Bain & Company Summer Intern Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Learn in advance how to complete these tasks.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Nokia is currently the leader in the market for mobile phones in India. Motorola is far behind it and wants to increase its market share by around 10%. Give three suggestions for doing the same.

I started off by asking about the price segments in which the mobile phones are sold. These were sold in all categories from low price to the very expensive ones. Then I inquired if the features available in similarly priced models of other cos differed but the answer was no.
So basically price was not the issue.
Then i inquired if the expenditure on advertising was comparable to the other cos to which the answer was yes..
I suggested that probably the people were skeptical about certain features of the mobile sets, like their durability wtc. upon which the company never focused in advertisements. So probably a survey could be conducted to find if there is anything particular that the people are skeptical about.
Also the company could have a tie-up with CDMA vendors like reliance or TATA Indicom, where the mobile sets are provided along with the connection.
Tips: You should be thorough with your resume and study the sectors related to your past projects pretty well.

Skills:
Duration: 2
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case was about declining profitability of an Italian restaurant in New Delhi. Looked like a plain vanilla profitability case to me. I did the clarification part and gave him the standard cost vs revenue profit model as my structure. He said the structure was ok and asked me to continue, I launched into the analysis only to be stumped just 2 minutes later.
The restaurant was not losing revenue and costs were the same. I asked him three times to confirm this. I took time out and decided this structure would get me nowhere. Flipped a page and started on 4Ps ... Product being first. Asked him about the items sold and then the price of these items. He went one step ahead and gave me profitability figures. Apparently alcohol had more profitability than pasta and meats.
I asked if the product mix had changed over the last 2 years when profits had declined. The look on his face told me the case was over. However, he followed it up with an interesting question about why this may have happened/ I gave him two good reasons that were to do with outside environment, regulation of alcohol and some such thing.
He asked me to take some time to think that the owner of the restaurant may have done which made this happen. I took the customary one-minute and came up with the idea that probably the owner had tried to increase turnover, By improving service time and that the consumers all consumed alcohol while they waited for the main course.
Tips: practise hard. Also make sure you are thinking about the case in the interview and are not thinking about how the interview is proceeding.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Investment decision with limited budget about the creche business in chennai. Guesstimate about numbers of creches that can be opened in Chennai.
Tips: When faced with friendly interviewer you can afford to relax a bit but do not let your guard down quickly.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case was about a bank.. big bank in India. Wanted to tap rural market. After initial clarification and structure building I identified correctly the areas where the bankk had to apply effort to gain market share. Was stopped before getting in depth.

General Tips: Structure your cases properly.
Skills:
Duration: 3
College Name: IIM Lucknow