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Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 17 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Tell me something about yourself? Why consulting?
Round 2 - Case Study 

How will you value a broking / wealth management firm?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: As a financial services firm, we will have a number of services offered.

I: Let us consider a broking firm. What business verticals can you consider?

C: Major services offered would include the following:
1. Broking services
2. Debt syndication
3. Commodities
4. Advisory - Investment banking, Portfolio services etc.

I: Good, let us consider broking firm into equities.

C: What is the geography where the broking firm is located?

I: Bombay and has clients with NSE.

C: Do we operate in stock exchange across India?

I: Let us consider clients across India, operating in NSE.

C: What is the client base that we cater to?

I: HNI + General public.

C: When we are considering valuation of a broking firm, we can evaluate the revenue and cost to determine the cash inflows.

Revenue is based on value and % of brokerage. (Value = Price of shares * Quantity of shares * Mix of shares).

I: Which parameters affect the quantity?

C: No. of customers, type of customers (for instance - HNI will trade more than general people), exchanges traded in, we can also look at the geography, penetration, competitors, and the life cycle in stock exchange (gave relevance of 2008 stock crash leading to reduction in number of people).

I: How to evaluate price over a period of time.

C: We can assign a growth rate based on the growth rate of the economy and performance of equities related to it.

I: How will you value these?

C: As these are a series of cash flows, we can take a DCF approach.

I: This is on an ongoing basis. How about if I close the business?

C: We will also consider the terminal value. It can be calculated based on tangible and intangible assets. Tangible assets could include assets of the firm (computers, office etc.) and a broking card (important and holds great value as a license). Intangible assets could include assets - customer data and relations. The team will have access to funds of customers which is valuable.

Round 3 - Case Study 

We are a steel pipe manufacturer, and we are working on a cost transformation program and wish to reduce our cost by Rs. 150 Crs.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: What is the time horizon within which we would like to reduce the cost?

I: 12 months.

C: What is the product that we manufacture and whom do we cater to?

I: Large steel pipe and we cater to B2B and large customers.

C: Do we deal in separate product SKUs?

I: We have different diameters and variants depending on the process. But let us have one SKU for now.

C: What would be the location?

I: Hanjar port. We can import raw material from China and export it to the neighboring countries.

C: Would it be safe to assume that our customers are international?

I: Yes.

C: Given we are looking at reducing costs, what would our total current cost be?

I: Rs.6000 Cr. What are the various costs that I can incur?

C: Raw Material (RM), production, distribution, marketing, and support.

I: RM is my major cost, and it accounts for 60% of the overall cost.

C: RM will include purchase cost and inbound transmission.

I: Let us consider purchase cost.

C: Purchase cost = Price / tonne * Quantity

I: What parameters would affect the price?

C: The country from where we purchase - China, South Africa, Indonesia etc. It is a commodity and, thus, prices would fluctuate. We can consider domestic purchase as well. Quality, grade of the RM can also be considered. Concept of EOQ i.e., ordering cost v/s storage cost tradeoff.

I: Good, let us assume we have an order of 100 tonnes, and efficiency is 95%, so we will roughly order 105 tonnes. We have 2 options, order 105 in one go or in 2 parts, what would you recommend and why?

C: As melting steel is costly; it would be better to do so in one go. How much of it would be needed in the start?

I: Let us say 80% is needed in the start.

C: Then it is advisable to order in one go as it will help to reduce storage and transport cost and help to get a bulk discount.

I: Why would I consider ordering 20% in the start?

C: Maybe if it is a new supplier and we are not sure of the quality or the manufacture process with our infrastructure.

I: What if I have options to order, 3/4/5 times.

C: We will consider the EOQ concept and evaluate it independently based on requirement.

I: We can also consider the confidence we have on supplier to build a relationship.

C: Yes.

I: Let us do a quick calculation. If I am able to save 2% of the RM cost, what would the amount be and how am I able to justify the same with my target?

C: Total cost is 6000 cr. RM is 60%, i.e., 3600 Crs and 2% of the same is 72 Crs. Our target is 150 Crs and, thus, we will not be able to achieve it.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - 1. Stay calm, do not let day -1 experience influence your Day 0 performance.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 18 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. Being from St. Xavier's and Calcutta, why didn't you pursue CA?
  • Q2. Tell me something about yourself apart from what's there on your resume.
Round 2 - Case Study 

You are meeting the head of the logistics department of a company. They are involved in both B2B and B2C sides of the business. Talk about what would be the agenda of the meet and the proposition you would take to transform their logistics business.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Asked me a couple of HR questions including why not CA.

I: Answered and realized he was a CA. He started laughing based on my answer.

C: Followed the CPCC approach.

I: (Stopping in between) Do not follow the conventional case solving models and logically explain the thought process and rationale.

C: What’s the name of company, chief products/ services, their operating cities? Can I also know the current system of logistics:

Internal/External vendors, technology being used for inventory/supply chain/vendor management?

I: The company name is Havells India selling all the current products you’re aware of. They have engagement with multiple outside vendors for delivery. The storage & warehousing is internal, and SAP is the ERP system currently being used by them for all internal purposes.

C: Okay. I have all the information I need. Can I take a minute to analyses the way to go?

The typical supply chain process comprises of the following 4 stages:

Inbound logistics, storage & warehousing, operations, and finally outbound logistics.

If this seems fair, I’d like to explore each stage and discuss the integral parts and deliberate upon the changes/improvements in each stage.

I: Fair enough. Go ahead but be very brief as we don’t have a lot of time. Only focus on the key element in each stage.

C: Sure. Under Inbound logistics, the key component is the number of vendors.

My suggestion here is to have limited but integral vendors with the aim of solidifying long term relationships with the same. This will give them confidence and give us higher bargaining power to cut costs via economies of scale.

C: Under storage & warehousing, and operations, I suggest having an end-to-end application linked to our ERP system for end-to-end internal tracking of orders, dispatches and an overall pulse over inventory.

If time permits, I would like to also talk about the current inventory system we follow.

I: No, let’s ignore that for now.

C: Under outbound logistics, again the number of vendors is important. Also, I’d also like to look at the reverse logistics aspect since electronic goods tend to have a high return percentage, hence would also explore this angle.

I: (Starts laughing and asks me to hold on). At this point, it seems you’re blabbering on and on. Take a minute and tell me what the three most important aspects in this entire process are.

C: (After a minute) The three most important part of this process would be the technology, employees and the current system of processes and operations.

C: Do you have any feedback for me?

I: I think you have a lot of ideas and despite the lack of industry knowledge, you were able to come up with good ideas. The three important aspects were correct, but you missed out on cost. In logistics, cost would be extremely crucial. For future cases, try to be a little more structured. That’s it.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Just be logical and approach things from first principal if nothing else works. Be confident and composed even if you are rattled during the case.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 18 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 
Round 2 - Case Study 

Client is a steel manufacturing company. It was acquired as part of the bankruptcy process as a bankruptcy asset.

They need your help in turning them around. Please advise.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Who bought the company?

I: The new owner, details of whom are not relevant.

C: What are their targets?

I: They paid 1 billion dollars for the company and took a loan for the same. They need to pay back the loan plus interest in the next 3-4 years.

C: Where does the company have its operations?

I: East India.

C: How many plants?

I: 1 plant.

C: What is the current performance of the company?

I: Negative 5% EBITDA.

C: Who are their key customers? I imagine them being in the B2B space.

I: Yes.

C: Where are they in the value chain? Do they have mines for raw materials and then manufacture steel? How do they sell it?

I: They do not have mines for the raw material. They procure the raw material and then manufacture steel. Then the steel is manufactured into a finished product and then sold.

C: And selling is via sales reps?

I: Yes.

C: Got it. I will just take a couple of seconds here to gather my thoughts.

C: Alright, since we need to pay back our loan, we need to improve our profits. In order to do that we can either increase our revenues or look at reducing costs. Is there a particular bucket you would want me to look at first?

I: We will look at both but let’s start with costs.

C: With costs, I would look at the value chain and try to bring down costs at each stage.

I: Fair enough.

C: To start with there will be procurement costs, then processing, then distribution, sales and marketing and after sales costs.

I: Why after sales costs?

C: To service any requirements the customers have post sales.

I: The product in our case is a “sariya” (steel rod). There won’t be any after-sales costs. Chuck that.

I: What other costs would you look at?

C: I think I missed transportation and logistics costs.

I: Right.

I: Let’s move ahead. Pick any one cost bucket and tell me ways to reduce costs.

C: I would look at procurement costs first.

I: Sure. So, our client procures two raw materials. One is iron ore, and the other is coal. Coal is imported from Australia and Iron ore is procured from Indian mines. Take any one raw material and let’s begin.

C: I’ll look at Coal first since we are procuring it from Australia.

I: Ok. What are the 3-4 levers you would focus on in order to reduce costs?

C: Firstly, I would look at why are we importing this from Australia and not from any other mine in India.

I: This is not available in India.

C: Alright, so why Australia particularly. There would be countries which are closer to India from where we can procure. This would reduce transportation costs.

I: Fair enough, which other countries would you suggest?

C: I would look at other Southeast Asian countries or African countries. Probably prioritize Asian countries due to proximity.

I: Any country in particular? We know Australia is rich in minerals, but which Asian country has such mineral resources? You would have heard about this in the news some days back.

C: I haven’t been following the news recently but based on my previous understanding: Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia come to mind.

I: Yup, Indonesia is what I was looking for. Carry on.

C: The next lever I would look at is the number of orders that we are making.

I: Right. So, we currently order 16 shipments of 30,000 tons each. So, the total requirement is for 480,000 tons a year.

C: How is the coal consumption pattern? I am asking this because based on this we could look at either increasing / decreasing the number of orders depending on shipment costs and inventory storage costs.

I: Coal is consumed continuously. No trend as such. But why do you say by reducing the number of orders we can save on costs?

C: The decision on optimum number of orders depends on two types of costs: inventory storage costs and ordering costs / shipment costs.

I: What are ordering costs? There is nothing called ordering costs.

C: By ordering costs I meant to place an order someone would have to sit and place it manually. In addition to it within ordering costs I am also including the shipping costs.

I: Okay, the costs for physically placing the order are negligible. Let’s focus on shipping costs.

C: Alright. With lower number of orders, the ships will have to make less trips. Hence in essence we would be saving on the fuel costs for the additional trips.

I: How? I still don’t get it.

C: So, let’s say that we earlier had 16 trips with 30,000 tones. Now we will have 8 trips with 60,000 tones being carried.

I: Yes, so how will you save on costs?

C: So, less trips would mean less money paid overall to the logistics provider.

I: Siddharth, you are fudging this. Don’t give me high level answers. You should be able to defend your point when challenged, so think hard and let me know how we will save costs.

C: Probably with bigger shipments we can rent out space in bigger vessels where the costs would be shared with other manufacturers as well.

I: Okay, let’s stop. I was thinking that you would mention we would have less costs per tonne as bigger ships have better fuel efficiency as compared to smaller ships. It is like the car and truck case where trucks are more efficient than cars in transporting. Let’s continue.

C: Got it. Next, we could look at the price per tonne being charged by the supplier. We could look at entering in long-term contracts to reduce prices.

I: Please elaborate.

C: So currently it might be the case that we are ordering coal on a per-year basis. Since the company owners now have a target timeline in mind, we could look at entering in a contract for the next 3-4 years with our supplier for coal.

Since we would be guaranteeing the demand for coal for the next 3 years to the supplier, there will be less risk for the supplier in terms of demand uncertainty and hence he would be able to give us a better rate per tonne of coal.

I: Makes sense. Let’s move onto the revenues now. How can we increase revenues?

C: To increase revenues, I would look at Price and volumes both. I will start off with ways to
increase volumes.

C: Before starting though, I just wanted to understand who our current customers are.

I: Contractors of NHAI.

C: Alright. So, we are catering only to the public sector. Any reason for this?

I: The size of the pie is huge and so it seems attractive.

C: Ok but have we investigated the private sector? Why aren’t we selling to them?

I: Not yet. That is a fair point, and we should be doing that.

C: Alright. So, in terms of our current customers, what market share do we have?

I: 2-3%.

C: Ok. So now I will look at why do we have a low share here and then think of ways to improve it.

I: Got it. But to make the discussion more pointed, tell me whether we should focus on: the government sector or private sector?

C: We currently have a 2-3% share in the public sector. I believe one of the reasons could be that we have a bad image in the market due to the fact that we are a bankruptcy asset.

My understanding of the public sector is that they would need to have dealings with a well-known and credible brand because at the end of the day they are answerable to the public. In addition to this, I believe the ordering cycle in the public sector is larger because they go through the tendering process which is very lengthy and places high thresholds on the quality of products.

The private sector on the other hand will have shorter buying cycles and the quality restrictions or levels will be lower as at the end of the day they would need to minimize their construction costs. Hence, I believe the private sector would be a better segment for our client.

Round 3 - Case Study 

Client is a ropes and nets manufacturer. Has been seeing growth rates of 3-4% and wants to target 15%. Help them.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: How long have they been in business?

I: Decades.

C: What are the different products that they have?

I: Fishing nets and other sorts of ropes. For this case let’s focus only on fishing nets.

C: What market share do they have? Which markets?

I: 70%. Indian market only.

C: What sort of customers do they cater to? All types of fishermen?

I: Yes, they have a whole range of fishing nets and hence they sell to both small and big fisherman.

C: What are the timelines they are looking at for the 15% growth?

I: Next 3 years.

C: I’ll just take a couple of moments here to come up with a structure. To increase revenues, I’ll first look at trying to increase our market share within the Indian market and with the same set of products.

Then I’ll look at what other markets we could expand to. Finally, I’ll also look at what new products we can launch in order to increase revenues.

I: Fair enough. Let’s proceed.

C: To increase existing revenues I’ll look at ways to increase both prices as well as volumes. I’ll start with prices. Currently what sort of a pricing strategy do we follow?

I: We have a product which is of higher quality and hence we can charge a 5% price premium.

C: Got it. Since we already have a price premium, it seems tough to increase prices as we already have a 70% share. I’ll move on to strategies for increasing volumes.

I: Fair enough.

C: To increase volumes, I would first like to know that the 30% market that is occupied by the competitors, who are the sort of customers and who are the key players?

I: The other players are local players and consequently the customers are smaller scale fishermen.

C: So, it seems that for the smaller fishermen segment, the value proposition of local players is more attractive. That could be because they might have a cheaper product, or they might just be more accessible in that region, or it could just be an issue with brand awareness.

To tackle these issues, we could partner with more distributors/retailers to increase our reach, provide better trade margins to our channel partners, introduce a new product line for smaller fishermen and charge a lower price and finally rollout promotions specifically for these sorts of customers to improve awareness.

I: Okay. What else?

C: Another way to increase volumes is focusing on the frequency of purchase. Since you mentioned that ours is a high-quality product, I would assume that the lifetime of a net would be high.

To increase frequency, we could focus on modifying the quality of nets to have a shorter lifetime.

I: Wouldn’t this be exactly opposite of our value proposition leading to customers shifting to a different brand?

C: Not exactly, since we have been in the business for decades and have a 70% market share, we would have a huge chunk of brand loyal customers and hence shifting to a different brand does not seem likely.

I: Fair enough. What else?

C: Apart from the Indian market, we could look at entering other countries.

I: Before evaluating that, let’s estimate the size of the Indian market.

C: Okay. There would be two markets for fishing nets: coastal and Inland fishing. I’ll estimate the size of the coastal market and then add a certain percentage for inland fishing.

I: Lets focus only on the coastal market.

C: Alright, I’ll start off with the population of India. Considering 1.2 billion people, I’ll only consider half the population since we have a coast only in the southern part of India.

So, we now have 0.6 billion people. To estimate the coastal population, I’ll consider the state of Maharashtra. In Maharashtra we have 7 out of the 35 districts on the coast so approximately 20% of the population lives on the coast. Accordingly, we now have 0.6*0.2 = 0.12 billion people.

Dividing by 4 for the number of families, we have 0.03 billion families or 30 million families. Out of these coastal families about 50% would be involved in agriculture and about 50% of them would be involved in fishing which gives the total number of families as 7.5 million. Each family will need on average 2 fishing nets and hence 15 million nets is the total demand.

Factoring for the life of a net and considering 5 years as the average life, we have 3 million nets per year. Considering 1000 Rs as the average price, we have sales of 3 billion or 300 crore.

I: Right, this is very close to the actual amount. One last question: do you think the client can achieve 15% growth?

C: Since the client currently has 3-4% growth, even after following the above-mentioned strategies, it will be very tough to achieve this sort of growth in the Indian market.

If we expand to other geographies, then it’s a possibility but not in the Indian market alone.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - 1. Do read the casebook diligently. The last 3-4 days you can stop practicing cases and focus only on revision and casebook reading. I personally referred to casebooks from IIMA, B, C, L, ISB and XLRI.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 18 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. NA
Round 2 - Case Study 

We are a steel pipe manufacturer, and we are working on a cost transformation program and wish to reduce our cost by Rs. 150 Crores.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: What is the time horizon within which we would like to reduce the cost?

I: 12 months.

C: What is the product that we manufacture and whom do we cater to?

I: Large steel pipe and we cater to B2B and large customers.

C: Do we deal in separate product SKUs?

I: We have different diameters and variants depending on the process. But let us have one SKU for now.

C: What would be the location?

I: Hanjar port. We can import raw material from China and export it to the neighboring countries.

C: Given we are looking at reducing costs, what would our total current cost be?

I: Rs.6000 Cr. What are the various costs that I incur?

C: Raw Material (RM), production, distribution, marketing, and support. And considering the Heavy Goods Industry, most of the cost should come from Raw Material Purchase and Inbound Logistics.

I: Yes, RM is my major cost, and it accounts for 60% of the overall cost.

C: How much of that is Steel Pipes?

I: Steel which we bend and make the rolls for our pipe is 95% of our raw material.

C: Great, we can look at cost for Raw material in terms of the price/tonne*quantity.

I: How would you look at the price?

Opened the Cost Structure and then proceeded with procurement as per discussion

C: I will start looking at the procurement process currently and try to find potential optimization methods.

I: We procure for the entire year in one shipment currently.

C: Do we have possibility to alter this, as we might be saving on inventory costs.

I: Inventory is not a problem. But we can break the total order in multiple orders.

Efficiency and utilization are an issue. But if we have the liberty to order as many times as possible as possible, we like, what should be the number according to you. Like, 1,2,3,4 or maybe even more?

C: I would go with 2 as we can assess efficiency from the first order and order according and saving on transportation.

I: Great. Should I order 80% in the first or 20% in the first?

C: Should be 80% as would have safety margins and reduce stock out costs as it might disrupt the entire process.

I: Sure. Doing this we can reduce the steel cost by 2%. Can you come up the number?

C: Sure. 60% of 6000 would be the cost of raw material, which is 3600 and since we use 95% of RM for steel, the number comes to around 3420. 2% of which is around Rs. 68 Cr.

I: Great, are we able to reach the goal through this?

C: No, we are only able to reach less than 50% of the goal. Should I scope further for other means of optimization.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - 1. Keep it conversational and don't ignore the hints given by the interviewer.

2. Go through all the previous year transcripts to get a good sense of the case types.

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Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

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Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 17 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Tell me about yourself.
Round 2 - Case Study 

Your client is one of the Top 3 IT services company. It is not growing. Find why?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: I would like to know more about the client. What kind of services is the client providing?

Is it operating on a global level?

How long has it been established for?

Is the company not growing in existing business or new business?

I: The client is well established. It has valuation of $5 Bn. It operates in all the major countries. The client has two major business segments: IT Hardware and App Development. The company is not earning enough revenue in new customer segment.

C: Can I know the revenue breakup from the two segments and are we facing growth decline in any segment?

I: You can assume a 30:70 breakup in IT hardware and app development. We are facing decline in app development segment.

C: Thanks for the information. On what parameter are we comparing the growth of app development segment?

I: The net new revenue acquired this year by competitor is 10%. However, the net new revenue acquired by us is 5%.

C: Thanks, I have fairly understood the business model of the client. Please allow me some time to jot down my thoughts.

In an IT company, the major touch points for providing App development service would be:

1. Company Infrastructure

2. Customer Acquisition

3. Customer Retention

4. Service Delivery

5. Client Success

As you have told me that we are not able to generate net new revenue as per market standards. Shall I go forward with customer acquisition department or focus on any other department as well?

I: Let’s go forward with customer acquisition.

C: Okay, customer acquisition could be impacted due to sales team or product.

I: Let’s focus on sales team.

C: The sales can reduce due to a decline in willingness, ability of the sales team or the number of people in sales team.

I: Let’s go forward with willingness first.

C: The willingness could be monetary or non-monetary. Monetary including salary, commission, or any other monetary benefit and non-monetary such as promotion, appreciation, and other perks.

I: Let’s focus on the monetary aspect. There is a base salary and flat 3% commission for closing a deal.

C: That’s an interesting pay structure of commission. I would further like to bifurcate the new customers acquired into customers approached → customers Converted.

I: There are two parameters basis which we measure the sales team performance.

Win Rate = No. of clients converted/ No. of clients approached

Close Rate: Value they convert / Value they target (Bid for)

There is no issue in Win Rate.

C: Is it fair to infer that the number of clients approached is as per market standards, but they are not targeting the big-ticket client?

I: Yes, this is the issue they are not targeting the big-ticket clients. What could be the reason behind the same?

C: As the commission rate is flat 3%, there might not be any additional incentive to reach out to the big-ticket clients.

I: Yes, that’s right. What would you recommend?

C: Short Term:

• Introduce variable commission for clients, basis value contributed.

• Set Value wise targets instead of number of clients acquired.

• Update the database to include leads of big-ticket clients.

Long Term:

• Training the employees to better persuade clients for better conversion rate.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be confident and don't forget to smile. The interviewer is there to have a conversation and help you wherever you are stuck. Don't take too much pressure. Try to build a connection with the interview early on.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

Get interview-ready with Top Bain & Company Interview Questions

Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 17 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Give me a brief introduction about yourself.
Round 2 - Case Study 

Your client is a maker of nets and ropes that are used across the fishing, agriculture, and construction industries. They have been facing stagnant growth for the past few and we need to help them devise a strategy to achieve full potential.

Let us focus on the fishing segment for this case.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: (Re-iterated the problem statement). What is the current level of growth, and do we have a target in mind?

I: Current growth is in the range of 3-4% but their target is to grow at a rate of 15%.

C: Could you tell me a little more about the firm? Where is it currently based out of and is fishing net sales the only source of revenue?

I: The firm is based out of India and operates in the Indian market only. Yes, net sales are the only revenue source.

C: Understood. What about the product? How many variants do we sell, and do we have a USP?

I: We have multiple ranges and SKUs and are prices at a premium.

C: Could you tell me a little more about the Indian fishing net industry? How many players operate in the segment and what is our market share?

I: There are two sets of players: organized and unorganized. We are a market leader and hold 70% of the share.

C: Okay. In terms of the entire value chain of activities, I understand that we manufacture the nets, but are we also involved in distribution and sales? Who are our end customers?

I: We sell the nets through our network of distributors and dealers to small and large-scale fishermen.

C: I think I have gotten a fair understanding of the market. In order to push revenue, we can either increase our price or increase the sales volume or a mix of both. However, given we are already priced at a premium in a price conscious country like India, we might risk losing market share if we go ahead with that. I’ll focus on avenues through which we can increase the sales volume.

I: Yes, that sounds like a good approach.

C: In order to push sales, we can look at a combination of two factors: our product and the market we operate in. Do you want me to focus on any particular combination?

I: Let’s look at exploring new markets first.

C: Sure. We can explore new markets within the fishing industry such as inland fishing and shrimp farming in India. Further, we can enter new markets of neighboring coastal countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines, etc. through exports or country set-ups.

We can increase volume using our existing product range or come up with newer variants that have higher ductile strength, longevity, longer usability life or are made of cheaper material.

On the contrary, given the rising concerns around sea pollution and damage to sea animals caused by discarded fishing nets we can come up with nets made of biodegradable or natural
material.

I: Those are interesting suggestions. If we were to foray into exports, which country would you pick?

C: I would pick a South Asian neighboring country such as Sri Lanka which has a flourishing fishing industry with dynamics similar to that of India.

I: Why not the U.S.?

C: Multiple reasons such as: high export costs, no competitive advantage and high risk. Additionally, the U.S. fishing industry is organized and at an advanced stage wherein they use automated shipping vessels and higher quality nets.

I: Makes sense. How would you estimate the market size of nets in Sri Lanka? Just give me a broad approach.

C: I would start with the overall population of the country and then identify what percentage of the population resides in the coastal areas (I would use the country map and dimensions to come up with a rough estimate).

Further, I would divide the working population into primary, secondary, and tertiary sector to then find the share of people employed in fishing.

I would then group them to identify the number of boats in play and estimate the use life of the nets to calculate annual demand.

I: That sounds like a fair approach. What about India? How would you push sales using the existing product and market?

C: I would look at lowering the price to push volumes or discriminatory pricing for the unorganized market; further I would strengthen my sales channels by tying up with fishing associations and unions.

I: Do you think the 15% target is achievable if we continue to operate domestically?

C: I think it is an ambitious target to have. Given the fishing industry is also growing at a slow pace and no boom is expected, there are limited avenues through which we can push sales.

However, we can look at the other industries: construction and agriculture as these seem more promising with the high investments in infrastructure and introduction of new farm laws. Further, we can explore new industries where nets and ropes could be used such as sports: cricket nets, football nets etc.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - 1. Try to keep the interview as conversational as possible and try to use information given at the start of the case throughout the solving process.

Also, feel free to give insights basis industry knowledge that you may have.

2. Go through past case interview experiences in the CSC Casebook, as similar cases tend to be
repeated.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

Jobs at Bain & Company

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Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 22 Oct 2023

Interview experience
5
Excellent
Difficulty level
-
Process Duration
-
Result
-
Round 1 - Resume Shortlist 
Pro Tip by AmbitionBox:
Keep your resume crisp and to the point. A recruiter looks at your resume for an average of 6 seconds, make sure to leave the best impression.
View all tips
Round 2 - One-on-one 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Case interview based on work experience. Situation based.
Round 3 - Case Study 

E-commerce case study for launching new brand online.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)

Consultant Interview Questions & Answers

user image Anonymous

posted on 18 Mar 2023

I applied via campus placement at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow

Round 1 - HR 

(2 Questions)

  • Q1. Why consulting?
  • Q2. Take me through some of the projects you've worked on in EY.
Round 2 - Case Study 

Your client is a major player in the IT Sector and work largely in the space of offering tailor made products such as enterprise applications, general software tools, payroll systems, etc.

Their profitability has declined sharply, and they want you to diagnose the problem and suggest possible solutions.
The interviewer explicitly mentioned that they wanted the case to be more conversational and steered away from an approach largely dependent on frameworks.

I was asked questions about the industry, value chain and what the major cost drivers are.

Started the analysis with some clarifying questions around the company, the competitive landscape, and the customer base.

At this stage I was asked about revenue streams and the interviewer assisted in identifying all the relevant ones.

After analyzing those revenues were largely consistent, proceeded to focus on costs.

Broke it down further to personnel, infrastructure and facility related costs.

Drilled down individually to each of these costs.

Interviewer expected detailed responses on what each of the costs entail.

The problem area was around personnel costs and over reliance on onshore employees for development.

IT companies largely tend to outsource recurring software services.

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Do not rely on bookish approaches when trying to solve a case. More often than not, you will be interviewed by senior partners, and they will try to catch you off guard and will expect depth from all your answers. Try to understand the value chains and cost drivers of some major sectors, it will come in handy.

Consultant Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. How would you pass an entry for travel expenses incurred and paid by employee and was reimbursed? How would the end to end flow happens
View answer (8)
Interview experience
4
Good
Difficulty level
-
Process Duration
-
Result
-
Round 1 - Aptitude Test 

It comprises of 30 questions from verbal quant.

Round 2 - Coding Test 

It comprises of few coding questions related to graph dp.

Associate Engineer Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. Count Ways To Reach The N-th Stair Problem Statement You are given a number of stairs, N. Starting at the 0th stair, you need to reach the Nth stair. Each time you can either climb one step or two steps. You have to return the number of dis... read more
Add answer
Interview experience
5
Excellent
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
Less than 2 weeks
Result
Selected Selected

I applied via campus placement at Delhi College of Engineering (DCE), Delhi and was interviewed before Jul 2023. There were 3 interview rounds.

Round 1 - Aptitude Test 

CAT level questions of verbal and quant

Round 2 - Case Study 

One guestimate and resume based questions

Round 3 - Case Study 

One guestimate and one general case study followed with profile based questions

Business Analyst Intern Interview Questions asked at other Companies

Q1. What are all the documents prepared by a BA? Brief them.
View answer (1)

Bain & Company Interview FAQs

How many rounds are there in Bain & Company interview?
Bain & Company interview process usually has 2-3 rounds. The most common rounds in the Bain & Company interview process are Case Study, One-on-one Round and HR.
How to prepare for Bain & Company interview?
Go through your CV in detail and study all the technologies mentioned in your CV. Prepare at least two technologies or languages in depth if you are appearing for a technical interview at Bain & Company. The most common topics and skills that interviewers at Bain & Company expect are Consulting, Private Equity, Analytical, Management Consulting and Intellectual Property.
What are the top questions asked in Bain & Company interview?

Some of the top questions asked at the Bain & Company interview -

  1. How many advertisements are running on the yellow line of Delhi metro right now...read more
  2. How many TV can a new company expect to sell in delhi reg...read more
  3. How do you like to spend your weekends prior to II...read more
How long is the Bain & Company interview process?

The duration of Bain & Company interview process can vary, but typically it takes about less than 2 weeks to complete.

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