Deloitte Strategy and Operations Consultant Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Know everything about your work experience. In depth knowledge of the domain will be central to the discussion, as the questions would be framed for that particular industry and the interviewer will be an expert on the industry. Read and understand the business implications of a new upcoming technology to give you an edge over other applicants. For me it was Big Data Solution -Hadoop. In all my interviews I explained the interviewer about howHadoop can save costs for Insurance clients and bring in more business
Tips: clarity of thought and expressing it are very important Your ability to handle difficult questions was being tested

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Repeat and verify all the details given by the interviewer before asking any question.All the data was written on the white board and the interviewer asked me to focus only on the three questions mentioned above. It was a discussion about a problem rather than a typical case per se. The interviewer also asked me not write anything down and think about all the possible issues that had to be taken into account while coming up with a strategy
n my experience, focus on what role you really want and in which company, definitely pays off. Before joining ISB I was sure I wanted to work in Tech Consulting and Deloitte is the gold standard for Tech Consulting so I applied to very few companies and to roles which I really wanted to work in. Do not apply to all the companies who will posts jobs. Apply to few companies but prepare well for them. Few of my friends had 6-7 shortlists on Day1 and still could not get a single offer whereas I had only 1 shortlist of Deloitte on Day 1 and I got the offer. The point being, do not count how many shortlists you have, as in the end you'll only need one offer and one shortlist is enough to get you an offer.Do read all the past experiences of alums present in the previous year's case books -specially the one written by Sawan Kumar in Class of 2013 Consulting Case Book. It's very well written.At last, play to your strengths and apply to roles which genuinely interest you and not because everyone else is applying. Many folks from Deloitte take out time to visit ISB to take sessions and interact with students, do attend all the sessions and also the ppt and the party Deloitte throws after the ppt. These are the moments when you can interact freely with very senior people from Deloitte and it definitely helps during the interview as they are the ones who visit campus later on Day 1
Tips: Do not prepare too much for the case interview. Over preparation does not help instead confuses you. The case would be related to some kind of technology strategy for a firm. It is totally different than the management consulting cases which Deloitte S&O, McKinsey and BCG will ask students but yes practicing a few management consulting cases would definitely help.The preparation for TS&A tech case interview is very different. Deloitte's website is the best source of preparation as there are 4-5 sample cases there. In addition, Deloitte conducteda case interview workshop for TS&A shortlists, which was very good so do not miss the workshop. Structured approach to solving the case would help but do prepare a lot for the PI also. My 1st interview was heavy on PI and also very heavy on my work experience.

Skill Tips: Have an ace up your sleeve by knowing something about a new technology about which you can talk at length and actually end up having a great conversation with the interviewers. Focus on the people, process and technology framework for the case. Write down all the possible technology factors which affect companies and/or are expensive to the companies and then put them into one of the three buckets of people, process and technology.
Skills: Personality, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I started with the area of Hyderabad ~600km2. I made assumptions with respect to the area an average garbage truck could cover. Normally garbage trucks collect garbage from across the place and then go to the dumping ground and dump the garbage and then they may make another trip. Let’s say an average garbage truck works for about 8-9 hours and makes 2 trips in a day. And in one trip it can cover 2 km2, and then based on 2 trips a day, it should cover 4 km2. So approximately 150 trucks for households.The interviewer hinted to me that the number seems to be quite less and asked me to try again with some other approach. This time I started with the number of households. So Hyderabad has a population of 4mn and with 4 people per households, we have ~1mn households. Now these households are mostly spread in the form of apartments/ localities, comprising of ~100 Households per locality, giving me 10000 localities. It would take ~1 hour per locality, so an average truck considering it has to dump the garbage as well, should cover maximum 6/7 localities in a day. So there should be ~1500 garbage trucks serving Hyderabad households.The interviewer then questioned me about other factors which would determine the number of trucks. I listed down a few factors like: concentration of households in different areas, location of corporates especially hotels and restaurants, festive or marriage seasons, and distance or proximity to the dumping grounds. Distance was the factor he was mainly looking for.
Tips: The interviewer was concentrating more on the approach I was using, rather than the exact numbers. Also, he was looking at how I can think about other factors which could alter the result of guesstimate

Skills: Case Analysis, Dynamic Personality
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Other Interview
Experience: Started off with Kamesh asking me to walk through my profile. I clarified whether he wanted to know about only those things mentioned on my resume. He said whatever makes this whole thing interesting. I spoke about all those things which weren’t there on my resume, things like background, hobbies and about what made me opt for MBA.

He then asked me about my work-the two companies I worked with. It revolved around what were my
responsibilities and what was my learning at each stint. Why I switched from Consulting to a PMO etc. It then went to my Autumns Project and Foreign internship.

Prior to me some of the students were asked to solve a guesstimate. He asked me whether I attended the case Workshop by Deloitte. I said I could not attend it. (Actually my shortlist came only at late night; before the interview day – but I didn’t explicitly mention this). He asked about how I went about guesstimate and case preparation. I saw this as an opportunity to take this interview towards something I really wanted highlight and which could be a differentiator. I mentioned that apart from doing the regular guesstimates, cases etc. and forming Consulting Interest Groups – as I lacked any industry background decided to study an industry – “Telecom” – right from how
it works, value chain, players, competition, M&As, regulations etc. and this recently culminated in a research paper that I co-authored.

Kamesh got interested here (being from TMT background) – and this gave me a chance to describe the research paper in detail. I think this was a real differentiator. And I probably got away from solving a guesstimate.

It ended with me asking a good question, which I feel impressed Kamesh as it made him reveal an internal statistic to answer it.
Tips: 1. Good speaking skills.
2. Confidence.
3. Be articulate and crisp about your work experience and proects.
4. Well rounded CV – be thorough with every point at least 5 levels deep (i.e. prepared to face 5 levels of follow up questions).
5. Case/Guesstimate Preparation – Form a consult group – (4-6 members), 2 months of effort including 30+ different cases and ~40 guesstimates.
6.Ask intelligent questions to the interviewer. Well researched. Go through your interviewer’s profile if possible.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I first looked at exploring all opportunities within US. I visualized the Ansoff matrix (again did not explicitly mention I was using a framework; as I don’t think it’s a good idea to state frameworks during interviews unless asked to do so).

1. Market Penetration-Ruled out because market was saturated.
2. Market Development-Possible
3. Product Development-Sushant mentioned the client is not keen on going outside healthcare insurance.
4. Diversification -As new product development was ruled out; it was only going to be market development.

I then asked; whether the client has pan US presence, they said “Yes”. Now it was clear they had to go outside US.
They asked me what would be the considerations for the client to go abroad:
My response:
1) Country’s insurance sector
a. Operating Model and Value Chain-: Whether it is developed or not. As in, India till some time was still relying on the agent model where the agent commission was a significant cost head. Since US is a developed country, it was more likely for them to have very high reliance on the online model (which has come to India only recently, with the likes of Policy Bazaar and company websites). Does it sync well
with the client’s model.
If the companies in host country own or outsource distribution, and how is it different from the client’s current presence in insurance value chain.
b. Healthcare expenditure: Spend on healthcare and insurance as % of total expenditure.
c. Market Size and Growth of sector
d. Competition
e. Regulations – (extent of FDI allowed, modes of entry allowed etc.)

2) Target country’s development metrics
a. Per capita income
b. Ease of Doing Business

2. After having a small discussion about some of the headers above, they seemed satisfied with the response and handed over the second data sheet: This sheet had 4 tables; comparing 6 countries on various parameters. They gave me 2 minutes to go through the table and
make decision which country would I choose and Why?

Now they asked me to look at some of the entry modes and the considerations for each entry mode.

My response:
Entry Modes- As it was a service (Insurance); I obviously ruled out exports. Licensing and franchisee modes were also ruled out with due reasoning considering client’s business model. We were left with JV, Brownfield or Greenfield.
I laid out the following considerations for the mode of entry:
Initial Investment and Returns, Time to market, Risk Appetite, Regulatory barriers, Impact on brand and Complexity involved

I asked them that which was the most important aspect for our client – and they said time to market was key. This made me recommend
brownfield (acquisition of an existing player in Australia).
They then handed me over the 3rd data sheet. Which had data on companies in Australia. This gave me some confidence, as my first decision was right to go with Australia.
As closing remarks – I added that the client would have to work on post integration issues like culture and explore synergies which were not available as part of data provided.
Tips: The analysis given the time frame was quite comprehensive. I guess my preparation – Consulting Interest Group (4 members including me) – where we practiced more than 20-25 different case types, over 30 guesstimates and sector study helped big time. The case practice helped me state most of the considerations/headers without much effort.

Round: PRESENTATION
Experience: This was just a presentation of the case in the 2nd round Was pretty straight forward – it was about stating the client’s problem statement, scope of work, assumptions, and logical steps towards the entry strategy (and a miniM&A) backed by rationale. The usual structure that we follow for Corporate competition presentations like TBLA,TSMG.

I had prepared slides on a piece of paper as I had got close to 45 minutes before this round. But while presenting I was told not use the whiteboard and not to refer notes. So it was more of a 10 min presentation where the panel continuously interrupted and even started discussions on random topics. But I tried to bring back the discussion on the entry strategy case each time.
Tips: 1. Be patient and focussed.
2. Be calm.

Skills: Patience, Calmness, focussed, Speaking Skill, Confidence, Articulation Skills
College Name: S.P. Jain Institute Of Management And Research