Bain & Company Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Q1. How has your day been?
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Q2. Tell me something about yourself which is not on your CV?
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Q3. How are you? Where are you from?
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Q4. What did you like about BCG and when was the time when you felt like leaving the organization / work that you were doing?
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Q5. Tell me some instances when you shared your ideas and if they were implemented by the case team?
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Q6. Would you like to work with Bain?
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Q7. Do you have any issues in that?
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You are working with online retailer focusing on the fashion industry. Their private label business is 200mn USD. How will you further grow this?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Reiterated the problem and said that we can assume this to be Myntra to start with.

I: Sure. Go ahead.

C: Please share more details about the company and about their business.

I: The company is 7-8 years old, based out of India and is in apparel & accessories segment. No major customer segments. The company holds 25% market share and is among top 4 players in ecommerce, and top 2 in fashion.

C: Asked if there is enough demand in the market. Given it is in the India market, said there must be enough demand.

I: Yes, there is. We can focus on how to cater to the demand.

C: So, we can expand in 2 ways- B2B and B2C. Gave example of B2B – like giving clothes to big bazaar.

I: We need to make our brand name, so focus on B2C.

C: Sure, so in that case we have multiple options – (1) selling through own website, (2) selling through third party websites, (3) from own new stores or (4) from third party stores.

Asked Interviewer of what she wanted me to focus on and how to proceed ahead.

I: Please size the market for each of these options after 3 years.

C: Sure. Started taking numbers on overall market size, growth and estimated percentage that can be made from it.

I: Let us assume Amazon to present 1 bn USD opportunity with growth rate 20% and amazon has 5000 brands.

C: Calculated market size - 1.7 bn in 3 years. Assumed top 60% sales from major brands, 20% from Private labels and 20% from others. Given 100 brands in private label, calculated 3.4 MN USD opportunity from Website.

(Similarly got information for other 3 ways and calculated market for each of them. Tried to catch on hints like own website growth would be more than that on Amazon, and how to push own product on our website without losing customers.)

You are working with IT service company and the profits are less than those of the competitors. Identify the issues and also suggest possible solutions.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Tried to ask about the company and what all it does.

I: Sure, so company is like Wipro etc. who work across multiple industries like consumer, Industrial goods etc. These company get projects from the industry and work on it. Do you know about Hunter, Farmers, New logo, win rate and close rate?

C: No, since I am new to this industry, it will be great if you can help me with these.

I: Sure. Hunters are sales team members, farmers are accountants. New logo referred to new companies that were clients within the past 1 year. Win rate is clients hat got converted divided by total companies approached by hunters. While close rate was total potential of the converted clients divided by total available pool. Next, tell me why are new logos important?

C: It is because these are essentially clients that can will give us lot of work in the future and have lot of potential.

I: Absolutely correct. So, our win rate is same as other companies, but close rate is lower. Can you figure out the reason?

C: Sure, so it is important to understand this from a hunter’s perspective. Broke the problem into 2 parts- if the hunters were willingly doing this or not. Gave justification of willingness as motivation could be less because of fixed pay or pay in terms of number of deals.

I: No, so they are paid 2% of the deal amount.

C: There could be a few cases here, if the hunters themselves selected these pools of people and did not realize the potential or they were given a set of people.

I: They themselves choose to select the people.

C: Hence that means they were not strategically approaching these people and that is leading to the issue of lower profits and revenue eventually.

I: Correct, but how will you solve this issue?

C: Figured out multiple ways like – salary basis client size, fixing the clients to interact, better training for good conversion rates, allocating clients basis capabilities.

I: Yes, one more way is to pay more for bigger clients like 6-7% for bigger clients in terms of opportunities, and 2% of deal for smaller clients.

Q1. Estimate the revenue of a museum in a day in a city in Europe?
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Q1. Hi Bhavya, how has your day been so far?
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Q2. Tell me about yourself.
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Q3. How was your experience at Bain earlier this year?
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Q4. How do you like to spend your weekends prior to IIML?
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I enjoyed exploring new places, trying new cuisines, and spending time with friends and family.
• I loved traveling to different cities and countries

• I enjoyed trying out new restaurants and cuisines

• I spent time with my friends and family, either by going out or having them over

• I also enjoyed reading books and watching movies in my free time
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Q5. What projects did you work on during your time at Deloitte?
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An IT company is seeing decline in profits. Diagnose the issue & provide recommendations.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: (Interviewer realized I was a bit anxious and stressed, so had a candid conversation about Bain, her work there and general stuff about IIML for 5-7 minutes).

Okay Bhavya, let's get started with a case. Our client is one of the top 3 IT service providers, you can imagine it to be a Wipro/Infosys. It has 5 verticals: CPR, Manufacturing, Tech, Media and Financial Services. Of these, CPR, Manufacturing and Financial Services have a sales Department. The work of the IT company involves building applications, infra maintenance or building of servers, app maintenance, data work (e.g., Cloud) and IT consulting work. Now the focus here has to be on IT Consulting.

For procuring these projects, the company has salespeople. They have targets they have to meet based on which their salary is dependent.

Now, it has been observed that our sales have decreased while the salesforce commissions based on the targets have remained the same. It has also been observed that the average time period per project has decreased. Can you help us diagnose this?

C: Sure! Firstly, could I know since when this decline has been there and whether it has been there across the verticals?

I: It's a secular decline, taking place for the last 1 year.

C: Alright, secondly, I'd like to understand the salespersons' salary structure a little better. I'd imagine there would be a fixed and variable component, and the variable component is based on them meeting the sales targets?

I: Yes, and let's assume the variable component makes up most of the salary.

C: Great, could you explain how the commission structure is designed?

I: The structure is designed as No. Of projects * Conversion Factor.

C: Oh okay, what exactly is the conversion factor?

I: Good question. The conversion factor is defined two ways: 1) Number of projects won/ Number of projects bid or 2) value of projects won/value of projects bid.

C: Oh, so if I get this correctly, there's one based on no. of projects while the other is based on the sales value of projects?

I: Yes, that is correct.

C: Oh alright, I'd want to dig deeper into this a little bit before I proceed. Have both metrics seen a decline?

I: No, so while number of projects won is at par, the value won has declined.

C: Understood. So here I'd want to explore potentially something were doing wrong because of which the value we're winning is low.

I: Go ahead.

C: So, I believe there could be a couple of things. Either there's some problem with the projects itself, with the way they're being pitched by salespeople, or the competition is offering something better.

I: Hmm, well the pitch is fine. But the competition is largely providing longer term projects while we aren't.

C: Understood, so in that case, that seems to be the issue. We aren't able to pitch longer term projects which might have higher dollar value. Now, I'd want to understand differences between the competition and us in terms of securing these longer-term projects. Can I assume similar types of projects and similar salespersons?

I: Yes.

C: Okay, in that case, if the salespersons are similar and so are the projects, there might be an issue in pushing the projects from our salespersons. Is the conversion factor we talked about linked to Number of Projects or Value of Projects?

I: Yes, the conversion factor is largely linked to number of projects.

C: Understood. In that case, it's apparent that pushing longer term projects isn't incentivized adequately, is that fair?

I: Yes. However, there are other factors at play too, since till last year the value of projects was at par.

C: Understood. Are there other attributes of longer-term projects that differentiate themselves from the short-term projects? Potentially in terms of nature of projects, time to convert for salespersons or effort involved even in shorter time periods?

I: Yes, the second is the case. It takes more time on average to close the project which is causing the issue. Do you have any recommendations for this issue?

C: Yes, for our current sales,

1) We could incentivize longer term projects better through value-based approach

2) We could train the salesforce to pitch the projects in a shorter time period and close it earlier

3) We could increase the quality/composition of Salesforce that could be more equipped to deal longer term projects. Alternatively, we could think of identifying new areas of sales that could compensate for lost sales through longer term projects, potentially specializing in short term projects and increasing volume there.

I: Great, thanks Bhavya. How do you think it went?

C: Umm, I think I diagnosed the problem, but it took a lot of time to reach there. Could've been more efficient.

I: Yep, I felt it was alright as well, you could've been more efficient. But thanks for your time, and best of luck!

Havells Chief Logistics Head is thinking of employing Bain. What ideas can we propose? (I had worked in the Transportation & Logistics space during Deloitte Consulting, so case made potentially keeping that in mind)
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

(Interviewer proceeded to tell me about himself and experience at Bain. He asked me questions including why don't you tell me about yourself, what was your work like at Deloitte, how do you spend your weekends, post that to ease me into the case)

I: So, you know how these interviews go, I am obligated to give you a case while I'd like to keep chatting. Let me give you something maybe slightly related to what you've worked on.

Your client is head of logistics of Havells. This is our 1st meeting with him, and we're supposed to have a conversation to pitch ideas.

C: Great, just so I understand this correctly, we have to pitch some ideas to Havells' Logistics head regarding potential improvements in their department for reducing logistics costs?

I: Yes.

C: I'd like to understand Havells a bit better before I proceed. Is it the electrical goods company? What sort of products does it have and what is its value chain like?

I: So yes, Havells has multiple factories and produces wires, switches, etc. They manage their own logistics.

C: Okay, and just to be sure about this, they procure raw material, there's inbound logistics, they manufacture the goods, there’s out outbound logistics, they store goods at their own warehouses and sell it to distributors?

I: Yes. You can ignore inbound logistics, however. Just focus on factories to distributors.

C: Great, also are there any specific objectives Havells has, going into this meeting?

I: Yeah, so you can assume they want to improve cost of logistics as a % of revenue. So even a 5% improvement for 10K crore company is high.

C: So, the structure I'd like to proceed with involves assessing Transportation & Warehousing. I can potentially proceed with transportation here.

I: Go ahead

C: Under transportation, aspects I'd want to look at include 1) The Modal Mix 2) The Route design 3) Effectiveness of covering routes.

I: What do you mean by Modal Mix? Havells just uses Road.

C: Oh okay, I could have looked into any scope for efficiency from transports mix that could reduce costs. Is there a constraint only on using roads on?

I: Yes, go ahead with route design?

C: Sure. So, there we could explore the potential routes decided at a network level between plants to minimize time and cost. The permutations could be explored that work best for Havells.

I: How can a consulting firm here provide value? Havells must know it's routes well already.

C: I understand, but:

1) Consulting firms typically have access to huge amounts of data and analytics tools that are unique solutions for such kinds of problems. We could leverage them to optimize route design for them.

2) Business owners/heads have their own biases while approaching such issues, an objective route mapping could help check for any bottlenecks.

I: Okay, go ahead?

C: Under route effectiveness, I'd want to look at if there's any internal or external factors that inhibit truck owners from covering these routes adequately. In internal issues, aspects such as truck capacity/truck effectiveness in carrying goods, driver issues can be explored. In external issues, aspects such as stoppages, bribery etc. could be explored.

I: Okay, but why does this even matter?

C: Improving effectiveness in routes would mean lesser time taken on these routes.

I: And how does that help? They pay fixed amount per ton to drivers.

C: Well time saved would mean more tons delivered in the total time present. Then the incremental revenues in the time saved would be the benefit to Havells.

I: Hmm, let's move forward.

C: Right, I'll move to warehousing now. Herein, I believe again either optimization at the network level can be done or within warehouses can be done.

I: What sort of optimization at network level are you talking about? And how would we do it?

C: This would involve the ideal placement of warehouses on the routes to minimize time and costs, as discussed earlier for route design using data and analytics. Herein the aspects to optimize would include:

1) Number of warehouses

2) Location of warehouses.

I: Hmm. Can you provide aspects within warehouse improvements?

C: Sure, this would include aspects such as improving turnaround time of trucks at warehouses and improving logistics operations within the warehouse.

I: Examples of within warehouse improvements?

C: Few that come to mind include improving inventory management, assembly and roll out of goods in shortest time. Labor and Role of automation here could be explored for improvements in time.

I: Hmm. Alright, we can stop here. How do you think it went?

C: I think it was alright, I tried to cover the board but there could've been improvements.

I: Right, I think you largely covered everything. Just could've taken more pauses and been more concise. But that's fine. Alright, best of luck and take care Bhavya!

Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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Q2. What do you want to do in the future? What are your short term and long-term goals?
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Q3. Can you explain to me the major decision you have taken in your life and the rationale behind those choices?
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Q4. Tell me about your professional experiences.
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Our client is in the IT industry, primarily working in the USA, with $1Bn of annual revenue
(75% from the USA itself). They operate software development, maintenance, and data
center management for BFSI clients, which provides 80% of the revenue. They have recently
acquired a software company working in the USA for five years, and its revenue has been
constant at $20 Mn. We must decide whether we should sell this company and invest further
in it.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Understood. There are a few questions I have with respect to the problem statement itself as well as some clarifying questions. Why did we invest in this specific company? Were we looking for any synergies?

I: This new company is operating in an emerging industry, with a lot of potential. We acquired it at a reasonable market price and were looking for long-term profits and not synergies.

I: Is the company profitable? Did we focus on improving the revenue in the last five years?

I: Yes, it's profitable, and we haven't made any investment till now.

C: Can I know about the market landscape in terms of market share and revenue growth?

I: The market is dominated by 5-6 large players having 70% of the market share. They are growing at the industry growth rate of 7-8%.

C: I would also like to understand this new company we acquired, specifically their business model and major revenue streams.

I: Let's not focus much on the company because the IT sector and the company will be very new to you, but to give a basic understanding, this new company provides core software solutions to insurance clients in the USA, helping them to serve the clients. (He talked about CRM/ERP, which I could not follow up on completely).

C: Should I also exclude the product-related aspect and take it up further in the case?

I: Yes, you can assume a standardized product for the time being.

C: Also, who runs this company, separate management?

I: Yes, they are run independently as a subsidiary.

C: Since it's in B2B, what are the primary customer segments we are serving?

I: We price the product at a premium. There are four major customer segments: Large private players (50%). Govt (20%), regional players (20%) and local players (10%). We primarily serve the local players, which are geography-specific, which have a niche client need.

C: I think I have a fair bit of understanding of the business problem.

My decision to invest or not invest will be based on three factors: Current market value of the firm, future market value with investment, future market value without investments but with better management or operations.

I: Okay, and how will you go about doing this?

C: I will try estimating the revenue/incremental revenue under each of this category and compare it with the additional investments.

I: Okay, Emil, that's a sound approach. Let's focus on the investment bucket, assuming the current market value is only $18 Mn. How will you proceed with the same?

C: Also, I want to understand the quantum of investment we are making because it will affect my future value and growth.

I: Let's take a step back here, Emil. If you exclude the investment amount, how will you approach this?

C: I will look at the future value and growth potential. What are the avenues for the firm to increase the revenue in the future specifically?

I: Yes, perfect. Let's focus on this.

C: I think we can focus on our current operation, looking at the revenue from the existing and new clients, or looking at new operations concentrating on new products or new geographies.

I: Let's exclude the new geographies since we want to focus on the USA. What do you mean by new products?

C: New products for our current customers or targeting a new customer segment.

I: Okay, and would you like to add anything?

C: Can I take a few moments to think through this situation?

I: Yes, take your time.

C: For our current clients, we can focus on any cross-selling opportunity with respect to our parents' offerings, bundling of our products, and customization.

I: Yes, useful suggestions, let's focus on new clients now.

C: We can focus on new customers from the current segments or try serving govt or large private players. For the former, we can focus on S&M techniques along with better product differentiation. For the latter, since there are larger players than us, it won't be easy to compete. We need to look for a niche product/space we can enter initially.

I: Okay, make sense. Let's assume we have decided to enter the larger private players segments. How will you go about doing this?

C: I will approach this from the demand and supply side. From the supply side, I will look at my current and potential capabilities in terms of servers and software developments, R&D and the quality of my employees, sales team and their reach, and marketing techniques. I will focus on these larger clients' product and price requirements from the demand side, offering customized/niche products, value-added service and long-term contracts, and differentiation from current market players.

I: Good points. Now let's try estimating the value of the company if we incorporate all these suggestions.

C: Do you want me to estimate the future revenue of the company?

I: Let's try focusing on your approach here first, specifically for the new segment we are entering.\

C: To estimate revenue, I need to know the price, the product mix/range of offerings, and the number of clients we will have. For estimating the price, I will look at our competitors' current market price, our cost of entry, and the future price growth/bargaining power using inflation, GDP growth rate, and industry growth rate as proxies. Also, due to the Covid outbreak and boom of the insurance sector, we might be able to price our products better in the future. To estimate the number of clients, I will start calculating the total number of local insurance players in the local market by assessing the need for insurance products (using proxies like population, age, income, insurance affinity, average customer base per insurance player) and multiply it by expected market share.

I: Emil, this is the bottoms-up approach. Let's focus on the top-down approach, and for the new segment we are entering, the potential market or the projected market share.

C: I will start with the current market for large private players and estimate how much we can acquire while competing with other similar B2B players. Since there are large established players in the market, it won't be easy to get a fair market share initially. I would like to look at proxies that will help me understand the market we can capture.

I: What are those?

C: Since IT is a sales team-based industry, revenue/employee can be one metric. Also, the server capability or any patent-related information can be useful. Marketing expenses can also indicate how aggressive the competitors are. And finally, since we are looking for at large players, data regarding long-term contracts and customer retention is critical.

I: Thank you, Emil. Can you explain the approach you have taken to solve the problem?

C: Yes (I then summarized the case, and the interview ended there).

Our client is a manufacturer of nets used in the fishing industry, agriculture, and construction. Their revenue has been growing at the rate of 3-4% for the last five years.

They would like to accelerate their growth to 15% YoY. Can you help them?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Why precisely 15% here? Does the client think they have the potential to grow at this level in the future?

I: That's something we must decide internally. So, you have a dual problem here: understanding our company's potential and finding out ways to grow the revenue! Also, let's focus only on the fishing net industry for the time being.

C: What is the timeline for the same? Also, any specific budgetary constraint I should keep in mind?

I: Probably as soon as possible. Also, we have enough cash in our account.

C: Understood. Where does our client operate in the value-chain? Do they have their production and distribution facility?

I: Yes, the client operates across the value chain, from production to distribution through 3rd party dealers. Retailers buy it from them and sell it in the market.

C: What are the major product segments we are having?

I: We are into all product categories that the industry requires.

C: How is our product priced with respect to our competitors?

I: There is a 5% premium on our product, mainly because of the quality. It is the best in the industry in terms of quality.

C: What is the market share of our company? And what has been the industry growth rate?

I: We are the market leaders with 70% of the market share. The rest of the market is captured by the unorganized sector. The industry is also growing at a rate of 3-4%.

C: What are our primary customer segments? I believe organized fishers buy the products from the dealers and unorganized fishers from retailers in rural areas.

I: Yes, this is how the industry operates.

C: The approach I want to follow is to look at our company's potential in terms of production and supply chain specifics to see if we can support a 15% YoY revenue growth (focusing on the volume part) and looking at the current capabilities and capacity utilization. And then try to understand avenues available for us to increase the revenue through organic and inorganic routes.

I: Let's focus on revenue maximization first and focus only on organic growth.

C: I want to focus on three aspects here: Customers, dealers, and logistics/supply chain.

I: Let's focus on customers first.

C: There are two kinds of customers: Bigger organized players and smaller unorganized ones. For the more prominent players, we can look at establishing a long-standing relationship with them. Customize nets according to their needs, in-house maintenance and repairing of the nets, bundling of the products, or discounting since purchasing in bulk quantities.

For the smaller players, we can try getting closer to the end-user, probably the D2C model. For them, word of mouth matters a lot and bases their purchase decision on historical purchase experience and usage. We can set up small retail shops along the coastal lines, trade fairs or discount periods during the major festival season, and some engagement activities for the local people sponsored by us.

I: Anything else?

C: Since our product is at a premium price, there is an internal trade-off we must make between price and quality. Since the customer and the local players are price-sensitive, we can help them buy the net with suitable price incentives like EMI, partnership with local panchayats or banks, and replacement of old nets.

I: Okay, agreed. What about the distributors?

C: We can integrate forward to have our exclusive distributors or increase our presence in areas where we are not a market leader.

I: How do you assess and bridge the gap in the current distribution network?

C: For assessing the gap, we can look at proxies like the number of dealers per area or the number of retail customers per dealer. Also, revenue per dealer or total orders served, along with the growth rate in orders, can be used here.

For bridging the gap, you can look at the hub and spoke model, like having regional centers on major shores. Also, you can focus on an exclusive dealership, a better incentive structure for the dealers to push our products and focus on areas where we currently don't have any presence.

I: Okay, that is it, Emil. How will you estimate the annual revenue for the client?

C: After taking time to structure my thoughts, I gave my approach to estimate the total units sold per year.

I started from the total population and then used filters like age, average employment rate, and percentage of workers in the primary and fishing industries. Then I took an estimate of people working as fisherman among the people working in the value chain. Then I estimated the total number of fishing boats by segmenting the customers into organized and unorganized. I also incorporated product lifecycle and reserve nets per boats within the model.

He was also looking for the numbers and my rationale for each assumption I made.