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 Referral
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. You have to make a choice between 3 consulting offers that you have and you should prepare an issue tree analysing the situation
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The theme of the interview was to test how I react when put under pressure and I think the way I responded to it is what clinched the interview for me. I think the interviewer was very aggressive in his questions and tried to make the questions as uncomfortable as possible for me.One learning that I would want to leave out of this experience is that it works better if you take a stand and are hard on that throughout. Just hang-in, by using different arguments possible or even repeat the same arguments in different ways but its important to just hang-in. For example, on the consulting vs. I-banking issue, there were moments when he dominated the discussion so much that I could have shifted my stance a bit but in hindsight that could have been fatal.
Tips: Frankly, issue trees are ambiguous in the sense that you can cut the problem any which way and I made a 3 level issue tree. Don’t think I should give the one that I made here as benchmark because its easy to make any issue tree and then defend it. I presented the tree and the interviewer seemed to like how I did it. He raised a point that I missed incorporating information about the and adjusted my analyses promptly.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: The theme of the interview was to test how I react when put under pressure and I think the way I responded to it is what clinched the interview for me. I think the interviewer was very aggressive in his questions and tried to make the questions as uncomfortable as possible for me.One learning that I would want to leave out of this experience is that it works better if you take a stand and are hard on that throughout. Just hang-in, by using different arguments possible or even repeat the same arguments in different ways but its important to just hang-in. For example, on the consulting vs. I-banking issue, there were moments when he dominated the discussion so much that I could have shifted my stance a bit but in hindsight that could have been fatal.
Tips: Frankly, issue trees are ambiguous in the sense that you can cut the problem any which way and I made a 3 level issue tree. Don’t think I should give the one that I made here as benchmark because its easy to make any issue tree and then defend it. I presented the tree and the interviewer seemed to like how I did it. He raised a point that I missed incorporating information about the and adjusted my analyses promptly.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
4 Interview Rounds
Interview Questions
- Q1. PI questions: Tell me about yourself
- Q2. Why do you continually push yourself to perform well academically
- Q3. How I train for half marathons
- Q4. Case Questions:Our client is one of the largest banks in India. They have done fairly well in retail banking but have struggled in commercial banking division
- Q5. PI questions: Some questions on the resume especially the work I had with Taiwanese client and the challenges I had faced while working with them
- Q6. Compare Indian clients with Asian clients
- Q7. Toughest position I had been in at a client and how I handled it
- Q8. Where do I see myself in 10 years
- Q9. Why consulting
- Q10. If not consulting then what
- Q11. Haiti Crisis and why does a country like Japan respond well while countries like India suffer. A little bit on Reliance and Lyondell deal and what I thought wer...read more
- Q12. Case Questions:Problem with Airline industry in India
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Interviewer was into sports himself hence my interest in running became our topic of conversation for several minutes.
Identified details about the bank – which region, products etc. Next identified the competition and the products they offered. Grouped products as per the total volume of transactions. Was able to isolate bad performance to a single product - forex
derivatives. Then tried to understand how banks make money from forex derivates and by benchmarking with competition was able to ascertain why we aren’t selling. At this time we realized we had already spent about 35min on the PI +Case – so was asked to synthesize the case.
What helped me was that I was able to scope the problem well and isolate the problem to a single product. It was never an interview, more so a conversation. Honestly speaking, for atleast the first 10min of the case I had little idea on where it was going but I tried to employ a MECE structure and spent considerable time on being absolutely clear on the problem.
Finally, even though I had not touched upon the recommendations in the case analysis, I was able to give 2 recommendations as part of my synthesis. This was something which interviewer actually liked.
My lack of practical knowledge about the banking sector was a disadvantage.
Tips: PI is important! Read and be comfortable on different sectors. Also don’t lose you cool even if you think the case is going around in circles.
Round: personal interview
Experience: Walk me through your resume.
Questions on my academic performance at School, Engineering College
and ISB
Strengths
If you had to relive ISB again whom would you want to be
Weaknesses – here was really grilled as he continually pushed back on
each of my prepared answers until I finally cracked
Lots of questions on my work experience.
Why do you want to move from EDA to consulting
Do you think you will do well in a consulting company
Why Mckinsey and how will you make your decision between firms
Tips: Practice your PI!! It is as important as your cases
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The interview started on dramatic note as I came about 15min late. Was asked the reason for coming late and promptly responded with the truth. Interviewer was a little shocked but finally told me that he appreciated my honesty – “integrity was as important as intellect in consulting”
Thankfully had read up on this.
• Started out through the first principles – supply of total seats and the total demand.
• Quickly established the various cost heads – fuel, leasing planes, facilities and staff
It really was a conversation and soon realized that Vivek didn’t really want me to solve it like a case but just discuss. So we started on the analysis phase where we started discussing what is that Air India can do. Identified the places where Air India loses more money compared to competition (both India and foreign). Was able to use some points from Southwest and Singapore airlines
and did a great job in identifying the problems with hub and spoke model of operation – price competition on arterial routes and operational efficiency.
Tips: Practicing cases is important but please don’t neglect your PI and general reading. An intelligent conversation backed by well researched data can really help.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Interviewer was into sports himself hence my interest in running became our topic of conversation for several minutes.
Identified details about the bank – which region, products etc. Next identified the competition and the products they offered. Grouped products as per the total volume of transactions. Was able to isolate bad performance to a single product - forex
derivatives. Then tried to understand how banks make money from forex derivates and by benchmarking with competition was able to ascertain why we aren’t selling. At this time we realized we had already spent about 35min on the PI +Case – so was asked to synthesize the case.
What helped me was that I was able to scope the problem well and isolate the problem to a single product. It was never an interview, more so a conversation. Honestly speaking, for atleast the first 10min of the case I had little idea on where it was going but I tried to employ a MECE structure and spent considerable time on being absolutely clear on the problem.
Finally, even though I had not touched upon the recommendations in the case analysis, I was able to give 2 recommendations as part of my synthesis. This was something which interviewer actually liked.
My lack of practical knowledge about the banking sector was a disadvantage.
Tips: PI is important! Read and be comfortable on different sectors. Also don’t lose you cool even if you think the case is going around in circles.
Round: personal interview
Experience: Walk me through your resume.
Questions on my academic performance at School, Engineering College
and ISB
Strengths
If you had to relive ISB again whom would you want to be
Weaknesses – here was really grilled as he continually pushed back on
each of my prepared answers until I finally cracked
Lots of questions on my work experience.
Why do you want to move from EDA to consulting
Do you think you will do well in a consulting company
Why Mckinsey and how will you make your decision between firms
Tips: Practice your PI!! It is as important as your cases
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The interview started on dramatic note as I came about 15min late. Was asked the reason for coming late and promptly responded with the truth. Interviewer was a little shocked but finally told me that he appreciated my honesty – “integrity was as important as intellect in consulting”
Thankfully had read up on this.
• Started out through the first principles – supply of total seats and the total demand.
• Quickly established the various cost heads – fuel, leasing planes, facilities and staff
It really was a conversation and soon realized that Vivek didn’t really want me to solve it like a case but just discuss. So we started on the analysis phase where we started discussing what is that Air India can do. Identified the places where Air India loses more money compared to competition (both India and foreign). Was able to use some points from Southwest and Singapore airlines
and did a great job in identifying the problems with hub and spoke model of operation – price competition on arterial routes and operational efficiency.
Tips: Practicing cases is important but please don’t neglect your PI and general reading. An intelligent conversation backed by well researched data can really help.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Gautam P Chhugani
posted on 16 Dec 2015
I applied via Referral
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. Personal Interview: examples of leadership experience? Your role in it?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Looked at auto-components industry on my resume and said he would give me an auto-comp case.
Case: Client is a leading auto component manufacturer. It wants to increase profits in the next few years and wants to reach a target of $5 bn in revenues. It is currently at $1 bn.
I suggested there are 2 basic ways to do so:
- Increase volume
- Increase value add and thus margins (elaborated below)
Clarifying questions
Me: Asked what was the core capability of the manufacturer and
the kind of products it manufacturers.
The Interviewer (TI): Forging and forged components
Me: Geographic presence?
TI: India and some acquisitions in Europe.
Me: Is it into auto- comp outsourcing business?
TI: Yes
Me: Increase Volume as follows:
I said can we assume is it meeting demand?
Was asked to make assumptions and proceed. Now I moved into a monologue – coz I gathered that’s what he wants
Increase volume:
- So I said if we know it is lagging in demand, we should explore expansions options – add domestic capacity, acquire capacity externally – (also a increase value add option – refer below)
- Enhance product offering (all types of forged components based on core forging capability)
- Increase share of wallet ( Does a single OEM outsource all types of auto-components) ; Have we exploited any potential to cross sell – if he is buying power train (engine) components, should he also buy axle and chasis components from us
- External acquisitions: Dual shore manufacturing – have a low cost mfg base in India and China, acquire plants in Europe and America which has good customer relationships – thus improve customer intimacy by being geographically close to customer and improve share of wallet.
Increase value add:
- Any change in product mix – make more of critical safety components which provide higher margins
- Provide full end to end support – from design of components to testing – make attempts to support the entire life cycle of car platforms – this will also enhance value add and thus margins ( Explore options to acquire or build R&D centers)
- Compare costs in India and China, add capacity in China, if it reduces costs and enhances margins
Tips: Anything on your CV could be turned into a case. Spend lot of time thinking and reading about companies and industries mentioned on your CV. Whats good/bad about industry? How are companies exploring growth options and so on?
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case:Client is an insurance company. They want to know how big is the insurance opportunity in India? Finally, given the size of the opportunity, what would you recommend as the next steps.
Me: Let me ask the usual clarifying questions, is the company into life insurance or non-life? Private company or a public company?
Interviewer: Life insurance, the client is a private company.
Me: To understand how big the opportunity is I would want to estimate the size of the insurance market.
Interviewer: In what denomination you would estimate the market.
Me: $ mm of life insurance premium
Interviewer: Great. So go ahead and do it.
Me: Sir, before I get into the number work, it will be useful to pictorially or graphically understand where does India stand on insurance penetrations relative to the world.
Interviewer: How would you do that? (It seemed he was very open to new ideas
as seen from his body language because he always sounded excited to hear
something new)
Me: You plot all the countries by insurance penetration ratios and see where India is in the stage of evolution in the insurance market
Interviewer: How would you define the penetration ratio?
Me: Insured population by Insurable population
Interviewer: Great. Now lets get to the number work.
Me: I took some time to think at this stage.
Usual method: Indian population, 30% urban, for now lets focus on the urban market, % of people who cannot afford insurance, I suggested if insurance premium exceeds a particular% of your annual income, then its not affordable, such population should be excluded or alternatively people below the poverty line. I suggested we could break down the population by Income class. As we discussed, it stood out that age cannot be a right basis, as people get their children insured and old people can also be insured albeit at a higher premium.
Interviewer: Great, let us assume you have done all that and the total size of
the market comes to $210mm. LIC’s market is 180mm and has 80%
market share. So what would your conclusion be?
Me:(I wasn’t very fluent at this stage …..somehow I got a bit confused at this stage…no particular reason…probably I wasn’t thinking calmly enough…. Later, with some push from him…this is what I concluded…
Me: Ok, so total insured market is then 180mm/ 0.80 which comes to approximately $205mm. Insurable market is $210mm. So penetration ratio is very high close to 95%. This leaves private insurers a market of only $5mm to pursue. So now how many private insurers are there?
Interviewer: 12/13
Me: Fine, then it is evident that private insurers are competing quite hard and each has a very minuscule share of the private market….and the nature of the game is to arrest market share from LIC, which may be very difficult.
Interviewer: We have now run out of time, so what would you suggest to the company?
Me: As of now, the market is very small and competitive for the private insurers. Going forward, the client would have to arrest market share from LIC and would have to do it better than other private players. So the key question client should ask itself?
- Do I have enough distribution capabilities to gain market share from LIC…coz in Insurance distribution pipeline is most critical. (Things like alliances with corporates, third party distributor alliances etc)
- Secondly, Insurance being a capital intensive business, due to solvency ratios, and unexpected insurance claims, do I have the deep pockets to sustain this market till I become profitable? – high shelf life before break even in insurance business
- Finally, Do I have the ability to offer innovative and customized insurance products to attract the customers?
Tips: - Power of good communication skills and engagement….You may not be reaching the answer…but by showing enough enthusiasm and energy about solving the case…..you allow the interviewer to help you a lot.
- Second, I made up for the not so sharp number work in my synthesis and recommendation. I did not restate facts, based on what I concluded and my industry knowledge, I suggested value added insights and recommendations.
- Lastly, knowing a bit about the industry helps you quote the right metrics like insurance penetration ratios, distribution pipeline etc (Doesn’t substitute pure problem solving skills but allows you to sound sensible)
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In round 2 i was directly given a case to solve. The case was:
Our client is a Chocolate confectionary manufacturer started in 1980. It did quite well till 1990. Post 1990, it has seen a revenue slowdown and a profitability slowdown. Can you help them figure out why?
Me: I drew the usual profitability tree. Revenue and costs.I took him through volumes ( Market size, market share, production) Price changes, if any? Variances in costs ?
Interviewer: Fine, lets look at the costs
Me: Let me list down the various heads of costs Variable costs: Direct material, labor, variable overheads Fixed costs: SG&A including distribution costs, interest costs, I also highlighted the overlap.
Interviewer: Fine, let me provide you some data. Write it down. Raw material costs (% of revenue) For the client is 25%, for competitors 20% Distribution cost (cents per bar): For the client 0.25c and for the competitor 0.15c. Let us explore the distribution cost first.
Me: How does the client distribute its products?
Interviewer: It has its own distribution infrastructure….the trucks, manpower etc.
Me: So can I say the client does distribution in-house. So do our competitors not do it in-house?
Interviewer: Yes, you are right, the competitors are outsourcing distribution. What do you think is happening here?
Me: Is it that distribution agent is operating at a higher scale because he is sourcing the business from various manufacturers. If yes, then this could be the cause of difference in cost.
Interviewer: That’s right. What else? Give me one more reason for difference distribution cost.
Me: Is it that transporters are making more number of trips, since our batches of production are small or not synchronized?
Interviewer: Fine, give me one more.
Me: On what basis do transporters charge us?
Interviewer: Based on hourly rate.
Me: This leads me to the hypothesis, that they may be spending lot of time waiting, at the factory without doing any productive work.
Interviewer: You are thinking right.....go on
Me: Phew! Is it that turnaround time per truck is too high compared to our competitors.
Interviewer: Why do you think that is happening?
Me: Distances are too far from our customers or our suppliers. We are not located at the optimal distance from either customers or suppliers.
Oliver: Great, now lets talk about the raw material cost.
Me: So what kind of chocolate is this? Like a Mars bar or something?
Interviewer: Perfect.
Me: So let me list down the ingredients ……..Milk, cocoa, and sugar would be the main ingredients
Interviewer: So lets talk about each ingredient separately.
Me: Milk is a commodity…..
Interviewer: Is Milk a commodity? Is it traded?
Me: No, its not traded, so its not a commodity (This was my clue….thankfully I picked it up…..you will see below how it was a useful)
Interviewer: Go on…think specifically about each ingredient
Me: Cocoa and sugar are commodities.....because they are traded.
interviewer: So?
Me: After a pause of thinking......... Have the prices gone up of late? If yes, “ They are not hedging the commodity costs”
Interviewer: Excellent...You are right...either they are not hedging it or not hedging it as much as they should.
Me: yah....may be not even things like long term supply contracts.
Case part II:
Interviewerr: Great fresh page………note down these numbers…..gave me a full profitability statement to make for 2 factories….one in UK and one in France…..with capacity utilization to be calculated, units produced, price, RM costs as % of revenue, Labor based on per hour etc.
Me: I did the numbers in a very traditional school boy like fashion, did not try any quick calculation tricks…..was very transparent and vocal about my calculations …..helped a lot in showing my comfort with numbers
Interviewer: So what is your conclusion?
Me:
UK France
Capacity utilization 54% 39%
Profitability % 46.2% 33%
This shows a correlation between profitability and scale utilization.
Interviewer: So what would you suggest?
Me: Why don’t we integrate the facilities…. I did a ball park calculation to see if capacity in UK would be enough to handle production in both UK and France. However, there could be a downside to shutting plant in France…
Interviewer: So what are the downsides?
Me: Transportation cost, labor retrenchment cost, loss of customer intimacy in France resulting in loss of certain customers…he kept saying what else….i kept giving him more and more reasons
Interviewer: Only one thing you missed out real option value, if the French market picks up again…
Me: Ya right….I agree.
Interviewer: Thanks Gautam. Excellent. I liked your idea of integrating capacity. I am very happy with the way case has turned out.
Tips: - Very closely watch the words of the interviewer so that you pick up the clues……write as clearly as you can on paper……it helps you organize your thoughts clearly.
- Again, enjoy the process…treat it like a learning process…..will help you specially with an interviewer like Oliver (the interviewer)…who keeps pushing for more and more reasons and is never satiated.
Its good to be able to talk about common people, it just improves the conversation….again nothing substitutes for being genuine and enthusiastic in personal interviews.
General Tips: 1) Use the Challenge-Action-Impact framework to prepare answers for teamwork, leadership etc. Prepare beforehand
2) Keep telling yourself…. So what? When you prepare these kind of answers
3) Don’t sound rehearsed for such questions. Pick up
something, you are genuinely proud of….It will show
through.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Looked at auto-components industry on my resume and said he would give me an auto-comp case.
Case: Client is a leading auto component manufacturer. It wants to increase profits in the next few years and wants to reach a target of $5 bn in revenues. It is currently at $1 bn.
I suggested there are 2 basic ways to do so:
- Increase volume
- Increase value add and thus margins (elaborated below)
Clarifying questions
Me: Asked what was the core capability of the manufacturer and
the kind of products it manufacturers.
The Interviewer (TI): Forging and forged components
Me: Geographic presence?
TI: India and some acquisitions in Europe.
Me: Is it into auto- comp outsourcing business?
TI: Yes
Me: Increase Volume as follows:
I said can we assume is it meeting demand?
Was asked to make assumptions and proceed. Now I moved into a monologue – coz I gathered that’s what he wants
Increase volume:
- So I said if we know it is lagging in demand, we should explore expansions options – add domestic capacity, acquire capacity externally – (also a increase value add option – refer below)
- Enhance product offering (all types of forged components based on core forging capability)
- Increase share of wallet ( Does a single OEM outsource all types of auto-components) ; Have we exploited any potential to cross sell – if he is buying power train (engine) components, should he also buy axle and chasis components from us
- External acquisitions: Dual shore manufacturing – have a low cost mfg base in India and China, acquire plants in Europe and America which has good customer relationships – thus improve customer intimacy by being geographically close to customer and improve share of wallet.
Increase value add:
- Any change in product mix – make more of critical safety components which provide higher margins
- Provide full end to end support – from design of components to testing – make attempts to support the entire life cycle of car platforms – this will also enhance value add and thus margins ( Explore options to acquire or build R&D centers)
- Compare costs in India and China, add capacity in China, if it reduces costs and enhances margins
Tips: Anything on your CV could be turned into a case. Spend lot of time thinking and reading about companies and industries mentioned on your CV. Whats good/bad about industry? How are companies exploring growth options and so on?
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case:Client is an insurance company. They want to know how big is the insurance opportunity in India? Finally, given the size of the opportunity, what would you recommend as the next steps.
Me: Let me ask the usual clarifying questions, is the company into life insurance or non-life? Private company or a public company?
Interviewer: Life insurance, the client is a private company.
Me: To understand how big the opportunity is I would want to estimate the size of the insurance market.
Interviewer: In what denomination you would estimate the market.
Me: $ mm of life insurance premium
Interviewer: Great. So go ahead and do it.
Me: Sir, before I get into the number work, it will be useful to pictorially or graphically understand where does India stand on insurance penetrations relative to the world.
Interviewer: How would you do that? (It seemed he was very open to new ideas
as seen from his body language because he always sounded excited to hear
something new)
Me: You plot all the countries by insurance penetration ratios and see where India is in the stage of evolution in the insurance market
Interviewer: How would you define the penetration ratio?
Me: Insured population by Insurable population
Interviewer: Great. Now lets get to the number work.
Me: I took some time to think at this stage.
Usual method: Indian population, 30% urban, for now lets focus on the urban market, % of people who cannot afford insurance, I suggested if insurance premium exceeds a particular% of your annual income, then its not affordable, such population should be excluded or alternatively people below the poverty line. I suggested we could break down the population by Income class. As we discussed, it stood out that age cannot be a right basis, as people get their children insured and old people can also be insured albeit at a higher premium.
Interviewer: Great, let us assume you have done all that and the total size of
the market comes to $210mm. LIC’s market is 180mm and has 80%
market share. So what would your conclusion be?
Me:(I wasn’t very fluent at this stage …..somehow I got a bit confused at this stage…no particular reason…probably I wasn’t thinking calmly enough…. Later, with some push from him…this is what I concluded…
Me: Ok, so total insured market is then 180mm/ 0.80 which comes to approximately $205mm. Insurable market is $210mm. So penetration ratio is very high close to 95%. This leaves private insurers a market of only $5mm to pursue. So now how many private insurers are there?
Interviewer: 12/13
Me: Fine, then it is evident that private insurers are competing quite hard and each has a very minuscule share of the private market….and the nature of the game is to arrest market share from LIC, which may be very difficult.
Interviewer: We have now run out of time, so what would you suggest to the company?
Me: As of now, the market is very small and competitive for the private insurers. Going forward, the client would have to arrest market share from LIC and would have to do it better than other private players. So the key question client should ask itself?
- Do I have enough distribution capabilities to gain market share from LIC…coz in Insurance distribution pipeline is most critical. (Things like alliances with corporates, third party distributor alliances etc)
- Secondly, Insurance being a capital intensive business, due to solvency ratios, and unexpected insurance claims, do I have the deep pockets to sustain this market till I become profitable? – high shelf life before break even in insurance business
- Finally, Do I have the ability to offer innovative and customized insurance products to attract the customers?
Tips: - Power of good communication skills and engagement….You may not be reaching the answer…but by showing enough enthusiasm and energy about solving the case…..you allow the interviewer to help you a lot.
- Second, I made up for the not so sharp number work in my synthesis and recommendation. I did not restate facts, based on what I concluded and my industry knowledge, I suggested value added insights and recommendations.
- Lastly, knowing a bit about the industry helps you quote the right metrics like insurance penetration ratios, distribution pipeline etc (Doesn’t substitute pure problem solving skills but allows you to sound sensible)
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In round 2 i was directly given a case to solve. The case was:
Our client is a Chocolate confectionary manufacturer started in 1980. It did quite well till 1990. Post 1990, it has seen a revenue slowdown and a profitability slowdown. Can you help them figure out why?
Me: I drew the usual profitability tree. Revenue and costs.I took him through volumes ( Market size, market share, production) Price changes, if any? Variances in costs ?
Interviewer: Fine, lets look at the costs
Me: Let me list down the various heads of costs Variable costs: Direct material, labor, variable overheads Fixed costs: SG&A including distribution costs, interest costs, I also highlighted the overlap.
Interviewer: Fine, let me provide you some data. Write it down. Raw material costs (% of revenue) For the client is 25%, for competitors 20% Distribution cost (cents per bar): For the client 0.25c and for the competitor 0.15c. Let us explore the distribution cost first.
Me: How does the client distribute its products?
Interviewer: It has its own distribution infrastructure….the trucks, manpower etc.
Me: So can I say the client does distribution in-house. So do our competitors not do it in-house?
Interviewer: Yes, you are right, the competitors are outsourcing distribution. What do you think is happening here?
Me: Is it that distribution agent is operating at a higher scale because he is sourcing the business from various manufacturers. If yes, then this could be the cause of difference in cost.
Interviewer: That’s right. What else? Give me one more reason for difference distribution cost.
Me: Is it that transporters are making more number of trips, since our batches of production are small or not synchronized?
Interviewer: Fine, give me one more.
Me: On what basis do transporters charge us?
Interviewer: Based on hourly rate.
Me: This leads me to the hypothesis, that they may be spending lot of time waiting, at the factory without doing any productive work.
Interviewer: You are thinking right.....go on
Me: Phew! Is it that turnaround time per truck is too high compared to our competitors.
Interviewer: Why do you think that is happening?
Me: Distances are too far from our customers or our suppliers. We are not located at the optimal distance from either customers or suppliers.
Oliver: Great, now lets talk about the raw material cost.
Me: So what kind of chocolate is this? Like a Mars bar or something?
Interviewer: Perfect.
Me: So let me list down the ingredients ……..Milk, cocoa, and sugar would be the main ingredients
Interviewer: So lets talk about each ingredient separately.
Me: Milk is a commodity…..
Interviewer: Is Milk a commodity? Is it traded?
Me: No, its not traded, so its not a commodity (This was my clue….thankfully I picked it up…..you will see below how it was a useful)
Interviewer: Go on…think specifically about each ingredient
Me: Cocoa and sugar are commodities.....because they are traded.
interviewer: So?
Me: After a pause of thinking......... Have the prices gone up of late? If yes, “ They are not hedging the commodity costs”
Interviewer: Excellent...You are right...either they are not hedging it or not hedging it as much as they should.
Me: yah....may be not even things like long term supply contracts.
Case part II:
Interviewerr: Great fresh page………note down these numbers…..gave me a full profitability statement to make for 2 factories….one in UK and one in France…..with capacity utilization to be calculated, units produced, price, RM costs as % of revenue, Labor based on per hour etc.
Me: I did the numbers in a very traditional school boy like fashion, did not try any quick calculation tricks…..was very transparent and vocal about my calculations …..helped a lot in showing my comfort with numbers
Interviewer: So what is your conclusion?
Me:
UK France
Capacity utilization 54% 39%
Profitability % 46.2% 33%
This shows a correlation between profitability and scale utilization.
Interviewer: So what would you suggest?
Me: Why don’t we integrate the facilities…. I did a ball park calculation to see if capacity in UK would be enough to handle production in both UK and France. However, there could be a downside to shutting plant in France…
Interviewer: So what are the downsides?
Me: Transportation cost, labor retrenchment cost, loss of customer intimacy in France resulting in loss of certain customers…he kept saying what else….i kept giving him more and more reasons
Interviewer: Only one thing you missed out real option value, if the French market picks up again…
Me: Ya right….I agree.
Interviewer: Thanks Gautam. Excellent. I liked your idea of integrating capacity. I am very happy with the way case has turned out.
Tips: - Very closely watch the words of the interviewer so that you pick up the clues……write as clearly as you can on paper……it helps you organize your thoughts clearly.
- Again, enjoy the process…treat it like a learning process…..will help you specially with an interviewer like Oliver (the interviewer)…who keeps pushing for more and more reasons and is never satiated.
Its good to be able to talk about common people, it just improves the conversation….again nothing substitutes for being genuine and enthusiastic in personal interviews.
General Tips: 1) Use the Challenge-Action-Impact framework to prepare answers for teamwork, leadership etc. Prepare beforehand
2) Keep telling yourself…. So what? When you prepare these kind of answers
3) Don’t sound rehearsed for such questions. Pick up
something, you are genuinely proud of….It will show
through.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Sridhar Sankararaman
posted on 16 Dec 2015
I applied via Referral
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. What is your best academic performance? why?
- Q2. What is your worst academic performance? why?
- Q3. What is your work experience?
- Q4. Why MBA and not investment banking?
- Q5. Why ISB?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Personal Interview questions revolved around my academic performance and about grades. The case interview started off with the following case:
Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. He is now witnessing reduce profits. Advise.
I Laid out the structure--- Client (his product lines, pricing, distribution channel), competition (change in competitors, their strategy wrt product lines, distribution), Customers (size, preferences), Industry (regulatory, new technology) and cost dynamics (fixed, variable, etc).Interviewer was happy with the structure and said he wanted hypothesis as to why is he losing profits:
• New competitors have come up with diff technology for boilers –NO
• The market size for boilers has shrunk (due to changes in the industry they have been rendered redundant)
• Price war in the industry – reduced profitability – YES
Then I explored how the competitors are offering a lower price. After delving through each item on cost structure, Supply chain, etc; it appeared that it was because the competitors used a new technology to manufacture boilers --- This tech required LESS raw material (steel) per unit of boiler because the manner in which Steel was being cut (he gave some technical knowledge) -boy….this took some time to get to…in fact interviewer helped out here !!!
Tips: Stay Confident & Cool even if you miss the above fact. Move on
and build on it. Show Energy during the interview. !!
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: in the second interview of the first round, personal interview was entirely experience based; did not miss any line of CV on work exp (as I had fin work exp)
case: I want to start a crane leasing biz in China….estimate my annual profits for next year
I Assumed: No regulatory issues, no replacement of cranes with better equipment for 1 year
First zeroed in on city, then city space, available free space, plausible for construction next year.
Identified alternative pricing strategies—ie per diem, per contract, on/off season rates (less in rainy,etc)
Lots of numbers given (area—square kms, rates, etc)– he wanted me to calculated to the nearest dollar….
Made a calculation mistake (while using square root for area
estimation)…but keep your cool ..they are looking at approach
He then asked me to convert the final answer ($33,85,263) to the nearest pound sterling (DON’T LOSE your cool…)..I used 1.8 conversion rate to convert it (did not carry a calculator☺)))
At the end I asked few questions on M&A issues in China (I heard up on this after the interview schedule was out)..this helps impress him as he was based in the Corp Fin group in China
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the first interview of the second round personal interview was more of a general feel good talk. Then the case Interview began. the case was:
Airline industry—reduced profitability
I gave the structure, identified the drivers and was beginning to explore each item ---he said that he was happy with structure and gave me another scenario where an airline had 2 options either to fly:
Brazil to US
Brazil-Argentina-US
I explored the pt to pt vs hub and spoke model….we went through the numbers and looked at the opportunity costs to finally chose the right strategy.
I also looked at non-fin aspects like strategy and future growth before choosing the option.
He asked me to list adv and dis adv of both models. I drew a model and explored that for 10 routes, pt to pt needs 45 air crafts (10 C 2) while hub and spoke needs only 10. Also identified positives and negatives in other aspects such as costs, customer perception, time, target segment impact, load factor (utilization rate), pricing, etc
Incidentally the actual opinion he said was similar to my recommendation.
Tips: Be ready for pep talk, good opportunity to create feel good
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second interview, the personal interview was more of a general talk with questions on why MBA, why ISB etc.
Case: International Courier company-losing market share
Standard structure—
• product mix (packages of all sizes), distribution network pricing,
• competition,
• customer segment (attributes they look for: time, safety of packet and prices; convenience – centers for collection-touch points),
• industry dynamics,
• cost structure (esp fixed), etc
Identified problem as local couriers eating market share due to lower costs
Recommendation:
As Fixed costs are high; increase volume business by:
• Alliances with Low cost couriers (but quality of service is a issue)
• JV s (would help as equity stake)
• Acquisitions (highlighted both positives and negatives)
Reduce costs internally (explore using excess capacity on other airlines instead of using your own airlines for low volumes)
General Tips: Keep your cool during the interview.
Keep smiling and be confident.
Try to not to goof up with calculations.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Personal Interview questions revolved around my academic performance and about grades. The case interview started off with the following case:
Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. He is now witnessing reduce profits. Advise.
I Laid out the structure--- Client (his product lines, pricing, distribution channel), competition (change in competitors, their strategy wrt product lines, distribution), Customers (size, preferences), Industry (regulatory, new technology) and cost dynamics (fixed, variable, etc).Interviewer was happy with the structure and said he wanted hypothesis as to why is he losing profits:
• New competitors have come up with diff technology for boilers –NO
• The market size for boilers has shrunk (due to changes in the industry they have been rendered redundant)
• Price war in the industry – reduced profitability – YES
Then I explored how the competitors are offering a lower price. After delving through each item on cost structure, Supply chain, etc; it appeared that it was because the competitors used a new technology to manufacture boilers --- This tech required LESS raw material (steel) per unit of boiler because the manner in which Steel was being cut (he gave some technical knowledge) -boy….this took some time to get to…in fact interviewer helped out here !!!
Tips: Stay Confident & Cool even if you miss the above fact. Move on
and build on it. Show Energy during the interview. !!
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: in the second interview of the first round, personal interview was entirely experience based; did not miss any line of CV on work exp (as I had fin work exp)
case: I want to start a crane leasing biz in China….estimate my annual profits for next year
I Assumed: No regulatory issues, no replacement of cranes with better equipment for 1 year
First zeroed in on city, then city space, available free space, plausible for construction next year.
Identified alternative pricing strategies—ie per diem, per contract, on/off season rates (less in rainy,etc)
Lots of numbers given (area—square kms, rates, etc)– he wanted me to calculated to the nearest dollar….
Made a calculation mistake (while using square root for area
estimation)…but keep your cool ..they are looking at approach
He then asked me to convert the final answer ($33,85,263) to the nearest pound sterling (DON’T LOSE your cool…)..I used 1.8 conversion rate to convert it (did not carry a calculator☺)))
At the end I asked few questions on M&A issues in China (I heard up on this after the interview schedule was out)..this helps impress him as he was based in the Corp Fin group in China
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the first interview of the second round personal interview was more of a general feel good talk. Then the case Interview began. the case was:
Airline industry—reduced profitability
I gave the structure, identified the drivers and was beginning to explore each item ---he said that he was happy with structure and gave me another scenario where an airline had 2 options either to fly:
Brazil to US
Brazil-Argentina-US
I explored the pt to pt vs hub and spoke model….we went through the numbers and looked at the opportunity costs to finally chose the right strategy.
I also looked at non-fin aspects like strategy and future growth before choosing the option.
He asked me to list adv and dis adv of both models. I drew a model and explored that for 10 routes, pt to pt needs 45 air crafts (10 C 2) while hub and spoke needs only 10. Also identified positives and negatives in other aspects such as costs, customer perception, time, target segment impact, load factor (utilization rate), pricing, etc
Incidentally the actual opinion he said was similar to my recommendation.
Tips: Be ready for pep talk, good opportunity to create feel good
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second interview, the personal interview was more of a general talk with questions on why MBA, why ISB etc.
Case: International Courier company-losing market share
Standard structure—
• product mix (packages of all sizes), distribution network pricing,
• competition,
• customer segment (attributes they look for: time, safety of packet and prices; convenience – centers for collection-touch points),
• industry dynamics,
• cost structure (esp fixed), etc
Identified problem as local couriers eating market share due to lower costs
Recommendation:
As Fixed costs are high; increase volume business by:
• Alliances with Low cost couriers (but quality of service is a issue)
• JV s (would help as equity stake)
• Acquisitions (highlighted both positives and negatives)
Reduce costs internally (explore using excess capacity on other airlines instead of using your own airlines for low volumes)
General Tips: Keep your cool during the interview.
Keep smiling and be confident.
Try to not to goof up with calculations.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Referral
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. Personal Interview: Why consulting and Mckinsey?
- Q2. Examples of leadership experience
- Q3. Challenges faced in the client environment( I was a project manager handling projects at the client site)
- Q4. Why not cricket as a career?
- Q5. What are your key strengths?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case 1: As I had worked in the healthcare industry for the last 2.5 years of career with Infosys. The interviewer made a case on the spot for the software industry and healthcare.
Nandan Nilakeni approaches you for advice on a product that can be created for the US healthcare industry. How do you analyze the situation?
Analysis
Since healthcare industry value chain has many players, structured case as focusing on the healthcare providers. Confirmed with interviewer. Bucketed the IT drivers into market trends, government regulation & operational efficiency.
Market trends
Discussed the broad trends in the US healthcare industry
f. Climbing health care costs
g. Government encouraging customers to take more responsibility for their health care spending
h. Creation of tax deductible Flexible spending accounts
i. Consumers transitioning to customers (earlier customers were the payers employers)
j. Need for more robust means of identifying customers and their medical history to manage chronic diseases
k. More consumer directed health plans being purchased
l. Importance of customer relationship management systems for health care providers (which currently doesn’t exist/ limited versions)
He further quizzed me about the apparent lack of IT systems in US HC providers. Asked me to explore historical reasons
Me:
1) Misaligned incentives for the providers vis-à-vis accrual of benefits from IT usage. Major beneficiaries are insurance companies.
2) Practicing Physicians less likely to make IT investment Government Regulation
Discussed high cost of regulation in the health care industry (1 of total health care spend)
Discussed HIPAA regulations as an example
Interviewer: Will the providers be able to meet the deadlines set by HIP? Talked about the security and portability aspects of HIPAA, Timelines for each phase etc
Me : Compliance will drive some of the major health spending. Ease of enhancement for regulatory compliance will be one of the important aspects of the IT product.
Operational Efficiency:
Me: Accidental deaths from inefficient and error-prone process within hospitals. Operational efficiency to be improved. Importance of IT systems like CPOE, EHR gaining importance. Potential toreduce errors. Standardization of processes within hospitals
increases scope for productization.
Interviewer: To summarize, what are the most important aspects which favor product development as opposed to customized application development in the health care industry ?
Me: Standardization of requirements is one. Regulatory compliance is another.
Asked if I have any questions.
In the second interview I was given another case.
Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. He is now witnessing
reduce profits. Advise .
Laid out the structure--- Client (his product lines, pricing, distribution channel), competition (change in competitors, their strategy wrt product lines, distribution), Customers (size, preferences), Industry (regulatory, new technology) and cost dynamics (fixed, variable, etc).Interviewer was happy with the structure and said he wanted hypothesis as to why is he losing profits:
• New competitors have come up with diff technology for boilers
–NO
• The market size for boilers has shrunk (due to changes in the
industry they have been rendered redundant)
• Price war in the industry – reduced profitability – YES
Then I explored how the competitors are offering a lower price. After delving through each item on cost structure, Supply chain, etc; it appeared that it was because the competitors used a new technology to manufacture boilers --- This tech required LESS raw material (steel) per unit of boiler because the manner in which Steel was being cut (he gave some technical knowledge) -boy….this took some time to get to…in fact interviewer helped out here !!!
Discussed about the trends in IT off-shoring. Asked him about the next wave of off-shoring from Infrastructure management business and how well prepared the Indian players are to meet this challenge in his opinion ?
General Tips: Stick to a detailed and precise answer while solving for the case.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Case 1: As I had worked in the healthcare industry for the last 2.5 years of career with Infosys. The interviewer made a case on the spot for the software industry and healthcare.
Nandan Nilakeni approaches you for advice on a product that can be created for the US healthcare industry. How do you analyze the situation?
Analysis
Since healthcare industry value chain has many players, structured case as focusing on the healthcare providers. Confirmed with interviewer. Bucketed the IT drivers into market trends, government regulation & operational efficiency.
Market trends
Discussed the broad trends in the US healthcare industry
f. Climbing health care costs
g. Government encouraging customers to take more responsibility for their health care spending
h. Creation of tax deductible Flexible spending accounts
i. Consumers transitioning to customers (earlier customers were the payers employers)
j. Need for more robust means of identifying customers and their medical history to manage chronic diseases
k. More consumer directed health plans being purchased
l. Importance of customer relationship management systems for health care providers (which currently doesn’t exist/ limited versions)
He further quizzed me about the apparent lack of IT systems in US HC providers. Asked me to explore historical reasons
Me:
1) Misaligned incentives for the providers vis-à-vis accrual of benefits from IT usage. Major beneficiaries are insurance companies.
2) Practicing Physicians less likely to make IT investment Government Regulation
Discussed high cost of regulation in the health care industry (1 of total health care spend)
Discussed HIPAA regulations as an example
Interviewer: Will the providers be able to meet the deadlines set by HIP? Talked about the security and portability aspects of HIPAA, Timelines for each phase etc
Me : Compliance will drive some of the major health spending. Ease of enhancement for regulatory compliance will be one of the important aspects of the IT product.
Operational Efficiency:
Me: Accidental deaths from inefficient and error-prone process within hospitals. Operational efficiency to be improved. Importance of IT systems like CPOE, EHR gaining importance. Potential toreduce errors. Standardization of processes within hospitals
increases scope for productization.
Interviewer: To summarize, what are the most important aspects which favor product development as opposed to customized application development in the health care industry ?
Me: Standardization of requirements is one. Regulatory compliance is another.
Asked if I have any questions.
In the second interview I was given another case.
Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. He is now witnessing
reduce profits. Advise .
Laid out the structure--- Client (his product lines, pricing, distribution channel), competition (change in competitors, their strategy wrt product lines, distribution), Customers (size, preferences), Industry (regulatory, new technology) and cost dynamics (fixed, variable, etc).Interviewer was happy with the structure and said he wanted hypothesis as to why is he losing profits:
• New competitors have come up with diff technology for boilers
–NO
• The market size for boilers has shrunk (due to changes in the
industry they have been rendered redundant)
• Price war in the industry – reduced profitability – YES
Then I explored how the competitors are offering a lower price. After delving through each item on cost structure, Supply chain, etc; it appeared that it was because the competitors used a new technology to manufacture boilers --- This tech required LESS raw material (steel) per unit of boiler because the manner in which Steel was being cut (he gave some technical knowledge) -boy….this took some time to get to…in fact interviewer helped out here !!!
Discussed about the trends in IT off-shoring. Asked him about the next wave of off-shoring from Infrastructure management business and how well prepared the Indian players are to meet this challenge in his opinion ?
General Tips: Stick to a detailed and precise answer while solving for the case.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Referral
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. Personal questions: Why consulting?
- Q2. What are your leadership examples
- Q3. Tell me about yourself
- Q4. Why MBA? Why ISB?
- Q5. How does consulting fit in your goals?
- Q6. Case Question: What is the model on which Inductis (company) works?
- Q7. Personal Interview: Discussion on how BTO practice is similar to/different from 'generalist' practise
- Q8. What is the passion in your life and how are you working towards it?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I never realized when my case started; he was asking me the model on which Inductis works, and slowly moved towards what are the challenges for a company like Inductis in expanding. Only when he said “Or let’s say the CEO of JP Morgan, Kevin, or the CEO of Infosys comes to you and says that they wanted to expand their offshoring strength from 250 to 400, but they were not able to scale up.”, did I realize that my case had started! I politely asked him, “Is this a case, or I should be answering just on the fly?”; to which he replied – “Whatever you deem correct. Okay, lets consider it a
case”. I came up with the following issues:
1) They are not getting quality CVs
2) There are too many companies wooing the skilled people we want
3) There are some problems in meeting the expectations of the workers – challenging work , work-life balance and growth opportunities
4) Where do our workers go after leaving us
5) Is there some problem with the HR department
It turned out that the 5 point was one of the major problems.
Then I was given another case – “Mr Murthy is contemplating to expand globally and set up centers in US because India gets only $30 bn out of the total $800 bn offshoring/outsourcing market. What are the pros and cons?”
The most important negative point I identified was that that the cost arbitrage would not be there. Noshir then asked me to focus on advantages, and I came up with the following:
1) Proximity to the client
2) Cultural affinity
3) Better domain knowledge as you are working where the action is taking place
4) Lower telecom costs and hurdles
5) Political benefits – Democrats are totally against moving jobs to Asia, and hence such a move would be politically hailed
Tips: Biggest learning – your case can start anytime without you being explicitly told. This is really true for McK interviewers especially. Also, they don’t always look for structuring – when I was starting to jot down some points for my first case, the interviewer told me not to worry about structure and clarificatory questions and other formalities; he said “I know you would be master in all this, so I just want recommendations and issues which will add value to the client”.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second interview I was given a case study. It was conducted by another Interviewer. Your friend lives in Beijing, and is observing the commercial/office buildings being built these days. He is contemplating getting into the business of leasing cranes to constructors. What do you think of this idea?
The rough framework I told him I would follow is:
1) The market opportunity
2) Competition
3) Contacts, especially with suppliers of cranes
4) Investments in this business
5) Risks going forward
After a little discussion on each of these, he told me that this is an estimation case, and I have to estimate the market size of this business in $ terms. There can be several ways to go about it, and I took the following one:
1) An average building is built on a square of side 70m
2) Assume Beijing to be a square of side 20km
3) Out of the total are of 400 sq.km, 50sq.km is used for commercial purposes
4) 80% of this, ie 40 sq. km is the area on which a building is actually build (the rest 20% for roads, lawns, parking lots etc)
5) This gives about 8000 buildings which can be built
6) Assume in the next years, a total 2000 buildings will be build, 400 each in every year
7) A building construction requires 3 cranes in the initial 4 months,
2 cranes in the next 4 months, and 1 crane in the last 4 months, completing in whole 1 year
8) A crane costs $50,000 per month Doing all the calculation should give the total annual market size of approximately $480 million.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the personal Interview the interview started from a discussion on BTO practice for 20 minutes. The case interview started after a discussion of my short-term/long-term goals, how consulting fits in and why MBA etc.
She gave an actual situation she met in China on one of her projects:
A meat manufacturer in Europe, selling only ham and sausages, has been seeing declining profits for the last 2 years. So what could be the reason behind it?
I did the following analysis step by step:
1) What specific did we do 2 years back? – Nothing was the answer.
2) Have the customer tastes been changing? – No, the market was stable
3) How is the competitive landscape? – 2 competitors, each having 30% mkt share, while we have 40%.
4) Revenue-Cost analysis: It turned out that the volumes of sausages was going down, while it was constant for ham. The reason was that one of the competitors was selling sausages at 99 cents a kg, while we sold at $1/kg; also, we sold ham at $4.2/kg.
The issue then shifted to the question – how was the competitor able to sell sausages at 99 cents a kg? While analyzing the cost structure, it emerged that sausages were being sold at break-even!
Now the question was – if they are zero margins in sausages, then how could lower sausage sales trigger a decline in profits? I asked some more questions about how they were manufactured, and found that the following process is followed: the company buys chunks of meat, makes ham out of them, and the small, leftover pieces of meat are used to make sausages. Hence, when the sales of sausages went down, it was because they were not able to sell the leftover meat at $1/kg they bought the raw meat at.
This rang the bell of ‘cost allocation’; why should sausages me allocated the costs for leftover scrap meat at the same rate as that of good meat used in ham? Well, one reason unearthed. Actually, there was a bigger reason; the indirect labor costs (salaries of CEO, managers etc) were being allocated very irrationally – though a ham was being sold at 4.2 times the price of a sausage and involved more processing and personnel time, both were allocated the same costs! In fact, a sausage was being allocated a total of 60 cents for indirect labor costs, though a ham was being allocated only 80 cents.
I synthesized the case by explaining how cross-subsidization was happening, how this could be because of the shrewdness of the manager of ham operations and the naivety of the manager of sausage operations. It turned out that this was exactly the reason behind all this.
In the second interview, I was not given any case.
Tips: Keep in mind how much time you would have for the case; As we had lost 20-25 minutes discussing BTO, I was well aware that no way would I get much time as this was a 30 min interview. Hence I quickly went through all possible issues, and zeroed in on the relevant one
Prepare your PI well.
General Tips: Structuring of the cases should be impressive.
Keep in mind how much time you would have for the case.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: I never realized when my case started; he was asking me the model on which Inductis works, and slowly moved towards what are the challenges for a company like Inductis in expanding. Only when he said “Or let’s say the CEO of JP Morgan, Kevin, or the CEO of Infosys comes to you and says that they wanted to expand their offshoring strength from 250 to 400, but they were not able to scale up.”, did I realize that my case had started! I politely asked him, “Is this a case, or I should be answering just on the fly?”; to which he replied – “Whatever you deem correct. Okay, lets consider it a
case”. I came up with the following issues:
1) They are not getting quality CVs
2) There are too many companies wooing the skilled people we want
3) There are some problems in meeting the expectations of the workers – challenging work , work-life balance and growth opportunities
4) Where do our workers go after leaving us
5) Is there some problem with the HR department
It turned out that the 5 point was one of the major problems.
Then I was given another case – “Mr Murthy is contemplating to expand globally and set up centers in US because India gets only $30 bn out of the total $800 bn offshoring/outsourcing market. What are the pros and cons?”
The most important negative point I identified was that that the cost arbitrage would not be there. Noshir then asked me to focus on advantages, and I came up with the following:
1) Proximity to the client
2) Cultural affinity
3) Better domain knowledge as you are working where the action is taking place
4) Lower telecom costs and hurdles
5) Political benefits – Democrats are totally against moving jobs to Asia, and hence such a move would be politically hailed
Tips: Biggest learning – your case can start anytime without you being explicitly told. This is really true for McK interviewers especially. Also, they don’t always look for structuring – when I was starting to jot down some points for my first case, the interviewer told me not to worry about structure and clarificatory questions and other formalities; he said “I know you would be master in all this, so I just want recommendations and issues which will add value to the client”.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second interview I was given a case study. It was conducted by another Interviewer. Your friend lives in Beijing, and is observing the commercial/office buildings being built these days. He is contemplating getting into the business of leasing cranes to constructors. What do you think of this idea?
The rough framework I told him I would follow is:
1) The market opportunity
2) Competition
3) Contacts, especially with suppliers of cranes
4) Investments in this business
5) Risks going forward
After a little discussion on each of these, he told me that this is an estimation case, and I have to estimate the market size of this business in $ terms. There can be several ways to go about it, and I took the following one:
1) An average building is built on a square of side 70m
2) Assume Beijing to be a square of side 20km
3) Out of the total are of 400 sq.km, 50sq.km is used for commercial purposes
4) 80% of this, ie 40 sq. km is the area on which a building is actually build (the rest 20% for roads, lawns, parking lots etc)
5) This gives about 8000 buildings which can be built
6) Assume in the next years, a total 2000 buildings will be build, 400 each in every year
7) A building construction requires 3 cranes in the initial 4 months,
2 cranes in the next 4 months, and 1 crane in the last 4 months, completing in whole 1 year
8) A crane costs $50,000 per month Doing all the calculation should give the total annual market size of approximately $480 million.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the personal Interview the interview started from a discussion on BTO practice for 20 minutes. The case interview started after a discussion of my short-term/long-term goals, how consulting fits in and why MBA etc.
She gave an actual situation she met in China on one of her projects:
A meat manufacturer in Europe, selling only ham and sausages, has been seeing declining profits for the last 2 years. So what could be the reason behind it?
I did the following analysis step by step:
1) What specific did we do 2 years back? – Nothing was the answer.
2) Have the customer tastes been changing? – No, the market was stable
3) How is the competitive landscape? – 2 competitors, each having 30% mkt share, while we have 40%.
4) Revenue-Cost analysis: It turned out that the volumes of sausages was going down, while it was constant for ham. The reason was that one of the competitors was selling sausages at 99 cents a kg, while we sold at $1/kg; also, we sold ham at $4.2/kg.
The issue then shifted to the question – how was the competitor able to sell sausages at 99 cents a kg? While analyzing the cost structure, it emerged that sausages were being sold at break-even!
Now the question was – if they are zero margins in sausages, then how could lower sausage sales trigger a decline in profits? I asked some more questions about how they were manufactured, and found that the following process is followed: the company buys chunks of meat, makes ham out of them, and the small, leftover pieces of meat are used to make sausages. Hence, when the sales of sausages went down, it was because they were not able to sell the leftover meat at $1/kg they bought the raw meat at.
This rang the bell of ‘cost allocation’; why should sausages me allocated the costs for leftover scrap meat at the same rate as that of good meat used in ham? Well, one reason unearthed. Actually, there was a bigger reason; the indirect labor costs (salaries of CEO, managers etc) were being allocated very irrationally – though a ham was being sold at 4.2 times the price of a sausage and involved more processing and personnel time, both were allocated the same costs! In fact, a sausage was being allocated a total of 60 cents for indirect labor costs, though a ham was being allocated only 80 cents.
I synthesized the case by explaining how cross-subsidization was happening, how this could be because of the shrewdness of the manager of ham operations and the naivety of the manager of sausage operations. It turned out that this was exactly the reason behind all this.
In the second interview, I was not given any case.
Tips: Keep in mind how much time you would have for the case; As we had lost 20-25 minutes discussing BTO, I was well aware that no way would I get much time as this was a 30 min interview. Hence I quickly went through all possible issues, and zeroed in on the relevant one
Prepare your PI well.
General Tips: Structuring of the cases should be impressive.
Keep in mind how much time you would have for the case.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. Personal questions:Examples of leadership experience
- Q2. What are my views on ISB and the way ahead for it
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the Personal Interview, I was asked about my leadership experiences. My experience of factory start-up with HLL helped my case. Further I was asked why I could not make it through with McK the previous time (I had interviewed while at IITK in 2002 for analyst post). Here I pointed out to the way I have changed in the last 3 years both while working with HLL and by doing my MBA (focusing on peer learning). I gave an example of the way I currently understand the position of HLL, with specific mention to its annual result (had been announced just 3 days back ); I had done some basic numbers (ratios) and could easily comment on the performance with a mention of the way ahead as it should be for HLL.
I was given two cases by the interviewer for my first round.
For case 1, I was given this: SAP India has not been able to expand its operations as it has not been able to hire the right number of people, so ramp up was not possible, help out its HR dept. I did some checks with simple questions to understand the situation better. Then I drew a funnel (which represents the hiring process), input to which is applicants and output is selected candidates. Understood the drop outs (people eliminated) at various stages. Concluded that the process can not be made less stringent, so the only way out is to increase the input to the funnel.
Looked at input as market share of a product (dependent on 3 factors, Awareness, Availability and Purchase intention, MARKSTRAT funda). Checked if it’s a fair way to look at it. The interviewer was pretty satisfied with it.
Awareness: 2 segments, fresh college grads and IT professionals working in other firms who might like to apply to SAP. Realized that awareness level is low on campuses and the IT Pros of other firms are not being targeted at all.
Remedy: Campus promotion events, tie ups with schools the way Infy et al are having, start a referral programme, start blogs, etc.
Availability: Very poor interface to apply on, extremely low bandwidth of HR dept. takes a month to process applications and by that time the applicants are no longer interested or already have jobs. Measures suggested here.
Purchase Intention: No problem here. The quality of work is great and the brand name of SAP is great.
In the end, synthesized the case.
I believe I was able to structure the case very well and that really helped a lot.
2nd Case: Tata 1 lakh car, need to lower the cost of parts in car to less than 75 K.
Structure made, being from a manufacturing background I tried to leverage on my wok knowledge and presented my analysis:
• Might have to use an alternate MoC (Material of construction), think plastics/composites.
• Tie up with a global vendor like GE to get the MoC
• Have all yr auto ancillary suppliers gear up to the challenge of using the MoC
• Centralized purchasing done by Tata Motors for all ancillary suppliers so as to get economies of scale
• Rationalize the components being used, get rid of useless components used in the car (I missed out this point and was driven towards it)
My energy level created very positive vibes from the very beginning
The structuring of the cases was good.
The way I could point out the change (for the better) that I have undergone since the time I last interviewed with McK.
My leadership examples was pretty strong
In the end I asked him about the Mck NASSCOM report (I had read it cover to cover) and wanted to know his views on Indian top 5 IT cos becoming USD 10 Bn firms.
He was happy with the question and gave his views.
Tips: Personal Questions: Prepare very well. The way I see it, write a 10-12 page essay about yourself which really is a representation of your true self. It should not be swayed by the firm or the kind of job you are interviewing for.
It helps to serve as a key for all personal questions and having it all together ensures that there is no contradiction in any answer. It worked very well in my case.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There were no personal questions in this round and it was pointed out that only 1 case will be administered. I was asked to ask him questions about work/McK. I asked him about his failures at McK.
For case I was presented with this: Client is India’s largest PSU bank (Client name cant be disclosed ☺) Due to recent RBI strictures, cheque can’t be delivered physically to a clearing house, so an alternative scheme is to be drawn up. I some how confused this whole system with RTGS and started blabbering out of that when I was checked by Nigel. (Lesson: Never ever assume anything, if you do, make sure you check it with the interviewer).
There were basically 2 schemes which were drawn up with regards to cheque processing and movement of information/data. They were to be compared, a result had to be arrived at and an optimal one (possibly a third one was to be suggested).
I went about drawing the 2 schemes (what appeared to be child’s play initially was extremely tough). By the end I was thoroughly confused between the schemes as they had so many elements to them. I requested for more time and drew them neatly (that is something not very natural to me) and on different sheets of paper. Then I concluded that we need to do a cost benefit analysis (with the constraint of acceptable service level) and I went on to identify the cost drivers. They included manpower cost, cost of hardware like scanners, bandwidth cost (for electronic flow of images), cost of courier and the constraint of service level. At this stage I was getting lost due to excess information and was asked to stop and synthesize the discussion we had had till that time before proceeding further.
Then we did establish the merits of one network structure over the other and I was then asked to arrive at an even better network. The interviewer left me alone in he room for some time to help me think and I could arrive at an alternate network. Upon discussion it was found that I had not taken care of the service level and my design was not feasible.
Tips: Never crack in a pressure interviewer, if the case is difficult and the interviewer is asking you to speed up and move when you are not really done with an issue, DO take your time.
General Tips: Maintain positive energy from the beginning of the interview.
Focus on the way you structure the cases.
Be as succinct and creative as possible while solving the cases.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: In the Personal Interview, I was asked about my leadership experiences. My experience of factory start-up with HLL helped my case. Further I was asked why I could not make it through with McK the previous time (I had interviewed while at IITK in 2002 for analyst post). Here I pointed out to the way I have changed in the last 3 years both while working with HLL and by doing my MBA (focusing on peer learning). I gave an example of the way I currently understand the position of HLL, with specific mention to its annual result (had been announced just 3 days back ); I had done some basic numbers (ratios) and could easily comment on the performance with a mention of the way ahead as it should be for HLL.
I was given two cases by the interviewer for my first round.
For case 1, I was given this: SAP India has not been able to expand its operations as it has not been able to hire the right number of people, so ramp up was not possible, help out its HR dept. I did some checks with simple questions to understand the situation better. Then I drew a funnel (which represents the hiring process), input to which is applicants and output is selected candidates. Understood the drop outs (people eliminated) at various stages. Concluded that the process can not be made less stringent, so the only way out is to increase the input to the funnel.
Looked at input as market share of a product (dependent on 3 factors, Awareness, Availability and Purchase intention, MARKSTRAT funda). Checked if it’s a fair way to look at it. The interviewer was pretty satisfied with it.
Awareness: 2 segments, fresh college grads and IT professionals working in other firms who might like to apply to SAP. Realized that awareness level is low on campuses and the IT Pros of other firms are not being targeted at all.
Remedy: Campus promotion events, tie ups with schools the way Infy et al are having, start a referral programme, start blogs, etc.
Availability: Very poor interface to apply on, extremely low bandwidth of HR dept. takes a month to process applications and by that time the applicants are no longer interested or already have jobs. Measures suggested here.
Purchase Intention: No problem here. The quality of work is great and the brand name of SAP is great.
In the end, synthesized the case.
I believe I was able to structure the case very well and that really helped a lot.
2nd Case: Tata 1 lakh car, need to lower the cost of parts in car to less than 75 K.
Structure made, being from a manufacturing background I tried to leverage on my wok knowledge and presented my analysis:
• Might have to use an alternate MoC (Material of construction), think plastics/composites.
• Tie up with a global vendor like GE to get the MoC
• Have all yr auto ancillary suppliers gear up to the challenge of using the MoC
• Centralized purchasing done by Tata Motors for all ancillary suppliers so as to get economies of scale
• Rationalize the components being used, get rid of useless components used in the car (I missed out this point and was driven towards it)
My energy level created very positive vibes from the very beginning
The structuring of the cases was good.
The way I could point out the change (for the better) that I have undergone since the time I last interviewed with McK.
My leadership examples was pretty strong
In the end I asked him about the Mck NASSCOM report (I had read it cover to cover) and wanted to know his views on Indian top 5 IT cos becoming USD 10 Bn firms.
He was happy with the question and gave his views.
Tips: Personal Questions: Prepare very well. The way I see it, write a 10-12 page essay about yourself which really is a representation of your true self. It should not be swayed by the firm or the kind of job you are interviewing for.
It helps to serve as a key for all personal questions and having it all together ensures that there is no contradiction in any answer. It worked very well in my case.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There were no personal questions in this round and it was pointed out that only 1 case will be administered. I was asked to ask him questions about work/McK. I asked him about his failures at McK.
For case I was presented with this: Client is India’s largest PSU bank (Client name cant be disclosed ☺) Due to recent RBI strictures, cheque can’t be delivered physically to a clearing house, so an alternative scheme is to be drawn up. I some how confused this whole system with RTGS and started blabbering out of that when I was checked by Nigel. (Lesson: Never ever assume anything, if you do, make sure you check it with the interviewer).
There were basically 2 schemes which were drawn up with regards to cheque processing and movement of information/data. They were to be compared, a result had to be arrived at and an optimal one (possibly a third one was to be suggested).
I went about drawing the 2 schemes (what appeared to be child’s play initially was extremely tough). By the end I was thoroughly confused between the schemes as they had so many elements to them. I requested for more time and drew them neatly (that is something not very natural to me) and on different sheets of paper. Then I concluded that we need to do a cost benefit analysis (with the constraint of acceptable service level) and I went on to identify the cost drivers. They included manpower cost, cost of hardware like scanners, bandwidth cost (for electronic flow of images), cost of courier and the constraint of service level. At this stage I was getting lost due to excess information and was asked to stop and synthesize the discussion we had had till that time before proceeding further.
Then we did establish the merits of one network structure over the other and I was then asked to arrive at an even better network. The interviewer left me alone in he room for some time to help me think and I could arrive at an alternate network. Upon discussion it was found that I had not taken care of the service level and my design was not feasible.
Tips: Never crack in a pressure interviewer, if the case is difficult and the interviewer is asking you to speed up and move when you are not really done with an issue, DO take your time.
General Tips: Maintain positive energy from the beginning of the interview.
Focus on the way you structure the cases.
Be as succinct and creative as possible while solving the cases.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Referral
1 Interview Round
Interview Questions
- Q1. What does leadership mean to you?
- Q2. Is Leadership given or taken?
- Q3. Why ISB after LSE?
- Q4. I don’t see leadership on your resume, am I missing something?
- Q5. What would you do differently at ISB if you could start over?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a philanthropic foundation with a corpus of $ X million. It wants to invest in India with a view to help curb AIDS spreading (Patient Care was ruled out). Help it decide: HOW + WHERE + HOW MUCH
Facts provided when asked:
- Estimate of population afflicted on a Pan India basis
- Main Source of infection was STD and hence for the purpose of the case I was to concentrate on this alone
- Estimate of segment sizes ( Sex Workers, Wives and Migrant Labor/Clients of Sex Workers) and the percentage afflicted
- Which Indian states is it concentrated in?
- What is the cost of a detection test?
Analysis
Stuck to the structure provided by the question of How, Where and How Much?
It was more of a discussion where I suggested different plans for 2 of the segments (Sex Workers and the Clients, Wives ignored as it was agreed that using protection after marriage was not acceptable by most men in this strata).
Testing in the ‘Sex Workers’ was to be shelved for the first part of the plan as the incremental benefits were small given that they had a very high percentage of affliction.
Suggested that the plan be rolled out 5 states to begin with and in areas having brothels near construction sites (migrant labor) and highways (truck drivers were a major part of the clientele)
How much?
To be tackled by setting milestones that the foundation set to achieve in terms of ‘slowing down spreading of AIDS’ in terms of spread after program introduced vs. spread with natural rate) using some publically available estimates of expenditure involved in such programs.
Tips: Take your time. Don't rush.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a PSU Bank; savings account opening takes 60 mins.
(Entire Chain of Activities was given as an Exhibit with time and sequence involved) Reduce this to 15 mins.
It was a 10 mins case.
Analysis
1. Identify Critical Path
2. See which activities can be moved off/performed simultaneously/ performed by customer (perhaps at home)/performed beforehand (printing of cheque books)/performed by others (outsourced)
3. See which activities can be simplified, e.g. Form filling took 15 mins (It was a 15 page form, so simplify and shorten form)
NA: Why do we need the teller? Why can’t the officer do the work for the teller? (This would mean slashing off 6 mins of the process as the officer would not need to verify again)
Tips: Be honest in all your PI answers, as the inconsistencies are very apparent on the other side of the table even if you have rehearsed
your answers to perfection.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a bank looking to set up a 100 ATM network or operate it on a contract. What would be your advice to the CEO?
Additional facts provided when asked: Real Estate + Machine + IT Network + Utility Costs on a monthly basis when owned and run by the bank as well as the annual management contract fee when outsourced.
Analysis
To study the differences in Costs between ‘Owned and run’ and
‘Outsourced’ (Owned and then leased out to different banks was not an option)
It was just a numbers case after the basic costs were identified, from the costs angle alone ‘Owned and Run’ was a better option.
Interviewer: Other than the compelling numbers, what might be the advantage of ‘owned and run’ over ‘outsourced’
Me: Maintenance and service levels can be controlled more effectively.
Interviewer: For what reasons would you favor outsourcing over owned and run?
Me:
a. Fact that cost estimates are current and these could be revised downwards as the outsourcing vendor acquires scale
b. Not a core function/the usual outsourcing arguments.
Tips: Take your time. Don't rush.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Estimate Gasoline Consumption of Cars in Mumbai in one year.
Estimation involved:
- Population of Mumbai
- Average Income
- Number of Cars ( This was estimated using an ‘affordability ratio’ –-> using the average price of a car, average life of a car and fuel and service expense required, an average operating expenditure p.a. on a vehicle was found. And this operating expenditure would be less than 20% of Household Income, hence assuming a normal distribution of Income, an estimate of number of cars was found)
- Average Distance Traveled per vehicle
- Average Mileage
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Case
Client is a philanthropic foundation with a corpus of $ X million. It wants to invest in India with a view to help curb AIDS spreading (Patient Care was ruled out). Help it decide: HOW + WHERE + HOW MUCH
Facts provided when asked:
- Estimate of population afflicted on a Pan India basis
- Main Source of infection was STD and hence for the purpose of the case I was to concentrate on this alone
- Estimate of segment sizes ( Sex Workers, Wives and Migrant Labor/Clients of Sex Workers) and the percentage afflicted
- Which Indian states is it concentrated in?
- What is the cost of a detection test?
Analysis
Stuck to the structure provided by the question of How, Where and How Much?
It was more of a discussion where I suggested different plans for 2 of the segments (Sex Workers and the Clients, Wives ignored as it was agreed that using protection after marriage was not acceptable by most men in this strata).
Testing in the ‘Sex Workers’ was to be shelved for the first part of the plan as the incremental benefits were small given that they had a very high percentage of affliction.
Suggested that the plan be rolled out 5 states to begin with and in areas having brothels near construction sites (migrant labor) and highways (truck drivers were a major part of the clientele)
How much?
To be tackled by setting milestones that the foundation set to achieve in terms of ‘slowing down spreading of AIDS’ in terms of spread after program introduced vs. spread with natural rate) using some publically available estimates of expenditure involved in such programs.
Tips: Take your time. Don't rush.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a PSU Bank; savings account opening takes 60 mins.
(Entire Chain of Activities was given as an Exhibit with time and sequence involved) Reduce this to 15 mins.
It was a 10 mins case.
Analysis
1. Identify Critical Path
2. See which activities can be moved off/performed simultaneously/ performed by customer (perhaps at home)/performed beforehand (printing of cheque books)/performed by others (outsourced)
3. See which activities can be simplified, e.g. Form filling took 15 mins (It was a 15 page form, so simplify and shorten form)
NA: Why do we need the teller? Why can’t the officer do the work for the teller? (This would mean slashing off 6 mins of the process as the officer would not need to verify again)
Tips: Be honest in all your PI answers, as the inconsistencies are very apparent on the other side of the table even if you have rehearsed
your answers to perfection.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a bank looking to set up a 100 ATM network or operate it on a contract. What would be your advice to the CEO?
Additional facts provided when asked: Real Estate + Machine + IT Network + Utility Costs on a monthly basis when owned and run by the bank as well as the annual management contract fee when outsourced.
Analysis
To study the differences in Costs between ‘Owned and run’ and
‘Outsourced’ (Owned and then leased out to different banks was not an option)
It was just a numbers case after the basic costs were identified, from the costs angle alone ‘Owned and Run’ was a better option.
Interviewer: Other than the compelling numbers, what might be the advantage of ‘owned and run’ over ‘outsourced’
Me: Maintenance and service levels can be controlled more effectively.
Interviewer: For what reasons would you favor outsourcing over owned and run?
Me:
a. Fact that cost estimates are current and these could be revised downwards as the outsourcing vendor acquires scale
b. Not a core function/the usual outsourcing arguments.
Tips: Take your time. Don't rush.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Estimate Gasoline Consumption of Cars in Mumbai in one year.
Estimation involved:
- Population of Mumbai
- Average Income
- Number of Cars ( This was estimated using an ‘affordability ratio’ –-> using the average price of a car, average life of a car and fuel and service expense required, an average operating expenditure p.a. on a vehicle was found. And this operating expenditure would be less than 20% of Household Income, hence assuming a normal distribution of Income, an estimate of number of cars was found)
- Average Distance Traveled per vehicle
- Average Mileage
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Referral
4 Interview Rounds
Interview Questions
- Q1. What is lean manufacturing ?
- Q2. What are your strengths?
- Q3. What motivates you?
- Q4. Examples of Leadership
- Q5. What was your contribution? What did you do different?
- Q6. Are you happy with your life path? What would you go and change?
- Q7. Why ISB? Why ITC? Why not MBA after IIT?
- Q8. Biggest achievement! What did you do?
- Q9. What other interviews I had and was appearing? Which was the best one till now?
- Q10. How was Mckinsey’s interview different from BCG?
- Q11. Why ISB?
- Q12. Examples of Leadership experience? Your role in it?
- Q13. What is your leadership style?
- Q14. What is lean manufacturing?
- Q15. Explain a particular point on the resume? Impact of what I did
- Q16. Grades: Explain them
- Q17. Leadership experience from IIT. Was I proud of my performance at IIT…vis a vis ISB?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a PSU Bank. Currently the account opening process takes between 60 minutes- starting from the time he comes to clerk counter to the time customer leaves with Passbook, Cheque-book and account number. How will you cut it down to < 10 minutes and still deliver all the 3. Drew a complicated process map.
Basic facts given at start of case:
Current process (60 minutes) : The clerk interacts with customer to provide him the account opening form, does the first round scrutiny, does the KYC, sends form to officer for approval, officer approves, clerk opens account & creates account number & passbook, sends to officer to approval , officer approves, clerk creates the cheque book, sends to officer to approval , officer approves. Clerk hands over the Account Number, Pass book and cheque book to customer.
Facts shared ( shared by Nigel only if you ask)
• Customer is issued form and he submits a filled up form to clerk = 15 minutes
• Scrutiny of form = 10 minutes
• KYC takes 5 minutes
• Each approval loop with officer takes – 10 minutes ( 3 loops=30mins)
• Approval cannot be done by Clerk as per union rules
Key Issues :
Methodologies recommended
a. Break down the process into various smaller steps. Do a time work-motion study to understand the component steps. Then do a Pareto (80/20) and attach the areas which consume the most time.
b. Break down the process into various smaller steps. Classify each step as
1. Adds Value to Customer from a/c opening perspective
2. Non Value Add – can be minimized, not eliminated
3. Non Value Add – can be eliminated.
By experience, 80% of the time is Non Value add ( 2&3). Do a Pareto within that and work out the various ways of reducing time.
Solutions
1. I had recommended an Internet based system where major customer information and checks would happen online and only a mandatory KYC (Know Your Customer) process would take place onsite.
2. McKinsey had (a) Combined the jobs of the clericals and officers (b) Used Pre-printed blank welcome kits with cheque books, pass books & account numbers. (c) Only KYC was done onsite (RBI regulations)..account names were incorporated subject to KYC confirmation.
Ramifications
1. Banking Unions (PSU): How will they react to job rationalisation/ eliminating clerical roles?
2. If you combine the roles (clerk & officer) and make the officer do it…wont your salary bill increase…since the initial clerk to officer ratio (5:1) is now (0:5). What emerged is that in most PSUs, experienced clerks earn similar or more to officers. Hence not much of wage impact.
Tips: 1. Stay Confident & Cool.
2. Take control of the Case discussion. If the interviewer presents information in a user-unfriendly or non standard manner, ask him to do it in the way you want to or ask him to help you out in mapping the information in your framework.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. His profit margins are at 11% while industry expectations are at 15%. Help him out in reaching this target.
Tried to evaluate product mix, profitability etc. – Client makes a wide span of products. But interviewer was not interested in specifics. Wanted me to identify the key cost & revenue drivers.
Costs
1. Are we sourcing Raw material effectively & cheaply? Can we go to china etc?
2. Can we re-evaluate Make vs Buy option for all products in the Bill of Material.
3. Are our products over- designed? Do they consume more raw material than competition.
4. Do we have higher fixed costs- new investments, labour<>variable costs?
5. Do we have economies of scale for all products, parts etc?
Was told to identify sources of revenue to increase margins
1. Change product mix
2. Evaluate newer- more profitable markets
3. Brand your own products (the client is a manufacturer for others, not seller) -> refer to brand and market creation
costs.
4. Service Business – Repair, Spares & Consumables ( Missed this out completely- was finally hinted by interviewer)
Conclusion: Services were neglected by client. Potential revenue source. Client has a large installed base of customers. So he can do this business better, build service model and capabilities.
Options
1. Sell Maintenance contracts with boilers
2. target installed base of boilers
I had added that he can widen his base by targeting all brands of boilers (assuming differences were not significant). Service is a high margin business since operations at units are hampered leading to production losses in the event of boiler failure.
Tips: 1. Stay Confident & Cool even if you miss the above fact. Move on and build on it. Relate the case or elements of it with work and
discuss it.
2. Show Energy during the interview!
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case 1
Client is a music company ( RPG-Saregama). It was not making money.
Revenue side- affected by Music piracy and music channels. They affected price and sales negatively
Cost Side – Producers still sold music rights at higher prices. Since music producers are few- their consolidation hurt the music
industry bad.
Additional facts : All big banners like Yashraj films etc end up making losses for the company due to high music right costs.
Typical successes / margins have been in low (B/C segments with films like Murder etc)
Analysis
Structured case as Customers, Suppliers and Competition.
Option1 – Increase revenues
While analyzing customers- not much information available- no segments -> based on discussion, generated multiple sources of revenues for music industry
a. CD/Cassettes
b. Radio / TV rights – do not provide full song clips to channels. Only teasers. If song is a hit, channels would ask for it and thus can pay for it.
c. Internet- Streaming rights
d. I-pod type devices
e. Ring tones
Told to explore the cost options in details.
Option2 – Decrease costs
Me :Proposed Risk sharing / royalty based mechanisms.
NK : All the big banners do not agree to it
Me : But we can get the smaller producers to agree… (NK agreed that it can be explored)
NK: Why do these companies deal with big producers when they make losses? What is important in the buyer industry structure
After some discussions…arrive at the structure – Big producers (A type) and Small Producers (B&C types)
Possible reasons I could come up with include-
Me: Possible reasons can include
a. Long term relationship in the industry
b. A large number of smaller successes subsidizing the losses from larger ones
c. Association of music companies with big producers offers
them clout in the industry to deal with smaller producers…they can thus negotiate better deals with B&C type producers.
NK : Yes.… the big banners are like loss leaders.... they help music companies in getting better deals from smaller producers. And also, the industry is very relationship driven…some of the deals are purely based on established long working relationships.
Case 2 :
Your client is Tata Motors. The Direct material cost of Tata Indica is ₹150,000. The basic design is same for the 1 lakh car. How can you bring the cost down to ₹75000…outline the basic levers.
Structured it into 4 areas
a. Rationalize the vendor base to get economies of scale and scope.
b. Rationalize parts across platforms of vehicles to get further economies.
c. Rationalize design – Certain parts might be over designed or inefficiently designed leading to increased costs on account of excess materials or additional processing (labour, overhead etc)
d. Evaluate every part from a Make or Buy perspective. This would enable focus on core areas and help gain cost advantage in sourcing items like Tyres, O Rings, Nuts-Bolts etc.
After that he wanted to do a numbers/ quant check on me…so the example was extended to calculate certain % values.
Tips: 1. Prioritize issues for discussions with the interviewer.
2. Be prepared for anything!
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a confectionery manufacturer making chocolate bars. In the 1980’s it had a mfg base in UK. However, in early 90s it set up another facility in France. During mid 90’s the business faced decline in revenues and profitability. What could be the reasons / hypothesis and what would you recommend?
Enquired about the basic details
a. Product mix – single chocolate bar
b. Supply- demand check -> Demand has been declining. No problems in supply side.
Discussed the Revenue- Cost equation.
Revenue can go down by the following
a. Competition introducing newer/ better/cheaper products
b. Changing customer behavior- more health conscious people/ availability of substitutes/ imports etc
c. Any changes done to product flavour/ taste etc..which can turn off customers.
Cost :
Discussed the standard Fixed and Variable costs. Was asked to break it down further.
Variable – Raw Materials, Distribution etc
Fixed – Depreciation, Capacity Utilization etc
a. Fixed Costs – New plant – higher depreciation costs. + Degree of capacity utilization ( this was reason 1)
UK – mfg capacity = 15 mn units / year
Actual production = 700,000 units per month approx 55% capacity utilization
France – mfg capacity = 20 mn units / year
Actual production = 650,000 units per month approx 39% capacity utilization.
These numbers were generally thrown around to evaluate my comfort with numbers.
Interviewer himself jumps to part (b)
b.Variable Costs
Fact 1 Raw material costs are 25% of Sale price vs 20% for competition
1/ Asked Oliver on the supplier base (local, import & no of suppliers) and amounts sourced. Decreased revenues could have decreased our sourcing economies. OK with this…wanted more reasons….
2/ Checked if both were importing same quality of material. We could be using better quality products compared to competition.
3/ Checked if we hedged these items while procuring…(Key Point
2) Competition was obviously doing this better and saving costs.
Fact 2 Our Distribution costs are 15% of sale price vs competition 10%
Key differentiators could be…
We have our own trucks ..competition uses 3rd party suppliers
1. More costs on account of people, fixed costs of trucks + empty trucks coming back (Low utilization)
2. We send part loads…competition does not worry since his transporters can optimize on truck load thru other customers.
c. General calculations
Another round of quant check. Thrown some numbers to calculate cost per unit of the 2 factories (UK & France )
Each unit has 200 employees x 40 hrs/week x 50 wks /yr
UK wages = $ 15/ hour
France Wages = $ 20 / hour
After this told to calculate profitability of each unit at both locations given Raw material = 25% of sale price ($ 2/unit).
Total numbers check
Recommendations
1. Rationalize the production quantities at each unit - would depend on the overall inward and outward transportation costs also..apart from capacity utilization. (Excess transport costs in serving new markets would need to be checked for)
2. Use excess capacity for producing 3rd party chocolates. Also evaluate if factory can be re-tooled / flexible to manufacture other products apart from chocolate.
3. Shut down 1 plant. –
a. See how efficient it would be operationally. No backup/excess capacity would then be available as a strategic/contingency resource.
b. Also potential trouble on the political front – example if French unit was shut down, there could be a political fallout as well as French customers might boycott your products. (cited Mittal-Arcelor )
c. Union issues- long term dispute- can dilute brand value of business.
Tips: Be prepared for all sorts of numbers/calculations…take time out in case there are huge calculations…I did that…small calculations
were done verbally.
Interviewer also wanted to check if I could come up with all types of hypothesis on various facts. Be prepared to think creatively and use your common sense to remove non relevant stuff.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client manufactures auto forgings @ 200 per day. Increase it to 400 per day… How?
Enquired if market demand was justified to double output…Market would be able to accommodate 200 additional units.
Wanted me to identify key levers. After a lot of round-about and false steps…learnt that current capacity utilization was 33% only!!
Interviewer wanted a list of things to check …this is what I discussed..
a. Maintenance time records– Breakdown & Planned
b. Setup/ Changeover times on a/c of high product variety
c. Non availability of Material
d. Non availability of Labour – absence/ unmanned breaks
e. Shut down due to utility failures (electricity etc)
f. Quality related losses.
Tips: Be prepared to be grilled.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This seemed a test of whether I could do hypothesis and do some basic math.
Client is a Financial planning & management software company. 3 product lines + 1 service line.
1. Large enterprises – highly customized, large business customers, direct sales force used, consultants needed, sold at CEO/CIO level.
2. SMEs – industry specific package- sold thru dealers/ distributors etc to anyone who wants to buy
3. Individual customers thru regular retail channels.
4. IT consulting – pre/ post support
Question 1: Revenues are declining. What hypothesis would you generate to identify sources of decline…
g. Along segments mentioned above
h. Geographical segments
i. Industries
j. Existing vs New Customers
Question 2: Assume Enterprise segment is losing revenue. What hypothesis can you generate …(asked to generate 15…came to 11) Just think out aloud and discuss ..some of the hypothesis discussed were
d. Changes in regulations
e. M&A in the industry..customers hesitate to buy.
f. Customers think a better product is in the wings and don’tbuy the existing one.
g. New product is complicated …has greater cost and training needs.
h. Sales force not qualified etc.
Question 3: Suppose you find out that the sales force has been spending more time selling simpler product to SME than attend larger customers…enterprise product needs greater effort. wWat would you do?
1. Track sales and channels actively
2. Change incentive structure…
What actions would you take and implications of those.
Tips: Think out loud with the interviewer.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: Client is a PSU Bank. Currently the account opening process takes between 60 minutes- starting from the time he comes to clerk counter to the time customer leaves with Passbook, Cheque-book and account number. How will you cut it down to < 10 minutes and still deliver all the 3. Drew a complicated process map.
Basic facts given at start of case:
Current process (60 minutes) : The clerk interacts with customer to provide him the account opening form, does the first round scrutiny, does the KYC, sends form to officer for approval, officer approves, clerk opens account & creates account number & passbook, sends to officer to approval , officer approves, clerk creates the cheque book, sends to officer to approval , officer approves. Clerk hands over the Account Number, Pass book and cheque book to customer.
Facts shared ( shared by Nigel only if you ask)
• Customer is issued form and he submits a filled up form to clerk = 15 minutes
• Scrutiny of form = 10 minutes
• KYC takes 5 minutes
• Each approval loop with officer takes – 10 minutes ( 3 loops=30mins)
• Approval cannot be done by Clerk as per union rules
Key Issues :
Methodologies recommended
a. Break down the process into various smaller steps. Do a time work-motion study to understand the component steps. Then do a Pareto (80/20) and attach the areas which consume the most time.
b. Break down the process into various smaller steps. Classify each step as
1. Adds Value to Customer from a/c opening perspective
2. Non Value Add – can be minimized, not eliminated
3. Non Value Add – can be eliminated.
By experience, 80% of the time is Non Value add ( 2&3). Do a Pareto within that and work out the various ways of reducing time.
Solutions
1. I had recommended an Internet based system where major customer information and checks would happen online and only a mandatory KYC (Know Your Customer) process would take place onsite.
2. McKinsey had (a) Combined the jobs of the clericals and officers (b) Used Pre-printed blank welcome kits with cheque books, pass books & account numbers. (c) Only KYC was done onsite (RBI regulations)..account names were incorporated subject to KYC confirmation.
Ramifications
1. Banking Unions (PSU): How will they react to job rationalisation/ eliminating clerical roles?
2. If you combine the roles (clerk & officer) and make the officer do it…wont your salary bill increase…since the initial clerk to officer ratio (5:1) is now (0:5). What emerged is that in most PSUs, experienced clerks earn similar or more to officers. Hence not much of wage impact.
Tips: 1. Stay Confident & Cool.
2. Take control of the Case discussion. If the interviewer presents information in a user-unfriendly or non standard manner, ask him to do it in the way you want to or ask him to help you out in mapping the information in your framework.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. His profit margins are at 11% while industry expectations are at 15%. Help him out in reaching this target.
Tried to evaluate product mix, profitability etc. – Client makes a wide span of products. But interviewer was not interested in specifics. Wanted me to identify the key cost & revenue drivers.
Costs
1. Are we sourcing Raw material effectively & cheaply? Can we go to china etc?
2. Can we re-evaluate Make vs Buy option for all products in the Bill of Material.
3. Are our products over- designed? Do they consume more raw material than competition.
4. Do we have higher fixed costs- new investments, labour<>variable costs?
5. Do we have economies of scale for all products, parts etc?
Was told to identify sources of revenue to increase margins
1. Change product mix
2. Evaluate newer- more profitable markets
3. Brand your own products (the client is a manufacturer for others, not seller) -> refer to brand and market creation
costs.
4. Service Business – Repair, Spares & Consumables ( Missed this out completely- was finally hinted by interviewer)
Conclusion: Services were neglected by client. Potential revenue source. Client has a large installed base of customers. So he can do this business better, build service model and capabilities.
Options
1. Sell Maintenance contracts with boilers
2. target installed base of boilers
I had added that he can widen his base by targeting all brands of boilers (assuming differences were not significant). Service is a high margin business since operations at units are hampered leading to production losses in the event of boiler failure.
Tips: 1. Stay Confident & Cool even if you miss the above fact. Move on and build on it. Relate the case or elements of it with work and
discuss it.
2. Show Energy during the interview!
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case 1
Client is a music company ( RPG-Saregama). It was not making money.
Revenue side- affected by Music piracy and music channels. They affected price and sales negatively
Cost Side – Producers still sold music rights at higher prices. Since music producers are few- their consolidation hurt the music
industry bad.
Additional facts : All big banners like Yashraj films etc end up making losses for the company due to high music right costs.
Typical successes / margins have been in low (B/C segments with films like Murder etc)
Analysis
Structured case as Customers, Suppliers and Competition.
Option1 – Increase revenues
While analyzing customers- not much information available- no segments -> based on discussion, generated multiple sources of revenues for music industry
a. CD/Cassettes
b. Radio / TV rights – do not provide full song clips to channels. Only teasers. If song is a hit, channels would ask for it and thus can pay for it.
c. Internet- Streaming rights
d. I-pod type devices
e. Ring tones
Told to explore the cost options in details.
Option2 – Decrease costs
Me :Proposed Risk sharing / royalty based mechanisms.
NK : All the big banners do not agree to it
Me : But we can get the smaller producers to agree… (NK agreed that it can be explored)
NK: Why do these companies deal with big producers when they make losses? What is important in the buyer industry structure
After some discussions…arrive at the structure – Big producers (A type) and Small Producers (B&C types)
Possible reasons I could come up with include-
Me: Possible reasons can include
a. Long term relationship in the industry
b. A large number of smaller successes subsidizing the losses from larger ones
c. Association of music companies with big producers offers
them clout in the industry to deal with smaller producers…they can thus negotiate better deals with B&C type producers.
NK : Yes.… the big banners are like loss leaders.... they help music companies in getting better deals from smaller producers. And also, the industry is very relationship driven…some of the deals are purely based on established long working relationships.
Case 2 :
Your client is Tata Motors. The Direct material cost of Tata Indica is ₹150,000. The basic design is same for the 1 lakh car. How can you bring the cost down to ₹75000…outline the basic levers.
Structured it into 4 areas
a. Rationalize the vendor base to get economies of scale and scope.
b. Rationalize parts across platforms of vehicles to get further economies.
c. Rationalize design – Certain parts might be over designed or inefficiently designed leading to increased costs on account of excess materials or additional processing (labour, overhead etc)
d. Evaluate every part from a Make or Buy perspective. This would enable focus on core areas and help gain cost advantage in sourcing items like Tyres, O Rings, Nuts-Bolts etc.
After that he wanted to do a numbers/ quant check on me…so the example was extended to calculate certain % values.
Tips: 1. Prioritize issues for discussions with the interviewer.
2. Be prepared for anything!
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a confectionery manufacturer making chocolate bars. In the 1980’s it had a mfg base in UK. However, in early 90s it set up another facility in France. During mid 90’s the business faced decline in revenues and profitability. What could be the reasons / hypothesis and what would you recommend?
Enquired about the basic details
a. Product mix – single chocolate bar
b. Supply- demand check -> Demand has been declining. No problems in supply side.
Discussed the Revenue- Cost equation.
Revenue can go down by the following
a. Competition introducing newer/ better/cheaper products
b. Changing customer behavior- more health conscious people/ availability of substitutes/ imports etc
c. Any changes done to product flavour/ taste etc..which can turn off customers.
Cost :
Discussed the standard Fixed and Variable costs. Was asked to break it down further.
Variable – Raw Materials, Distribution etc
Fixed – Depreciation, Capacity Utilization etc
a. Fixed Costs – New plant – higher depreciation costs. + Degree of capacity utilization ( this was reason 1)
UK – mfg capacity = 15 mn units / year
Actual production = 700,000 units per month approx 55% capacity utilization
France – mfg capacity = 20 mn units / year
Actual production = 650,000 units per month approx 39% capacity utilization.
These numbers were generally thrown around to evaluate my comfort with numbers.
Interviewer himself jumps to part (b)
b.Variable Costs
Fact 1 Raw material costs are 25% of Sale price vs 20% for competition
1/ Asked Oliver on the supplier base (local, import & no of suppliers) and amounts sourced. Decreased revenues could have decreased our sourcing economies. OK with this…wanted more reasons….
2/ Checked if both were importing same quality of material. We could be using better quality products compared to competition.
3/ Checked if we hedged these items while procuring…(Key Point
2) Competition was obviously doing this better and saving costs.
Fact 2 Our Distribution costs are 15% of sale price vs competition 10%
Key differentiators could be…
We have our own trucks ..competition uses 3rd party suppliers
1. More costs on account of people, fixed costs of trucks + empty trucks coming back (Low utilization)
2. We send part loads…competition does not worry since his transporters can optimize on truck load thru other customers.
c. General calculations
Another round of quant check. Thrown some numbers to calculate cost per unit of the 2 factories (UK & France )
Each unit has 200 employees x 40 hrs/week x 50 wks /yr
UK wages = $ 15/ hour
France Wages = $ 20 / hour
After this told to calculate profitability of each unit at both locations given Raw material = 25% of sale price ($ 2/unit).
Total numbers check
Recommendations
1. Rationalize the production quantities at each unit - would depend on the overall inward and outward transportation costs also..apart from capacity utilization. (Excess transport costs in serving new markets would need to be checked for)
2. Use excess capacity for producing 3rd party chocolates. Also evaluate if factory can be re-tooled / flexible to manufacture other products apart from chocolate.
3. Shut down 1 plant. –
a. See how efficient it would be operationally. No backup/excess capacity would then be available as a strategic/contingency resource.
b. Also potential trouble on the political front – example if French unit was shut down, there could be a political fallout as well as French customers might boycott your products. (cited Mittal-Arcelor )
c. Union issues- long term dispute- can dilute brand value of business.
Tips: Be prepared for all sorts of numbers/calculations…take time out in case there are huge calculations…I did that…small calculations
were done verbally.
Interviewer also wanted to check if I could come up with all types of hypothesis on various facts. Be prepared to think creatively and use your common sense to remove non relevant stuff.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client manufactures auto forgings @ 200 per day. Increase it to 400 per day… How?
Enquired if market demand was justified to double output…Market would be able to accommodate 200 additional units.
Wanted me to identify key levers. After a lot of round-about and false steps…learnt that current capacity utilization was 33% only!!
Interviewer wanted a list of things to check …this is what I discussed..
a. Maintenance time records– Breakdown & Planned
b. Setup/ Changeover times on a/c of high product variety
c. Non availability of Material
d. Non availability of Labour – absence/ unmanned breaks
e. Shut down due to utility failures (electricity etc)
f. Quality related losses.
Tips: Be prepared to be grilled.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This seemed a test of whether I could do hypothesis and do some basic math.
Client is a Financial planning & management software company. 3 product lines + 1 service line.
1. Large enterprises – highly customized, large business customers, direct sales force used, consultants needed, sold at CEO/CIO level.
2. SMEs – industry specific package- sold thru dealers/ distributors etc to anyone who wants to buy
3. Individual customers thru regular retail channels.
4. IT consulting – pre/ post support
Question 1: Revenues are declining. What hypothesis would you generate to identify sources of decline…
g. Along segments mentioned above
h. Geographical segments
i. Industries
j. Existing vs New Customers
Question 2: Assume Enterprise segment is losing revenue. What hypothesis can you generate …(asked to generate 15…came to 11) Just think out aloud and discuss ..some of the hypothesis discussed were
d. Changes in regulations
e. M&A in the industry..customers hesitate to buy.
f. Customers think a better product is in the wings and don’tbuy the existing one.
g. New product is complicated …has greater cost and training needs.
h. Sales force not qualified etc.
Question 3: Suppose you find out that the sales force has been spending more time selling simpler product to SME than attend larger customers…enterprise product needs greater effort. wWat would you do?
1. Track sales and channels actively
2. Change incentive structure…
What actions would you take and implications of those.
Tips: Think out loud with the interviewer.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
I applied via Referral
4 Interview Rounds
Interview Questions
- Q1. Why academic performance was not good at IIT?
- Q2. Views on rolling placement process versus one week placement process
- Q3. Leadership instance outside work (talked about Vice captain IIT D badminton team)
- Q4. Why I joined Evalueserve?
- Q5. Tata Motors wants to build the 1 lakh car. Advise them how to do it?
- Q6. Leadership example that you are proud of
- Q7. Why did Marc (CEO) open EVS?
- Q8. What are the main challenges for EVS now?
Interview Preparation Tips
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The government of India wants to electrify all the villages. Can this task be achieved?
Initial clarification
Asked if there are any resource constraints and in what time we have to achieve this task. He simplified by saying time is not a
consideration and resources are limited and hence part of problem was to raise resources.
Case Structure/ Discussion
I made the following structure:
1. Resources
a. Public
b. Private partnership
c. Special purpose vehicles
2. Current level of rural electrification
a. Segregate states based on low density and high density
3. Regulatory constraints
a. Role of government. To be a regulator or also an implementor
4. Political costs in changing laws
a. Eg Will Left parties support privatization
Based on the above I suggested we will evaluate whether a centralized or a decentralized model should be followed.
He was happy but then said he was more interested in evaluating ground realities i.e. So I said, there are three parts to
electrification.
1. Increasing generation through
o Thermal
o Hydel
o Alternate sources
I said will concentrate on thermal as India as huge coal reserves they can be used more efficiently.
2. Transmission
o Who will lay down poles and cables? How will players be compensated?
3. Collection:
o Who takes responsibility? Private player or government.
o Tariff structures. Who will decide private player or government
I completely missed that collections in India are low due to corruption.
After the interview, I asked him whether this target is achievable. His take was that it is very difficult and Mckinsey is still evaluating various approaches. Hence this case is not supposed to have one answer.
Tips: In middle of my case, he told me to set aside my structure and just have a discussion. This was unexpected but not necessarily a bad thing. So do not get fazed. Also show by discussing policy implications (such as reaction of left parties to privatization), you can bring a wow moment in your case. Apply a layer of commonsense in your discussion.
Round: Other Interview
Experience: I had a 20 minute PI as interviewer knew CEO of Evalueserve (my last company). So there were a lot of questions around Evalueserve.
8. Had discussion around development of ISB (Interviewer was involved in writing the business plan of ISB). How it has
emerged and whether it has measured to his expectations.
Many of these questions can be asked to people who have worked in startups/ growing organizations (EVS was 70 people strong
when I joined them and within 2.5 years the employee strength was 600). So the challenges of a small vs. big, fledgling vs. growing organization are very diff. Some points I gave were (I do not know if it helps but you will get a flavor of some answers in this regard):
1. Challenges facing EVS today:
a. Increasing face to face communication between top management and new employees (I was fortunate enough to work with Marc but new employees do not get this chance and this has contributed to increase in employee turnover)
b. Increasing interaction between sales executives and teams (majority of sales executives had not even visited EVS offices and hence did not understand pressures of people working on projects).
c. Recruitment (EVS recruitment quality had dipped as now team leads/ AVPs who were not competent enough did this task. I admitted that I was conducting interviews and I thought that I needed 2-3 years of mentoring to be really effective).
Note that none of the above mentioned are really big points but they are original ones. Hence be honest, think hard about your experience and do not be shy to mention even seemingly small things as independent thought is what really matters.
I also took these questions as small caselets Interviewers sometimes will not mention that they are starting the case. In such situations do the following:
1. Keep it at the back of your mind a situation like this can arise (could be a discussion around placement process at ISB or any other topic under the sun)
2. Be structured in your communication. Again one mistake people do is that they apply structure only during cases. It is important to apply structure during PI as it makes the communication lucid, increases impact and makes it easier for the interviewer to understand you.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: A very small case (10 minutes).
Initial clarifications:
1. Current cost structure:
a. Engine: 20%
b. Chassis, Gear box etc: 25%
c. Body: 25%
d. Tires, glass etc: 30%
2. Time frame to achieve this task: He said time is not a factor as this is a really difficult thing and Ratan Tata would be happy if this can be achieved.
Hypothesis:
I said that there was no one dominant head on which I should concentrate and hence we should do the following:
1. Explore generic ways to reduce cost
2. Then arrive at decision criterion to apply a method to a particular cost component.
1. Generic ways to reduce cost:
a. Reduce price (Economies of scale and scope)
b. Reduce Volume of material to be consumed (with price being constant)
c. Redesign (say the engine as requirement for a low income person are different. For eg. He might just be
happy with a 600 cc engine vs a 1200 cc engine)
d. Use substitutes (say plastic/ polymers rather than metal)
2. Decision criterion to apply a particular method to a particular cost component
a. Degree of tech involvement (more suitable for engines and hence this really suggests that we should redesign
the engine and may be use some substitutes).
b. Degree of commoditization (more suitable for body and can also use substitutes)
Here I concluded that multiple methods could be applied to a cost component and hence this makes our task that much harder. Here he stopped me and said he was happy with the analysis.
Tips: 1. Case: I had initially said that based on a criterion, I will apply batches based on this interview experience only ONE method to a particular cost head (no reason why I assumed this). But based on our discussion, we could apply a mixture of 2 methods (he said apply the 80:20 rule). So it is okay to change your initial stand based on the discussion (it’s a blunder to stick to your initial assumptions especially if the discussion proves the assumptions wrong).
2. PI: Rohit Kapoor had told us, recruiters come here recruit humans and not gods. So it is OK to say simple things but say them with conviction.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a meat manufacturer operating in Europe. Their profits are falling for the last two years.
Initial clarification
1. Company has two products
a. Hams
b. Sausages
2. Only 3 players in the market. Client has 40% market share and other two players have 30% each. Clients market share has been falling (indicating that it is a revenue problem).
3. She also said that market size is not growing substantially.
Case Structure/ Discussion
1. Revenues
a. Product mix
i. The process to manufacture hams and sausages is very similar. Sausages are made from scarps left over from hams.
b. Price * Quantity (explained in the sections below)
2. Costs
a. Fixed
i. Allocation of overheads such as CEO salary
ii. Asked how fixed costs can be allocated. I said based on
1. Revenues
2. Volume
3. Number of employees in a division
b. Variable
i. Raw materials (she said there was no scope to reduce this)
3. Customers
a. Drivers of purchase
i. Only price.
ii. Quality of product is not a differentiator. Retailers were not ready to pay more for better quality products
iii. No Value added service can give any competitive advantage
iv. I concluded that this was a commodity product in a stable market
b. Customers are retailers who buy the meat, and sell it as their private label product
4. Competition
a. No new product was introduced in the past
b. No new channels were entered by competition
c. Competition had reduced the price of sausages by only $0.01. The customers (retail outlets) were so sensitive to price, that they were switching to competitor products (to both hams and sausages. So a wrong pricing decision in sausages had let to not only decrease in sales of sausages, but also affected sales of hams as consumers, in this case retailers, preferred to buy from one supplier to reduce their transaction costs.
The flaws in this method are
1. Fixed costs should not be a part of pricing decision (Basic managerial accounting funda)
2. With this method, their margin on sausages is 0. Hence they can not reduce prices according to this method.
I said if you exclude the fixed costs, then in % terms, sausages have a much higher margin. So there is a lot of scope in decreasing price.
Recommendations
1. Exclude Fixed costs from pricing decisions
2. Reduce prices in sausages
3. As process to manufacture both products is same, make one person in charge of both products. This will ensure that pricing
decisions are made in a rational manner. The whole problem cropped up as fixed costs had to be allocated between 2 products
and there were 2 line managers for the two products.
After completing the case, she said there were many other aspects to this problem. These were:
1. The client was operating in a small European country and had 4 plants. So closing down some of the plants was an option. (had enquired about this but she said that we should neglect it for the time being)
2. They could also look at entering foreign markets in Europe to boost sales (I had enquired about this)
3. Also, the sausage process was not efficient. So to improve it they could benchmark it to their ham operation.
Apparently the ham process was very efficient (she did not give reasons for why it was more efficient, probably because it accounted for 80% of revenues and hence received more attention). This was new insight to me as one always benchmarks a process to competitors, or to processes of similar products etc. But internal bench-marking was new to me.
4. This was a family owned business and not a listed company. Hence there were a lot of cultural issues which they had to resolve in terms of best management practices, mindset of the employees etc.
Tips: Just listen to what the interviewer says. She clearly wanted me to go to accounting and she dropped enough hints during the initial
stages of the interview.
Also, even though she was from BTO practice, she gave me a commodity product case. So the background of interviewer/ interviewee really does not matter. What they are looking for is the ability to analyze a problem from the case facts.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: An Indian conglomerate opened an IT company in Delhi and they have failed miserably. You are hired by the client to diagnose the situation and turn around the company.
Initial hints: It was clear from his narration that a drastic approach was required and the client had completely got the strategy wrong.
Initial clarifications:
1. Who is the Indian conglomerate and why did they enter the IT space?
a. Family owned business and hence there is lack of best management practices
b. They entered the IT space as it offered significant growth potential (diversification). They launched this business in 2000.
2. What are their products/ services?
a. Products
i. Healthcare (10-20% revenues)
ii. Knowledge management (20% revenues)
b. Services
i. Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) (60%-70% revenues)
At this point, I said I was not well versant with economic drivers of IT industry specifically the 2 product segments and ADM.
He then wanted me to explore how only services business could be expanded. He said services can be sold on
1. Specialization of a service which can be sold across verticals (e.g. desktop migration)
2. Verticalization (e.g. some mercury simulation service for auto industry)
In the feedback he said that my analysis was good but there was one thing I had missed. Instead of completely shutting down healthcare services, it could have been used to set up captive centers for companies and this could be spun off as an advisory service in offshoring practices.
Tips: Do not hedge your answers.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
Experience: The government of India wants to electrify all the villages. Can this task be achieved?
Initial clarification
Asked if there are any resource constraints and in what time we have to achieve this task. He simplified by saying time is not a
consideration and resources are limited and hence part of problem was to raise resources.
Case Structure/ Discussion
I made the following structure:
1. Resources
a. Public
b. Private partnership
c. Special purpose vehicles
2. Current level of rural electrification
a. Segregate states based on low density and high density
3. Regulatory constraints
a. Role of government. To be a regulator or also an implementor
4. Political costs in changing laws
a. Eg Will Left parties support privatization
Based on the above I suggested we will evaluate whether a centralized or a decentralized model should be followed.
He was happy but then said he was more interested in evaluating ground realities i.e. So I said, there are three parts to
electrification.
1. Increasing generation through
o Thermal
o Hydel
o Alternate sources
I said will concentrate on thermal as India as huge coal reserves they can be used more efficiently.
2. Transmission
o Who will lay down poles and cables? How will players be compensated?
3. Collection:
o Who takes responsibility? Private player or government.
o Tariff structures. Who will decide private player or government
I completely missed that collections in India are low due to corruption.
After the interview, I asked him whether this target is achievable. His take was that it is very difficult and Mckinsey is still evaluating various approaches. Hence this case is not supposed to have one answer.
Tips: In middle of my case, he told me to set aside my structure and just have a discussion. This was unexpected but not necessarily a bad thing. So do not get fazed. Also show by discussing policy implications (such as reaction of left parties to privatization), you can bring a wow moment in your case. Apply a layer of commonsense in your discussion.
Round: Other Interview
Experience: I had a 20 minute PI as interviewer knew CEO of Evalueserve (my last company). So there were a lot of questions around Evalueserve.
8. Had discussion around development of ISB (Interviewer was involved in writing the business plan of ISB). How it has
emerged and whether it has measured to his expectations.
Many of these questions can be asked to people who have worked in startups/ growing organizations (EVS was 70 people strong
when I joined them and within 2.5 years the employee strength was 600). So the challenges of a small vs. big, fledgling vs. growing organization are very diff. Some points I gave were (I do not know if it helps but you will get a flavor of some answers in this regard):
1. Challenges facing EVS today:
a. Increasing face to face communication between top management and new employees (I was fortunate enough to work with Marc but new employees do not get this chance and this has contributed to increase in employee turnover)
b. Increasing interaction between sales executives and teams (majority of sales executives had not even visited EVS offices and hence did not understand pressures of people working on projects).
c. Recruitment (EVS recruitment quality had dipped as now team leads/ AVPs who were not competent enough did this task. I admitted that I was conducting interviews and I thought that I needed 2-3 years of mentoring to be really effective).
Note that none of the above mentioned are really big points but they are original ones. Hence be honest, think hard about your experience and do not be shy to mention even seemingly small things as independent thought is what really matters.
I also took these questions as small caselets Interviewers sometimes will not mention that they are starting the case. In such situations do the following:
1. Keep it at the back of your mind a situation like this can arise (could be a discussion around placement process at ISB or any other topic under the sun)
2. Be structured in your communication. Again one mistake people do is that they apply structure only during cases. It is important to apply structure during PI as it makes the communication lucid, increases impact and makes it easier for the interviewer to understand you.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: A very small case (10 minutes).
Initial clarifications:
1. Current cost structure:
a. Engine: 20%
b. Chassis, Gear box etc: 25%
c. Body: 25%
d. Tires, glass etc: 30%
2. Time frame to achieve this task: He said time is not a factor as this is a really difficult thing and Ratan Tata would be happy if this can be achieved.
Hypothesis:
I said that there was no one dominant head on which I should concentrate and hence we should do the following:
1. Explore generic ways to reduce cost
2. Then arrive at decision criterion to apply a method to a particular cost component.
1. Generic ways to reduce cost:
a. Reduce price (Economies of scale and scope)
b. Reduce Volume of material to be consumed (with price being constant)
c. Redesign (say the engine as requirement for a low income person are different. For eg. He might just be
happy with a 600 cc engine vs a 1200 cc engine)
d. Use substitutes (say plastic/ polymers rather than metal)
2. Decision criterion to apply a particular method to a particular cost component
a. Degree of tech involvement (more suitable for engines and hence this really suggests that we should redesign
the engine and may be use some substitutes).
b. Degree of commoditization (more suitable for body and can also use substitutes)
Here I concluded that multiple methods could be applied to a cost component and hence this makes our task that much harder. Here he stopped me and said he was happy with the analysis.
Tips: 1. Case: I had initially said that based on a criterion, I will apply batches based on this interview experience only ONE method to a particular cost head (no reason why I assumed this). But based on our discussion, we could apply a mixture of 2 methods (he said apply the 80:20 rule). So it is okay to change your initial stand based on the discussion (it’s a blunder to stick to your initial assumptions especially if the discussion proves the assumptions wrong).
2. PI: Rohit Kapoor had told us, recruiters come here recruit humans and not gods. So it is OK to say simple things but say them with conviction.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a meat manufacturer operating in Europe. Their profits are falling for the last two years.
Initial clarification
1. Company has two products
a. Hams
b. Sausages
2. Only 3 players in the market. Client has 40% market share and other two players have 30% each. Clients market share has been falling (indicating that it is a revenue problem).
3. She also said that market size is not growing substantially.
Case Structure/ Discussion
1. Revenues
a. Product mix
i. The process to manufacture hams and sausages is very similar. Sausages are made from scarps left over from hams.
b. Price * Quantity (explained in the sections below)
2. Costs
a. Fixed
i. Allocation of overheads such as CEO salary
ii. Asked how fixed costs can be allocated. I said based on
1. Revenues
2. Volume
3. Number of employees in a division
b. Variable
i. Raw materials (she said there was no scope to reduce this)
3. Customers
a. Drivers of purchase
i. Only price.
ii. Quality of product is not a differentiator. Retailers were not ready to pay more for better quality products
iii. No Value added service can give any competitive advantage
iv. I concluded that this was a commodity product in a stable market
b. Customers are retailers who buy the meat, and sell it as their private label product
4. Competition
a. No new product was introduced in the past
b. No new channels were entered by competition
c. Competition had reduced the price of sausages by only $0.01. The customers (retail outlets) were so sensitive to price, that they were switching to competitor products (to both hams and sausages. So a wrong pricing decision in sausages had let to not only decrease in sales of sausages, but also affected sales of hams as consumers, in this case retailers, preferred to buy from one supplier to reduce their transaction costs.
The flaws in this method are
1. Fixed costs should not be a part of pricing decision (Basic managerial accounting funda)
2. With this method, their margin on sausages is 0. Hence they can not reduce prices according to this method.
I said if you exclude the fixed costs, then in % terms, sausages have a much higher margin. So there is a lot of scope in decreasing price.
Recommendations
1. Exclude Fixed costs from pricing decisions
2. Reduce prices in sausages
3. As process to manufacture both products is same, make one person in charge of both products. This will ensure that pricing
decisions are made in a rational manner. The whole problem cropped up as fixed costs had to be allocated between 2 products
and there were 2 line managers for the two products.
After completing the case, she said there were many other aspects to this problem. These were:
1. The client was operating in a small European country and had 4 plants. So closing down some of the plants was an option. (had enquired about this but she said that we should neglect it for the time being)
2. They could also look at entering foreign markets in Europe to boost sales (I had enquired about this)
3. Also, the sausage process was not efficient. So to improve it they could benchmark it to their ham operation.
Apparently the ham process was very efficient (she did not give reasons for why it was more efficient, probably because it accounted for 80% of revenues and hence received more attention). This was new insight to me as one always benchmarks a process to competitors, or to processes of similar products etc. But internal bench-marking was new to me.
4. This was a family owned business and not a listed company. Hence there were a lot of cultural issues which they had to resolve in terms of best management practices, mindset of the employees etc.
Tips: Just listen to what the interviewer says. She clearly wanted me to go to accounting and she dropped enough hints during the initial
stages of the interview.
Also, even though she was from BTO practice, she gave me a commodity product case. So the background of interviewer/ interviewee really does not matter. What they are looking for is the ability to analyze a problem from the case facts.
Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: An Indian conglomerate opened an IT company in Delhi and they have failed miserably. You are hired by the client to diagnose the situation and turn around the company.
Initial hints: It was clear from his narration that a drastic approach was required and the client had completely got the strategy wrong.
Initial clarifications:
1. Who is the Indian conglomerate and why did they enter the IT space?
a. Family owned business and hence there is lack of best management practices
b. They entered the IT space as it offered significant growth potential (diversification). They launched this business in 2000.
2. What are their products/ services?
a. Products
i. Healthcare (10-20% revenues)
ii. Knowledge management (20% revenues)
b. Services
i. Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) (60%-70% revenues)
At this point, I said I was not well versant with economic drivers of IT industry specifically the 2 product segments and ADM.
He then wanted me to explore how only services business could be expanded. He said services can be sold on
1. Specialization of a service which can be sold across verticals (e.g. desktop migration)
2. Verticalization (e.g. some mercury simulation service for auto industry)
In the feedback he said that my analysis was good but there was one thing I had missed. Instead of completely shutting down healthcare services, it could have been used to set up captive centers for companies and this could be spun off as an advisory service in offshoring practices.
Tips: Do not hedge your answers.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)
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