DAIMLER TRUCKS ASIA Management Trainee Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I never realized when my case started; he was asking me the model on which Inductis works, and slowly moved towards what are the challenges for a company like Inductis in expanding. Only when he said “Or let’s say the CEO of JP Morgan, Kevin, or the CEO of Infosys comes to you and says that they wanted to expand their offshoring strength from 250 to 400, but they were not able to scale up.”, did I realize that my case had started! I politely asked him, “Is this a case, or I should be answering just on the fly?”; to which he replied – “Whatever you deem correct. Okay, lets consider it a
case”. I came up with the following issues:
1) They are not getting quality CVs
2) There are too many companies wooing the skilled people we want
3) There are some problems in meeting the expectations of the workers – challenging work , work-life balance and growth opportunities
4) Where do our workers go after leaving us
5) Is there some problem with the HR department
It turned out that the 5 point was one of the major problems.

Then I was given another case – “Mr Murthy is contemplating to expand globally and set up centers in US because India gets only $30 bn out of the total $800 bn offshoring/outsourcing market. What are the pros and cons?”
The most important negative point I identified was that that the cost arbitrage would not be there. Noshir then asked me to focus on advantages, and I came up with the following:
1) Proximity to the client
2) Cultural affinity
3) Better domain knowledge as you are working where the action is taking place
4) Lower telecom costs and hurdles
5) Political benefits – Democrats are totally against moving jobs to Asia, and hence such a move would be politically hailed


Tips: Biggest learning – your case can start anytime without you being explicitly told. This is really true for McK interviewers especially. Also, they don’t always look for structuring – when I was starting to jot down some points for my first case, the interviewer told me not to worry about structure and clarificatory questions and other formalities; he said “I know you would be master in all this, so I just want recommendations and issues which will add value to the client”.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second interview I was given a case study. It was conducted by another Interviewer. Your friend lives in Beijing, and is observing the commercial/office buildings being built these days. He is contemplating getting into the business of leasing cranes to constructors. What do you think of this idea?
The rough framework I told him I would follow is:
1) The market opportunity
2) Competition
3) Contacts, especially with suppliers of cranes
4) Investments in this business
5) Risks going forward
After a little discussion on each of these, he told me that this is an estimation case, and I have to estimate the market size of this business in $ terms. There can be several ways to go about it, and I took the following one:
1) An average building is built on a square of side 70m
2) Assume Beijing to be a square of side 20km
3) Out of the total are of 400 sq.km, 50sq.km is used for commercial purposes
4) 80% of this, ie 40 sq. km is the area on which a building is actually build (the rest 20% for roads, lawns, parking lots etc)
5) This gives about 8000 buildings which can be built
6) Assume in the next years, a total 2000 buildings will be build, 400 each in every year
7) A building construction requires 3 cranes in the initial 4 months,
2 cranes in the next 4 months, and 1 crane in the last 4 months, completing in whole 1 year
8) A crane costs $50,000 per month Doing all the calculation should give the total annual market size of approximately $480 million.


Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the personal Interview the interview started from a discussion on BTO practice for 20 minutes. The case interview started after a discussion of my short-term/long-term goals, how consulting fits in and why MBA etc.
She gave an actual situation she met in China on one of her projects:
A meat manufacturer in Europe, selling only ham and sausages, has been seeing declining profits for the last 2 years. So what could be the reason behind it?
I did the following analysis step by step:
1) What specific did we do 2 years back? – Nothing was the answer.
2) Have the customer tastes been changing? – No, the market was stable
3) How is the competitive landscape? – 2 competitors, each having 30% mkt share, while we have 40%.
4) Revenue-Cost analysis: It turned out that the volumes of sausages was going down, while it was constant for ham. The reason was that one of the competitors was selling sausages at 99 cents a kg, while we sold at $1/kg; also, we sold ham at $4.2/kg.
The issue then shifted to the question – how was the competitor able to sell sausages at 99 cents a kg? While analyzing the cost structure, it emerged that sausages were being sold at break-even!
Now the question was – if they are zero margins in sausages, then how could lower sausage sales trigger a decline in profits? I asked some more questions about how they were manufactured, and found that the following process is followed: the company buys chunks of meat, makes ham out of them, and the small, leftover pieces of meat are used to make sausages. Hence, when the sales of sausages went down, it was because they were not able to sell the leftover meat at $1/kg they bought the raw meat at.

This rang the bell of ‘cost allocation’; why should sausages me allocated the costs for leftover scrap meat at the same rate as that of good meat used in ham? Well, one reason unearthed. Actually, there was a bigger reason; the indirect labor costs (salaries of CEO, managers etc) were being allocated very irrationally – though a ham was being sold at 4.2 times the price of a sausage and involved more processing and personnel time, both were allocated the same costs! In fact, a sausage was being allocated a total of 60 cents for indirect labor costs, though a ham was being allocated only 80 cents.
I synthesized the case by explaining how cross-subsidization was happening, how this could be because of the shrewdness of the manager of ham operations and the naivety of the manager of sausage operations. It turned out that this was exactly the reason behind all this.
In the second interview, I was not given any case.

Tips: Keep in mind how much time you would have for the case; As we had lost 20-25 minutes discussing BTO, I was well aware that no way would I get much time as this was a 30 min interview. Hence I quickly went through all possible issues, and zeroed in on the relevant one
Prepare your PI well.

General Tips: Structuring of the cases should be impressive.
Keep in mind how much time you would have for the case.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Prepare well and network

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case 1: As I had worked in the healthcare industry for the last 2.5 years of career with Infosys. The interviewer made a case on the spot for the software industry and healthcare.
Nandan Nilakeni approaches you for advice on a product that can be created for the US healthcare industry. How do you analyze the situation?
Analysis
Since healthcare industry value chain has many players, structured case as focusing on the healthcare providers. Confirmed with interviewer. Bucketed the IT drivers into market trends, government regulation & operational efficiency.
Market trends
Discussed the broad trends in the US healthcare industry
f. Climbing health care costs
g. Government encouraging customers to take more responsibility for their health care spending
h. Creation of tax deductible Flexible spending accounts
i. Consumers transitioning to customers (earlier customers were the payers employers)
j. Need for more robust means of identifying customers and their medical history to manage chronic diseases
k. More consumer directed health plans being purchased
l. Importance of customer relationship management systems for health care providers (which currently doesn’t exist/ limited versions)
He further quizzed me about the apparent lack of IT systems in US HC providers. Asked me to explore historical reasons
Me:
1) Misaligned incentives for the providers vis-à-vis accrual of benefits from IT usage. Major beneficiaries are insurance companies.
2) Practicing Physicians less likely to make IT investment Government Regulation
Discussed high cost of regulation in the health care industry (1 of total health care spend)
Discussed HIPAA regulations as an example
Interviewer: Will the providers be able to meet the deadlines set by HIP? Talked about the security and portability aspects of HIPAA, Timelines for each phase etc
Me : Compliance will drive some of the major health spending. Ease of enhancement for regulatory compliance will be one of the important aspects of the IT product.

Operational Efficiency:
Me: Accidental deaths from inefficient and error-prone process within hospitals. Operational efficiency to be improved. Importance of IT systems like CPOE, EHR gaining importance. Potential toreduce errors. Standardization of processes within hospitals
increases scope for productization.
Interviewer: To summarize, what are the most important aspects which favor product development as opposed to customized application development in the health care industry ?
Me: Standardization of requirements is one. Regulatory compliance is another.

Asked if I have any questions.

In the second interview I was given another case.
Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. He is now witnessing
reduce profits. Advise .
Laid out the structure--- Client (his product lines, pricing, distribution channel), competition (change in competitors, their strategy wrt product lines, distribution), Customers (size, preferences), Industry (regulatory, new technology) and cost dynamics (fixed, variable, etc).Interviewer was happy with the structure and said he wanted hypothesis as to why is he losing profits:
• New competitors have come up with diff technology for boilers
–NO
• The market size for boilers has shrunk (due to changes in the
industry they have been rendered redundant)
• Price war in the industry – reduced profitability – YES
Then I explored how the competitors are offering a lower price. After delving through each item on cost structure, Supply chain, etc; it appeared that it was because the competitors used a new technology to manufacture boilers --- This tech required LESS raw material (steel) per unit of boiler because the manner in which Steel was being cut (he gave some technical knowledge) -boy….this took some time to get to…in fact interviewer helped out here !!!

Discussed about the trends in IT off-shoring. Asked him about the next wave of off-shoring from Infrastructure management business and how well prepared the Indian players are to meet this challenge in his opinion ?


General Tips: Stick to a detailed and precise answer while solving for the case.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Personal Interview questions revolved around my academic performance and about grades. The case interview started off with the following case:
Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. He is now witnessing reduce profits. Advise.
I Laid out the structure--- Client (his product lines, pricing, distribution channel), competition (change in competitors, their strategy wrt product lines, distribution), Customers (size, preferences), Industry (regulatory, new technology) and cost dynamics (fixed, variable, etc).Interviewer was happy with the structure and said he wanted hypothesis as to why is he losing profits:
• New competitors have come up with diff technology for boilers –NO
• The market size for boilers has shrunk (due to changes in the industry they have been rendered redundant)
• Price war in the industry – reduced profitability – YES
Then I explored how the competitors are offering a lower price. After delving through each item on cost structure, Supply chain, etc; it appeared that it was because the competitors used a new technology to manufacture boilers --- This tech required LESS raw material (steel) per unit of boiler because the manner in which Steel was being cut (he gave some technical knowledge) -boy….this took some time to get to…in fact interviewer helped out here !!!

Tips: Stay Confident & Cool even if you miss the above fact. Move on
and build on it. Show Energy during the interview. !!

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: in the second interview of the first round, personal interview was entirely experience based; did not miss any line of CV on work exp (as I had fin work exp)
case: I want to start a crane leasing biz in China….estimate my annual profits for next year
I Assumed: No regulatory issues, no replacement of cranes with better equipment for 1 year
First zeroed in on city, then city space, available free space, plausible for construction next year.
Identified alternative pricing strategies—ie per diem, per contract, on/off season rates (less in rainy,etc)

Lots of numbers given (area—square kms, rates, etc)– he wanted me to calculated to the nearest dollar….
Made a calculation mistake (while using square root for area
estimation)…but keep your cool ..they are looking at approach

He then asked me to convert the final answer ($33,85,263) to the nearest pound sterling (DON’T LOSE your cool…)..I used 1.8 conversion rate to convert it (did not carry a calculator☺)))

At the end I asked few questions on M&A issues in China (I heard up on this after the interview schedule was out)..this helps impress him as he was based in the Corp Fin group in China


Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the first interview of the second round personal interview was more of a general feel good talk. Then the case Interview began. the case was:
Airline industry—reduced profitability
I gave the structure, identified the drivers and was beginning to explore each item ---he said that he was happy with structure and gave me another scenario where an airline had 2 options either to fly:
Brazil to US
Brazil-Argentina-US

I explored the pt to pt vs hub and spoke model….we went through the numbers and looked at the opportunity costs to finally chose the right strategy.
I also looked at non-fin aspects like strategy and future growth before choosing the option.

He asked me to list adv and dis adv of both models. I drew a model and explored that for 10 routes, pt to pt needs 45 air crafts (10 C 2) while hub and spoke needs only 10. Also identified positives and negatives in other aspects such as costs, customer perception, time, target segment impact, load factor (utilization rate), pricing, etc
Incidentally the actual opinion he said was similar to my recommendation.


Tips: Be ready for pep talk, good opportunity to create feel good

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second interview, the personal interview was more of a general talk with questions on why MBA, why ISB etc.
Case: International Courier company-losing market share

Standard structure—
• product mix (packages of all sizes), distribution network pricing,
• competition,
• customer segment (attributes they look for: time, safety of packet and prices; convenience – centers for collection-touch points),
• industry dynamics,
• cost structure (esp fixed), etc

Identified problem as local couriers eating market share due to lower costs

Recommendation:
As Fixed costs are high; increase volume business by:
• Alliances with Low cost couriers (but quality of service is a issue)
• JV s (would help as equity stake)
• Acquisitions (highlighted both positives and negatives)

Reduce costs internally (explore using excess capacity on other airlines instead of using your own airlines for low volumes)

General Tips: Keep your cool during the interview.
Keep smiling and be confident.
Try to not to goof up with calculations.
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)