BCG Consultant Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Q.What is warehousing process? What is meant by processing of items?The manufacturing unit of the companysends the items to the warehouse. The items are recorded and then sent to the storesQ.Is the problem related to only one ware house or others as well?I was asked to just focus on the problems that may arise in only one warehouse. Q. How was the target set?Based on how many they would want to sell.Q. What is the target and by how much is it missing? There were two targets. One for incoming items and one for outgoing items both 25 items per hour.
Tips: I started with drawing a part of basic value chain starting from suppliers ->inbound logistics->warehouse outbound logistics.I was informed that neither suppliers nor logistics is an issue and the problem is related to warehouse management only.So I figured that I need to know the detailed process in warehouse. Upon asking for details I was told that entire warehouse management is divided into two parts. One where incoming items are received recorded and stacked (put on shelf) for dispatch. Another where the outgoing items are picked packed and shipped. Again I asked for capacity of each of the sub processes. The last process for incoming was manual and the capacity hardly reached over 20 items per hour. Again for outgoing one of the processes was bottle neck. So I understood that Manual labour was the problem. Once I mentioned that problem. I was asked what could be the potential problems. I was asked to list down some of the reasons:I came up with the following reasons1)No proper incentive structure for employees2)Training issues 3)Lack of information flow between the incoming and outgoing processes 4)Miscalculating the actual capacity of the workersI was not asked to summarize because the interviewer was looking for list of factors only.

General Tips: Stick to the structure and discuss each part with the interviewer.
Skills: Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: What was good:Holding my calm and smiling throughout the stress interview.What could be better:I tried to bring in a structure to the best extent possible. I probably could have had a more structured approach.
Tips: I started by telling the interviewer that I would look at this project from two aspects: Risks and Rewards.The interviewer agreed and asked me to drill further into the reward part. I further split reward into financial and non financial, where I explained that financial rewards would be the revenue earned from the government and the non financial rewards would be the brand recognition and possibility of getting similar projects, etc.Diving further into the inflow, I said the inflow would be based on my bid. For me tobid I would consider the following:Costs incurred plus desired marginExpectation of the Government Based on similar projects in the pastCompetitive bid Find ways to identify the other bidders and try and identify who would potentially bid for the contract. I mentioned that you could use game theory for this and the interviewer asked me further questions on how game theory would help and how I propose to use game theory.Under the cost incurred I broke the costs into a fixed portion and a variable portion. The interviewer then asked me what would impact the variable cost and if the variable cost per unit would remain constant. I mentioned it would remain constant over time but the interviewer kept probing me until I mentioned that the variable cost per unit would depend on the scale of production (i.e. If I increase the scale, the VC per unit would reduce). The interviewer nodded and mentioned that learning effects will also reduce VC per unit over time.

Skill Tips: After this discussion the interviewer abruptly stopped the case. I asked some very relevant questions based on articles written by the interviewer. It always helps to prepare about the interviewer in advance so it helps you ask smarter questions
Skills: Case Analysis, Ability To Cope Up With Stress
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: What was good: The PI went well despite the interviewer looking uninterested. I found out very soon that the interviewer liked sports and made sure I spoke about my interest in sports as well.What could be better: Nothing specific. It was a very unstructured case which was more conversational in nature
Tips: I started by identifying all the sources of revenue for FIFA (Merchandising rights, Ticket sales and merchandise sales). I started by saying FIFA could price this product using any of the following 3 strategies:Cost + margin (Which is the minimum price that FIFA can charge)Revenue the media channel could earn by airing the event (Which is the maximum price that FIFA can charge)Price of previous world cup events or other large scale sporting events like the Olympics.The interviewer was extremely interested in the 3rdoption and asked me to explain it in greater detail. I explained how FIFA has the experience of pricing the event every 4 years. They can use the previous world cup in Brazil as a base and adjust for various factors like change in macro-economic levels that would drive disposable income, change in the location of the world cup (from brazil where football is widely followed to Russia), changes in other sources of revenue (potential drop in ticket sales or merchandise) and other changes in the tournament format. I also mentioned that FIFA could use the pricing strategy used for the Olympics as a reference.The interviewer seemed happy with what he had heard and said I would solve the case and that he wanted to test me with another short case, where he wanted to have a discussion with me and didn’t want me to write anything.Case 2: The client is in the travel space having multiple businesses in airline, tour operators, hotels, e-commerce website for travel, Hotel, etc. The CEO comes to you and says I have 2 ideas –Retail in Railways and Detective agency-which one should I pick. What advice would you give the client?Response: Scoping question: -Location of the business (India)-Client’s motivation to start new business (The CEO loves starting new businesses and wants to start a customerfacing business to build newbrand)-Targets for the new business (Wants fast growing and customer facing business)-What does retail on railway mean? Sell on the platform or sell in the train? (Selling snacks on the train and the platform)

Skill Tips: I presume it was a stress interview. The interview seemed very uninterested initially and was mostly on his phone. He introduced himself to me and then asked me to introduce myself. He asked me for something that was not on my Resume and I spoke about ISL. He asked me the sports I played and gave me a case on FIFA
Skills: Case Analysis, Ability To Cope Up With Stress
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: As the case was big, I quickly summarized the question.Scoping questions asked Patents for the product (Response: No because the patent laws in India are not very strong and it wouldn't be of much help)About the product. How the drug works? Is it a substitute for Chemo and Surgery (Late stage of cancer requires chemo, surgery and drug, while early stage requires only drug) Price of drug (1 course contains 10 vials and costs Rs. 5 –6 Lacs)covered by health insurance? (Yes) Government subsidies available? (Yes, 15-20% get the drug for free) Perception in the market (Very good, blockbuster drug) side effects (None).
Tips: What was good:The interviewer was very happy with the recommendation I gave for ‘response to competition’.What could be better:I probably spent too much time scoping the question. The interviewer had to guide me by asking me to start with the market sizing.

Skill Tips: Market Sizing: Split the population as rural and urban and then into male and female.Stressed on the difference in rate of diagnosis between rural and urban (due to lack of awareness, financial difficulty and access to diagnostic centers, hospitals and oncologists)Based on the above I identified the market size of the drug after making certain assumptions (Interviewers are largely ok with the assumptions youmake. They are more focused on the thought process)Response to Competition:Be as detailed and structured as possible while giving your recommendation. For reference, below is the structure I used in the interview.
Skills: Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: HR Interview
Experience: But since I wanted to highlight some points did bring it out during the discussion. For eg. when i was asked what initiative did you take in my previous company, I told about a deal idea I had taken forward.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: My HR questions were answered well. I was kind of jittery in the first round but I was confident in the next 2 rounds. My cases went well. I was able to generate enough options to impress the interviewer.

General Tips: Your HR answers should well thought off. It should create an impact to differentiate you from the pack. In “Tell me about myself”, I spoke about my qualities and focused more on the person I am rather than my CV/achievements.Be interactive as possible. There was a case where i did not know anything about the solution, but i knew what the company should do. So i told him that this is what he should do but I don’t have any suggestions for implementing it. So he explained that the approach was correct but i was given brownie points for communicating my approach to the problem and continuously keeping him involved.Bottomline: Think loud.Also if you have any suggestions that you are think that are not worth it, just get them in the conversation. This shows your idea generation and out of box thinking.
Skills: case analysis, Banking
College Name: NA