Deloitte Management Trainee Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Get doomed and put a stick in your ang vishesh

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Relate SCM terms with practical example dont keep too much theory based approach.

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)

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - I attended web interview. It was fine and interviewer explained me about entire process and my role in the organization. It was six months fixed term employment. And I was hired for business consulting risk. First I was scared on this contractual role but later after six months they renewed the contract and changed the project. I am really enjoying it. Well balanced work life as of now expect during year end.
In case we are changing the job, our exposure will definitely help. In EY there are continuous learning opportunities.

There was very less negatives

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)