skills: Case Solving Ability
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. The client is a hospital chain with 12 hospitals across India and plans to grow to 40-50 hospitals. The first hospital was set up in Chandigarh, 8 years back. T...read more
- Q2. A very open ended case. Pan-IIT (a group of IIT alums) is looking to build an organization called “Reach for India”. The purpose is to hire top business school ...read more
- Q3. The client wants to construct a hospital in an upcoming suburb and the objective is to come up with a sustainable business model for the same.
- Q4. He laid out the problem. There’s an airport somewhere in London, which has 4 terminals and 2 runways. The airport authorities are planning to build a 5th termin...read more
- Q5. The case was about a web services company which had encountered saturation in its web search and advertisement business and wanted to revive itself within the n...read more
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The first thing I did was to clarify the expectations of the client and any associated constraints. Priyanka clarified that we need to focus on EBIT and ROI improvement. The current EBIT and ROI were negative and our goal was to take them to 25% and 30-35% respectively. There were no financial constraints for the particular case. Structure: ROI = After Tax EBIT / Invested Capital Invested Capital = Working Capital + Net Investments I clarified that I would be looking to increase EBIT by increasing revenues or reducing costs or both. Then I would look at decreasing Invested Capital through analyzing components like Receivables, Cash, Inventory, Payables, Fixed Investments and Depreciation. She agreed and asked me to start by picking up one of the drivers. I picked revenues because there were considerable improvements required in both EBIT and ROI and cost cutting might not suffice. She nodded and we proceeded. I listed the various revenue drivers in a hospital: Diagnosis, OPD and Procedures (she helped me a bit here with correct terminology). After some discussion it was clear that the revenues from procedures, which was a major contributor to hospital’s income, were declining. The price of procedures had been constant so it was an issue with the number of procedures. Also, the other hospitals had lower prices for the same services hospital seemed to be charging a premium for their services and I had to find out why. I elaborated the various factors that would drive premium such as patient care, diagnosis authenticity, convenience and future tests required. She asked be to elaborate patient care. I listed 5 factors: doctors & nursing staff, length and time, accommodation, flexibility of meeting close ones, and miscellaneous things such as food etc. I also prioritized these putting doctors and nurses on the top. It was here that she revealed that some key doctors had left an year back and the hospital’s premium was to be attributed to the presence of these doctors when they were in service, This nailed down the key reason of decline of procedural revenues. Next, she asked me to look at reducing costs. I elaborated the entire value chain of the hospital: 1. Supply Side consisting of utilities, drugs and equipments 2. Operations consisting of procedures, labor and R&D. 3. Marketing and promotions After a brief discussion on the factors driving supply side costs, I identified that the procurement of drugs can be optimized through consolidating purchase. On the operations side, we figured out the wage structure was pretty much fixed and I detailed out a few recommendations here to improve labor efficiency. One was to use a performance based incentive structure with the use of balance scorecards and leading indicators to assess performance. She was quite happy on hearing this as this was part of the recommendations they had given to the client. The case ended here.
Tips: My advice to you would be that whenever in doubt about a new business, ask rather than guessing and spending time that could be utilized in more fruitful discussions.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I tried to scope the problem down but Rajiv wanted me to structure my thoughts first and come up with an approach on a broader level. I came up with the following structure Structure: 1. Strategic Goals: a. Short term: Solve some existing problems and build a talent pool b. Long term: Impact on society and economy 2. Organizational: a. Supply of Labor Pool b. Attracting and sustaining employees i. Salary and Incentives j. Personal Development through trainings k. Challenging assignments l. Exit Options c. Execution to meet the expectations of the 4 stakeholders: District collectors, Pan-IIT, Government and Employees i. Management j. Teachers / Training k. Program Structure: Curriculum, Length, intensityl. HR m. Administration 3. Financial: Source of Finances, debt and equity distribution. Rajiv was fairly satisfied with the comprehensive structure and after a brief discussion, clarified that the focus of the present case was to just think about the building blocks of the organization. Since I had listed down quite a few things, he just wanted me to have a discussion on the various aspects of the problem and we chatted for 15 minutes on what should be the issues in each of the elements of the Organizational part and recommendations to tackle them. Detailing out an exhaustive structure and explaining my approach in detail gave the confidence to the interviewer. After that I just had to engage him in discussion on various aspects till he decided to close the case.
Tips: Try to scope down an open ended problem such as this. If interviewer wants to explicitly look at your broad level thinking, such as in my case, it is important to take your time and come up with as exhaustive a structure as possible.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Since the problem given to me was very open ended, I started asking a lot of questions on the objective of the client and any constraints we need to consider in our analysis. Adheet revealed the following information: The suburb is still under development and there is no infrastructure as of now. The client is actually a large hospital chain in the country and is not looking for immediate profits but eventually within 3-4 years. Financial constraints not an issue. Hospital again! But the good part was that I had got some confidence on the business after having interviewed with Priyanka earlier.
Structure: a. NPV > 0 b. Determine cash flows: Revenues, Costs, Working Capital and Capital Expenditure c. Determine appropriate discount rate for cash flows: an appropriate way would be to use industry comparables of similar hospitals. He agreed and asked me to discuss the revenue aspect. I laid down the following approach: 1. Identify customer disease patterns and demographics. 2. Pick up the attractive opportunities that could ensure long term sustainability. Identify the customer segments to target. 3. Check if the opportunity aligns with business vision and company’s capabilities. 4. Determine the appropriate price for these services based on consumer willingness to pay To simplify things he gave me an additional data point here. The real estate developer of the area had predicted the following growth of population in that area: 100,000 in 3 years 500,000 by 6 years 1 million by 10 years. He then asked me to determine the healthcare requirements of these potential customers. I listed down 3 factors here: Socio Economic Status, Age and Idiosyncratic factors such as family history. He was impressed and asked me how I could determine the Socio Economic Status. I gave a lot of options here but he kept pushing that we had no access to any formal databases and some proxy was needed. After a bit of thinking I told him that the kind of apartments being bought by the families could proxy for their socio-eco status. This was what he was looking for and immediately gave me the following information. Super luxury flat (1 crores): 10% of families, luxury (50 lacs): 40%, 1 bedroom apartment (20 lacs): 50%. I asked about the average number of people per household and he gave me the numbers of 5, 4 and 3 respectively. I told him that even the relatively poorest of families were actually quite well to do as they could afford a 20 lacs flat. He agreed and asked me what kind of service on a broad level would suit our target customer segment. I told that 2 kinds of services should suffice here: Deluxe and Regular. Deluxe would include some premium procedures that could be utilized by either of the segments. Regular Procedures would be more day to day services provided to a wide spectrum of the population. He mentioned that regular procedures would need a breakeven volume to turn profitable and asked me to develop a timeline for introduction of the two kinds of services. Based on the population immigration information he had provided me earlier, I recommended that the client should start with deluxe services when the customer base would be small and eventually move to other regular services and customer base grows big enough to achieve breakeven. He asked me if there were any risks involved here and I mentioned that competitive threat could always be a concern here. I recommended that such a threat could be conquered to an extent by making appropriate arrangements for customers to receive these services at a nearby hospital of the same chain. He liked the idea since the hospital could bear initial losses. We had some more discussion on other issues of such as real estate, supplier contracts, equipments etc. before he closed the case. And as always, he discussed about movie making experience and also my work at Microsoft.
Tips: Be careful when the interviewer is giving a lot of numbers. He might be looking to test your quantitative abilities. Clarify upfront if in doubt.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I started by laying down my hypotheses on why a 5th terminal should be built:
1. Reduce congestion on existing terminals by increasing capacity
2. Facilitate Growth of air traffic and passenger traffic
3. Achieve optimization between traffic on runways and terminals He wanted me to test the first hypothesis. I confirmed whether airport capacity can be defined in terms of passenger flow rate. He agreed but wanted me to look at another measure of capacity which is the air traffic flow rate. In simple terms, this was the maximum number of airplanes that can land or take off from the airport in a day.
I asked for specific information and got the following data:
1. Air traffic operates for 17 hours in a day.
2. Each terminal has 50 gates I said to figure out whether there is any real capacity increase we need to find out whether New Capacity = MIN{ Total number of airplanes determined by total gates, Total number of airplanes that can use the runway in a day} > Current Capacity He asked me to make the required assumptions and proceed. I made 2 specific assumptions:
1. Both runways are identical and capable of serving same traffic.
2. All airplanes on an average take the same amount of time while standing on gates and similarly while using the runway (take off or landing)
He then gave me the following data: A plane takes 90 sec on average on the runway while landing or takeoff. This meant that the runways can support a total of 17 * 2 * 3600 / 90 = 1360 planes per day. Next, he told me that every gate can support 5 planes on an average. This meant that with 5 terminals a total of 5*50*5 = 1250 planes can be held on the gates. This gives the new capacity = Min{1250,1360} = 1250 an additional capacity of 250 planes. So one part of the hypothesis was verified that there would be additional capacity added by building 5th terminal. Now we had to establish whether it would reduce congestion. We started discussing the various sub hypotheses that would need to be true for this to happen. Things such as feasibility of movement of passengers and staff from one terminal to another, movement of infrastructure(shops etc) to the new terminal and so on. We chatted for almost 10 minutes on this and he asked me to synthesize the case. The hypothesis had been proven right.
Tips: Practice hypothesis driven case solving as well in case you come across such an interviewer.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I clarified what all businesses the client was running, the relative share of revenues in each and the competitive landscape in each. Then I laid down my approach:
1. Identify the attractive businesses for the future. This can be done using a 2X2 matrix of competition vs. growth opportunity.
2. Choose the ones that are feasible to focus on in the next 5 years based on company’s capabilities.
3. Chart out an execution strategy for these businesses accounting for challenges and the effect on bottom line.
4. Consider divesting the unattractive businesses considering the risk of impact on the existing ones since there is lot of interdependency in the web space. He was satisfied with the overall structure and drew out a chart with lots of customer and growth data on the existing businesses. It’s difficult for me to explain our discussion over here because first, the chart was fairly comprehensive and second, he asked me to hand over to him everything I had written while solving the case. On a broad level, we discussed the attractive business opportunities and what challenges we would have to consider. He asked me to give 10 specific challenges in one particular business and it was here that my Web 2.0 course learning and software experience helped me.
Tips: Push yourself when the interviewer says..”What else...” - this is an indication that the interviewer wants to check how creative you can get with your thought process.
Skills: Ability To Cope Up With Stress, Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: The first thing I did was to clarify the expectations of the client and any associated constraints. Priyanka clarified that we need to focus on EBIT and ROI improvement. The current EBIT and ROI were negative and our goal was to take them to 25% and 30-35% respectively. There were no financial constraints for the particular case. Structure: ROI = After Tax EBIT / Invested Capital Invested Capital = Working Capital + Net Investments I clarified that I would be looking to increase EBIT by increasing revenues or reducing costs or both. Then I would look at decreasing Invested Capital through analyzing components like Receivables, Cash, Inventory, Payables, Fixed Investments and Depreciation. She agreed and asked me to start by picking up one of the drivers. I picked revenues because there were considerable improvements required in both EBIT and ROI and cost cutting might not suffice. She nodded and we proceeded. I listed the various revenue drivers in a hospital: Diagnosis, OPD and Procedures (she helped me a bit here with correct terminology). After some discussion it was clear that the revenues from procedures, which was a major contributor to hospital’s income, were declining. The price of procedures had been constant so it was an issue with the number of procedures. Also, the other hospitals had lower prices for the same services hospital seemed to be charging a premium for their services and I had to find out why. I elaborated the various factors that would drive premium such as patient care, diagnosis authenticity, convenience and future tests required. She asked be to elaborate patient care. I listed 5 factors: doctors & nursing staff, length and time, accommodation, flexibility of meeting close ones, and miscellaneous things such as food etc. I also prioritized these putting doctors and nurses on the top. It was here that she revealed that some key doctors had left an year back and the hospital’s premium was to be attributed to the presence of these doctors when they were in service, This nailed down the key reason of decline of procedural revenues. Next, she asked me to look at reducing costs. I elaborated the entire value chain of the hospital: 1. Supply Side consisting of utilities, drugs and equipments 2. Operations consisting of procedures, labor and R&D. 3. Marketing and promotions After a brief discussion on the factors driving supply side costs, I identified that the procurement of drugs can be optimized through consolidating purchase. On the operations side, we figured out the wage structure was pretty much fixed and I detailed out a few recommendations here to improve labor efficiency. One was to use a performance based incentive structure with the use of balance scorecards and leading indicators to assess performance. She was quite happy on hearing this as this was part of the recommendations they had given to the client. The case ended here.
Tips: My advice to you would be that whenever in doubt about a new business, ask rather than guessing and spending time that could be utilized in more fruitful discussions.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I tried to scope the problem down but Rajiv wanted me to structure my thoughts first and come up with an approach on a broader level. I came up with the following structure Structure: 1. Strategic Goals: a. Short term: Solve some existing problems and build a talent pool b. Long term: Impact on society and economy 2. Organizational: a. Supply of Labor Pool b. Attracting and sustaining employees i. Salary and Incentives j. Personal Development through trainings k. Challenging assignments l. Exit Options c. Execution to meet the expectations of the 4 stakeholders: District collectors, Pan-IIT, Government and Employees i. Management j. Teachers / Training k. Program Structure: Curriculum, Length, intensityl. HR m. Administration 3. Financial: Source of Finances, debt and equity distribution. Rajiv was fairly satisfied with the comprehensive structure and after a brief discussion, clarified that the focus of the present case was to just think about the building blocks of the organization. Since I had listed down quite a few things, he just wanted me to have a discussion on the various aspects of the problem and we chatted for 15 minutes on what should be the issues in each of the elements of the Organizational part and recommendations to tackle them. Detailing out an exhaustive structure and explaining my approach in detail gave the confidence to the interviewer. After that I just had to engage him in discussion on various aspects till he decided to close the case.
Tips: Try to scope down an open ended problem such as this. If interviewer wants to explicitly look at your broad level thinking, such as in my case, it is important to take your time and come up with as exhaustive a structure as possible.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Since the problem given to me was very open ended, I started asking a lot of questions on the objective of the client and any constraints we need to consider in our analysis. Adheet revealed the following information: The suburb is still under development and there is no infrastructure as of now. The client is actually a large hospital chain in the country and is not looking for immediate profits but eventually within 3-4 years. Financial constraints not an issue. Hospital again! But the good part was that I had got some confidence on the business after having interviewed with Priyanka earlier.
Structure: a. NPV > 0 b. Determine cash flows: Revenues, Costs, Working Capital and Capital Expenditure c. Determine appropriate discount rate for cash flows: an appropriate way would be to use industry comparables of similar hospitals. He agreed and asked me to discuss the revenue aspect. I laid down the following approach: 1. Identify customer disease patterns and demographics. 2. Pick up the attractive opportunities that could ensure long term sustainability. Identify the customer segments to target. 3. Check if the opportunity aligns with business vision and company’s capabilities. 4. Determine the appropriate price for these services based on consumer willingness to pay To simplify things he gave me an additional data point here. The real estate developer of the area had predicted the following growth of population in that area: 100,000 in 3 years 500,000 by 6 years 1 million by 10 years. He then asked me to determine the healthcare requirements of these potential customers. I listed down 3 factors here: Socio Economic Status, Age and Idiosyncratic factors such as family history. He was impressed and asked me how I could determine the Socio Economic Status. I gave a lot of options here but he kept pushing that we had no access to any formal databases and some proxy was needed. After a bit of thinking I told him that the kind of apartments being bought by the families could proxy for their socio-eco status. This was what he was looking for and immediately gave me the following information. Super luxury flat (1 crores): 10% of families, luxury (50 lacs): 40%, 1 bedroom apartment (20 lacs): 50%. I asked about the average number of people per household and he gave me the numbers of 5, 4 and 3 respectively. I told him that even the relatively poorest of families were actually quite well to do as they could afford a 20 lacs flat. He agreed and asked me what kind of service on a broad level would suit our target customer segment. I told that 2 kinds of services should suffice here: Deluxe and Regular. Deluxe would include some premium procedures that could be utilized by either of the segments. Regular Procedures would be more day to day services provided to a wide spectrum of the population. He mentioned that regular procedures would need a breakeven volume to turn profitable and asked me to develop a timeline for introduction of the two kinds of services. Based on the population immigration information he had provided me earlier, I recommended that the client should start with deluxe services when the customer base would be small and eventually move to other regular services and customer base grows big enough to achieve breakeven. He asked me if there were any risks involved here and I mentioned that competitive threat could always be a concern here. I recommended that such a threat could be conquered to an extent by making appropriate arrangements for customers to receive these services at a nearby hospital of the same chain. He liked the idea since the hospital could bear initial losses. We had some more discussion on other issues of such as real estate, supplier contracts, equipments etc. before he closed the case. And as always, he discussed about movie making experience and also my work at Microsoft.
Tips: Be careful when the interviewer is giving a lot of numbers. He might be looking to test your quantitative abilities. Clarify upfront if in doubt.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I started by laying down my hypotheses on why a 5th terminal should be built:
1. Reduce congestion on existing terminals by increasing capacity
2. Facilitate Growth of air traffic and passenger traffic
3. Achieve optimization between traffic on runways and terminals He wanted me to test the first hypothesis. I confirmed whether airport capacity can be defined in terms of passenger flow rate. He agreed but wanted me to look at another measure of capacity which is the air traffic flow rate. In simple terms, this was the maximum number of airplanes that can land or take off from the airport in a day.
I asked for specific information and got the following data:
1. Air traffic operates for 17 hours in a day.
2. Each terminal has 50 gates I said to figure out whether there is any real capacity increase we need to find out whether New Capacity = MIN{ Total number of airplanes determined by total gates, Total number of airplanes that can use the runway in a day} > Current Capacity He asked me to make the required assumptions and proceed. I made 2 specific assumptions:
1. Both runways are identical and capable of serving same traffic.
2. All airplanes on an average take the same amount of time while standing on gates and similarly while using the runway (take off or landing)
He then gave me the following data: A plane takes 90 sec on average on the runway while landing or takeoff. This meant that the runways can support a total of 17 * 2 * 3600 / 90 = 1360 planes per day. Next, he told me that every gate can support 5 planes on an average. This meant that with 5 terminals a total of 5*50*5 = 1250 planes can be held on the gates. This gives the new capacity = Min{1250,1360} = 1250 an additional capacity of 250 planes. So one part of the hypothesis was verified that there would be additional capacity added by building 5th terminal. Now we had to establish whether it would reduce congestion. We started discussing the various sub hypotheses that would need to be true for this to happen. Things such as feasibility of movement of passengers and staff from one terminal to another, movement of infrastructure(shops etc) to the new terminal and so on. We chatted for almost 10 minutes on this and he asked me to synthesize the case. The hypothesis had been proven right.
Tips: Practice hypothesis driven case solving as well in case you come across such an interviewer.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I clarified what all businesses the client was running, the relative share of revenues in each and the competitive landscape in each. Then I laid down my approach:
1. Identify the attractive businesses for the future. This can be done using a 2X2 matrix of competition vs. growth opportunity.
2. Choose the ones that are feasible to focus on in the next 5 years based on company’s capabilities.
3. Chart out an execution strategy for these businesses accounting for challenges and the effect on bottom line.
4. Consider divesting the unattractive businesses considering the risk of impact on the existing ones since there is lot of interdependency in the web space. He was satisfied with the overall structure and drew out a chart with lots of customer and growth data on the existing businesses. It’s difficult for me to explain our discussion over here because first, the chart was fairly comprehensive and second, he asked me to hand over to him everything I had written while solving the case. On a broad level, we discussed the attractive business opportunities and what challenges we would have to consider. He asked me to give 10 specific challenges in one particular business and it was here that my Web 2.0 course learning and software experience helped me.
Tips: Push yourself when the interviewer says..”What else...” - this is an indication that the interviewer wants to check how creative you can get with your thought process.
Skills: Ability To Cope Up With Stress, Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. PI questions: Why MBA?
- Q2. Why come back from US?
- Q3. If offered Booz and Deloitte, what would you prefer?
- Q4. Case Questions: What is the difference between ‘risk’ and ‘flexibility’?
- Q5. If 4 warehouses were combined how would the inventory levels change?
- Q6. PI questions: Questions on past experience
- Q7. Case Questions: A pharma company wants to expand its business. How? (Case type:Market entry strategy. I was provided slides of case on request.)
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Thinking aloud for the questions.
Tips: It’s ok not to give precise answers, just think aloud and you should be ok.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Pharma company currently in Generics. Want to explore other options. Details of Market size, share, competition given. Draw inferences and support your logic.
Kept cool head. Supported by inferences well with numbers. Talked loudly and kept focus on the problem at hand.
Missed out on some information I was given earlier.
Tips: A) Keep track of all the information you have.
B) It is ok to change your recommendation, in light of new information.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Thinking aloud for the questions.
Tips: It’s ok not to give precise answers, just think aloud and you should be ok.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Pharma company currently in Generics. Want to explore other options. Details of Market size, share, competition given. Draw inferences and support your logic.
Kept cool head. Supported by inferences well with numbers. Talked loudly and kept focus on the problem at hand.
Missed out on some information I was given earlier.
Tips: A) Keep track of all the information you have.
B) It is ok to change your recommendation, in light of new information.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
3 Interview Rounds
Interview Questions
- Q1. How would you evaluate a company in telecom infrastructure domain for possible attractiveness for buy-out by a PE fund?
- Q2. Tell me about yourself.
- Q3. Where are you from? The interviewer also turned out to be from the same place and we had some chit chat around that. This helped me relax
- Q4. Why KPMG?
- Q5. Why ISB?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I asked him to explain the business model for telecom infrastructure company. He asked me back as to what I think of the sector. I explained my understanding of the sector. He was not very happy with my sector understanding. Then he interrupted me and asked me as to what are the value drivers of this sector which you would like to advise to the PE firm who is looking for a buy-out. I started with more theoretical approach of explaining the revenue drivers, the cost drivers etc. He did not like the approach a whole lot and asked me in desperation “ Given two companies A and B in this sector, how would you value them and decide to chose which one to buy” . I said I would like to do an NPV analysis and tried to structure it by saying that I would calculate the FCF and the discount rate. He gave the revenue number and the capex for the first year. I started to jot them down so as to start with my valuation. I asked for the numbers of second year onwards and he said that he has given enough information for me to make the decision. I was not very sure how to approach ahead. Then with slight frustration, he asked me as to why should they hire me. This was the first time I had the opportunity to present some strengths of mine and I rattled the prepared answer which was a mix of my personal strengths and the fact that I had worked in technology sector and hence could bring in the domain knowledge from the sector into the deals. He asked me why not IT consulting? I explained him the fact that I wanted to get a broader domain experience of how businesses are run while IT consulting would not give me that broad an experience without bad mouthing IT consulting. At this point the interview ended.
Tips: Understanding of some of the key domains help. Though I did build perspective on some of the domains, but clearly missed on this one. I should have done more research on KPMG’s way of interviewing. The SCI arm had recently started in India and this was the first time SCI interviewed. So a good understanding of the interview process would have helped. Please go prepared with some understanding of what kind of case questions would the company ask for. Not every company would be interested in giving cases like the ones given by Mckinsey, BCG etc. Outcome Yes, surprisingly possibly because of IIT brand name on the resume. Seems like the interviewer might have had some bias for that or the fact that the interviewer was frustrated by not being able to spot too many interviewees with good domain understanding.
Round: HR Interview
Experience: I was able to build a personal connect with the interviewer and it helped me become very relaxed especially after the first interview.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: I asked him to explain the business model for telecom infrastructure company. He asked me back as to what I think of the sector. I explained my understanding of the sector. He was not very happy with my sector understanding. Then he interrupted me and asked me as to what are the value drivers of this sector which you would like to advise to the PE firm who is looking for a buy-out. I started with more theoretical approach of explaining the revenue drivers, the cost drivers etc. He did not like the approach a whole lot and asked me in desperation “ Given two companies A and B in this sector, how would you value them and decide to chose which one to buy” . I said I would like to do an NPV analysis and tried to structure it by saying that I would calculate the FCF and the discount rate. He gave the revenue number and the capex for the first year. I started to jot them down so as to start with my valuation. I asked for the numbers of second year onwards and he said that he has given enough information for me to make the decision. I was not very sure how to approach ahead. Then with slight frustration, he asked me as to why should they hire me. This was the first time I had the opportunity to present some strengths of mine and I rattled the prepared answer which was a mix of my personal strengths and the fact that I had worked in technology sector and hence could bring in the domain knowledge from the sector into the deals. He asked me why not IT consulting? I explained him the fact that I wanted to get a broader domain experience of how businesses are run while IT consulting would not give me that broad an experience without bad mouthing IT consulting. At this point the interview ended.
Tips: Understanding of some of the key domains help. Though I did build perspective on some of the domains, but clearly missed on this one. I should have done more research on KPMG’s way of interviewing. The SCI arm had recently started in India and this was the first time SCI interviewed. So a good understanding of the interview process would have helped. Please go prepared with some understanding of what kind of case questions would the company ask for. Not every company would be interested in giving cases like the ones given by Mckinsey, BCG etc. Outcome Yes, surprisingly possibly because of IIT brand name on the resume. Seems like the interviewer might have had some bias for that or the fact that the interviewer was frustrated by not being able to spot too many interviewees with good domain understanding.
Round: HR Interview
Experience: I was able to build a personal connect with the interviewer and it helped me become very relaxed especially after the first interview.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. What do you think is supply chain consulting all about? Should HUL enter the Rural Markets? Do these rural consumers have even the purchasing power? What format...read more
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This was an unstructured multiple case/scenario based interview and needed on spot thinking and some knowledge about the retail scenario in Indian Urban/Rural spaces. Interviewer was looking always doubtful about my ideas and was challenging the thoughts in between with some facts from his experience. What helped that I maintained my calm and followed a firm and informed stand on issues and gave relevant examples (like HUL’s Re 1 Shampoo sachet success in low income group people).
I presented my thoughts clearly and convincingly with examples of rural people buying luxury items as well and gave a few statistics about the size of urban vs rural markets in India. I further went on with examples of ITC retail, which was going successfully in integrating its rural retail business with agri-procurement channel (e-chaupal). Gave a few creative ideas about 2-3 possible new formats.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: This was an unstructured multiple case/scenario based interview and needed on spot thinking and some knowledge about the retail scenario in Indian Urban/Rural spaces. Interviewer was looking always doubtful about my ideas and was challenging the thoughts in between with some facts from his experience. What helped that I maintained my calm and followed a firm and informed stand on issues and gave relevant examples (like HUL’s Re 1 Shampoo sachet success in low income group people).
I presented my thoughts clearly and convincingly with examples of rural people buying luxury items as well and gave a few statistics about the size of urban vs rural markets in India. I further went on with examples of ITC retail, which was going successfully in integrating its rural retail business with agri-procurement channel (e-chaupal). Gave a few creative ideas about 2-3 possible new formats.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. I was given an eight pages case write up about a hospital chain in India which was experiencing low assets utilization and stagnant revenues.
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case write up was well written and quite comprehensive so he asked me start with my gut feeling of what was going wrong with the hospital chain. As all of the information was already given to me in the case, I did following things before moving into the interview room: Broke the case analysis in four standard parts: Defined the Problem: A hospital chain which provides treatment to the lower end diseases (non lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart related diseases etc.) is experiencing a decline in sales/revenues over the period of last four years. (All the information was given in the write up). Structure: The structure I applied was: Sales are defined: ∑ PI * Qi where Q = number of patients*average patient days and price was price charged per patient. And I stand for different diseases which the hospital serves. I told him that we would we analysing these three components for the client, the completion and the customer preferences. Before proceeding to using the structure, I asked him whether the proposed structure covered everything or there was any critical piece which he thought might be important for the discussion but I missed out, He appreciated my structure and complimented me for coming with such a nice structure☺. Then, he told me that, before I move on to apply the structure, what are the different ways we can break up the revenue so I told him the following ways:
1. By diseases the client serves.
2. By types of customers: demographic, psychological, economic parameters based segmentation.
3. By referral and non-referral patients. (this point came out after he directed me towards this but once I mentioned this he seemed quite happy ☺).
Then we moved on to third part, issue analysis and based on whatever notes I had made from the case write-up, We came to the conclusion that
1. The healthcare market was booming in the life style related diseases which generates higher revenues. The other two competitors had already moved to treating theses diseases.
2. The client was focusing only on the local customers which were quite price sensitive while there was a huge opportunity in the global and medical tourism market where the competitors had already moved in.
3. Insurance companies were playing a significant role in the decision making process of the patients and the client lacked strong partnership with the top firms in this market. All this information was given in the case and I did a good thing of making notes of all these points which came very handy during our discussion.
Finally I recommended the client to:
1. Enter into the life style disease treatment market.
2. Focus on global brand building and attracting pan India and foreign customers.
3. Get into strategic partnership with insurance companies to attract more new and high potential customers.
Tips: Do prepare for such case write up based interviews. As a group, we made cases from our work experiences which actually helped a lot in knowing industries well.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: The case write up was well written and quite comprehensive so he asked me start with my gut feeling of what was going wrong with the hospital chain. As all of the information was already given to me in the case, I did following things before moving into the interview room: Broke the case analysis in four standard parts: Defined the Problem: A hospital chain which provides treatment to the lower end diseases (non lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart related diseases etc.) is experiencing a decline in sales/revenues over the period of last four years. (All the information was given in the write up). Structure: The structure I applied was: Sales are defined: ∑ PI * Qi where Q = number of patients*average patient days and price was price charged per patient. And I stand for different diseases which the hospital serves. I told him that we would we analysing these three components for the client, the completion and the customer preferences. Before proceeding to using the structure, I asked him whether the proposed structure covered everything or there was any critical piece which he thought might be important for the discussion but I missed out, He appreciated my structure and complimented me for coming with such a nice structure☺. Then, he told me that, before I move on to apply the structure, what are the different ways we can break up the revenue so I told him the following ways:
1. By diseases the client serves.
2. By types of customers: demographic, psychological, economic parameters based segmentation.
3. By referral and non-referral patients. (this point came out after he directed me towards this but once I mentioned this he seemed quite happy ☺).
Then we moved on to third part, issue analysis and based on whatever notes I had made from the case write-up, We came to the conclusion that
1. The healthcare market was booming in the life style related diseases which generates higher revenues. The other two competitors had already moved to treating theses diseases.
2. The client was focusing only on the local customers which were quite price sensitive while there was a huge opportunity in the global and medical tourism market where the competitors had already moved in.
3. Insurance companies were playing a significant role in the decision making process of the patients and the client lacked strong partnership with the top firms in this market. All this information was given in the case and I did a good thing of making notes of all these points which came very handy during our discussion.
Finally I recommended the client to:
1. Enter into the life style disease treatment market.
2. Focus on global brand building and attracting pan India and foreign customers.
3. Get into strategic partnership with insurance companies to attract more new and high potential customers.
Tips: Do prepare for such case write up based interviews. As a group, we made cases from our work experiences which actually helped a lot in knowing industries well.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. A North American telecom operator wants to enter the Indian market. They hire you as a consultant. How would you go about helping them in making a decision? And...read more
- Q2. Mini case - You are consulting for a top investment bank. You need to help them in deciding what all processes to outsource. Mention a criteria that can be used...read more
- Q3. Estimate the petrol utilization in Mumbai in a year.
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In this market entry case, I started with the industry analysis in terms of size, profitability, growth potential etc. Then I went on to do the competitor, customer and company analysis (if it can leverage its existing strengths in the Indian market). I spoke about the regulatory issues too. The interviewer cut me short in the analysis and wanted me to focus on the ways the operators can go about the entry in any market and the ways it has been done in India. Here I spoke about options like MVNO (not allowed in India)/ partnership/ JV/acquisition etc. Next she asked me to determine the segment this telco should target. I spoke about the Indian Telecom scenario. The penetration in Urban and rural areas. Also given that this telco has more competencies in dealing with the youth segment in North America, this might be a good segment to target initially. I identified other reasons for this. In the end we had a discussion on the recent entry of Virgin mobile in the Indian market and how they are targeting the Youth segment. In this case along with the use of framework, I was also tested on my understanding of the Indian telecom market. I have prior experience in Telecom. The interviewer was also interested in the implementation issues.
I started by mentioning how the core and non-core activities can be used as a criteria for outsourcing. Then she wanted me to identify the non core processes for an investment bank. Some of the processes I identified were Non core - procurement, financial accounting, human resources, reporting, some part of IT etc.
Tips: I was being interviewed for the Telecom, Technology and the Outsourcing vertical. This was reflected in the cases. So knowledge of the sectors you are applying to helps a lot.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: It was a market size estimation case. I approached it by estimating the number of families in Mumbai from its population. Then I segmented the market based on income level and for each segment assumed a “vehicle per family” ratio (both for 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers). Then I assumed the average distance covered for each category and the mileage.
Tips: Be systematic in estimation cases and state each assumption clearly. Practice prevents us from making arbitrary assumptions.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: In this market entry case, I started with the industry analysis in terms of size, profitability, growth potential etc. Then I went on to do the competitor, customer and company analysis (if it can leverage its existing strengths in the Indian market). I spoke about the regulatory issues too. The interviewer cut me short in the analysis and wanted me to focus on the ways the operators can go about the entry in any market and the ways it has been done in India. Here I spoke about options like MVNO (not allowed in India)/ partnership/ JV/acquisition etc. Next she asked me to determine the segment this telco should target. I spoke about the Indian Telecom scenario. The penetration in Urban and rural areas. Also given that this telco has more competencies in dealing with the youth segment in North America, this might be a good segment to target initially. I identified other reasons for this. In the end we had a discussion on the recent entry of Virgin mobile in the Indian market and how they are targeting the Youth segment. In this case along with the use of framework, I was also tested on my understanding of the Indian telecom market. I have prior experience in Telecom. The interviewer was also interested in the implementation issues.
I started by mentioning how the core and non-core activities can be used as a criteria for outsourcing. Then she wanted me to identify the non core processes for an investment bank. Some of the processes I identified were Non core - procurement, financial accounting, human resources, reporting, some part of IT etc.
Tips: I was being interviewed for the Telecom, Technology and the Outsourcing vertical. This was reflected in the cases. So knowledge of the sectors you are applying to helps a lot.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: It was a market size estimation case. I approached it by estimating the number of families in Mumbai from its population. Then I segmented the market based on income level and for each segment assumed a “vehicle per family” ratio (both for 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers). Then I assumed the average distance covered for each category and the mileage.
Tips: Be systematic in estimation cases and state each assumption clearly. Practice prevents us from making arbitrary assumptions.
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Walk-in
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. Devise entry strategy for a conveyer belts manufacturer
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: My case discussion lasted for 5 minutes. He asked me the question. I asked them two questions to get a hang of the industry/objective. Then I told them my approach for solving the problem and summarized by describing my structure.
I think they liked freshness of my approach. Typically people ask a lot of questions and often the process gets slowed down or becomes uninteresting. I touched upon the entire set of important points and summarized it quickly.
Tips: 1. Don’t over-prepare for case interviews. I had read first chapter of ‘Case in point’ to understand different types of cases. I had done only 3 – 5 cases myself but observed around 10 cases.
2. Interviewers appreciate crisp and comprehensive communication.
3. Be thorough with your resume and be comfortable talking about its relevance to the vertical you are targeting.
4. Try to understand the background of the interviewer and gauge his expectation from your interview.
5. Utilize the opportunities to demonstrate the value you bring to the table.
6. Stay calm, focused and confident
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: My case discussion lasted for 5 minutes. He asked me the question. I asked them two questions to get a hang of the industry/objective. Then I told them my approach for solving the problem and summarized by describing my structure.
I think they liked freshness of my approach. Typically people ask a lot of questions and often the process gets slowed down or becomes uninteresting. I touched upon the entire set of important points and summarized it quickly.
Tips: 1. Don’t over-prepare for case interviews. I had read first chapter of ‘Case in point’ to understand different types of cases. I had done only 3 – 5 cases myself but observed around 10 cases.
2. Interviewers appreciate crisp and comprehensive communication.
3. Be thorough with your resume and be comfortable talking about its relevance to the vertical you are targeting.
4. Try to understand the background of the interviewer and gauge his expectation from your interview.
5. Utilize the opportunities to demonstrate the value you bring to the table.
6. Stay calm, focused and confident
Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Interview Questions of Popular Companies
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