BCG Summer Associate Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - very baseline behavioral questions: biggest challenge, hobbies, extracurriculars and case

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case Approach:
1) Background questions:
Inquired about the supply chain. What services are offered, how they are offered, who offers them.
Discovered that problem area was sale of replacement parts and the services entailed therein
Discovered that the company follows a hub-and-spoke model, ie: one central distributor in the country who gives spare parts to all retail stores (100% franchisee system)
2) Approach:
breakdown = Volume x Price If we can find why revenue is down either because of Volume or Price than we can find the issue.
I felt, prima facie, that the problem lay in Price (as my understanding is for a replacement part, I would get something cheap rather than go the actual store after warranty and overpay). However, I was told that the price offered outside the stores was 20% higher than the in-store price.

The Problem statement thus became: Why are people not buying replacement parts from us even if they are cheaper?
To drill into this, I decided to get into the shoes of a consumer.
The various problems (logical flow, thus MECE) could be: Do I have access to a store? Do they have parts? Do they have good staff (technicians that can help etc)? Turnaround time? Other service elements?
I dived into each bucket to find that the problem lay in spare parts after spending considerable time on good staff and access. (I established that distribution/reach was good so people did not find it inconvenient to visit our stores as well as we had skilled help that could effectively and quickly solve consumer problems)
Re-visited the supply chain to figure out where the problem was with spare parts. Discovered that the hub sent them to the stores but still the stores did not have inventory. Spent time analysing the inventory situation using the interviewers help. Discovered that each store had an individual P/L and were giving the inventory to other people (who were in turn selling it at a 20% markup) and taking a cut!

General Tips: Enjoy the interview! It is actually great fun, and if the interviewer realises you’re enjoying it, it acts as a huge positive!
Skills:
College Name: IIM Lucknow