Pathfinder Business Analysis Research Associate Interview Questions and Answers

Round: nETWORKING session
Experience: In the activity, we were given fundaes by senior people about how the work would be, shared their experience working the company. In brief it was more or less like knowing about the company and their work at more closer level. This was in no way related to selection. We were given an opportunity to have a small chit chat with their senior people.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I was asked questions related to quantitative cases. Case studies using quantitative analysis contain elements of the empirical–analytical scientific approach.
Tips: Be good at your logical skills and communication skills.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: In the second round I was asked to answer conceptual cases. I felt this round was a bit more testing than the first round. But overall first two rounds are almost similar.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: In the 3rd round there was nothing asked about cases. I was asked questions like Why was I interested in joining this company, What are my long term goals and what are my short term goals. The questions were aimed at knowing about me and my level of commitment towards my future and the company.

General Tips: 1. Practice cases.
2. Watch videos on cases.
3. Choose electives and minors on technical side.
4. Good communication skills.
Skill Tips: 1. Practice cases.
2. Watch videos on cases.
3. Choose electives and minors on technical side.
Skills: Logical Skills, Communications skills
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: First 5 minutes is taken to analyse your resume and get a feel of you as a person.The problem will be given for you to analyse and it is very important that you style what you speak to carry forward a constructive discussion with the interviewers. They will look at how you apply your knowledge to build a solution.
Tips: The 2 important things that you need to keep in mind are as follows ï Breaking the problem down to the absolute basicï Following a systematic and structured way of solving the problems.It is important to get feedback post-interview and they (the interviewers) would be willing to let you know as well.Important to defend your resume well. Have bullet points ready to speak for 30-45 seconds on them. It should differentiate you from other candidates.

General Tips: Resume should have a narrative of life in insti. Listing your passions and skills. Lookout for spikes in resume. Distinguish your work from other people in institute. Attend resume making sessions to understand how to reflect them in resume. Contact seniors who have joined the company to go through resume and suggest changes. Good Leadership PoRs will be appreciated. Important to quantify achievements in resume as companies like to see spike/impact that you have created. November – Prep for Case interview in a rigorous manner
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: Group Activity
Experience: I had an activity (networking session) before interview. However it was nothing related to selection process. we were given fundaes by senior people about how the work would be, shared their experience working the company. In brief it was more or less like knowing about the company and their work at more closer level. This was in no way related to selection. We were given an opportunity to have a small chit chat with their senior people.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I was asked questions related to quantitative cases. Case studies using quantitative analysis contain elements of the empirical analytical scientific approach.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I was asked to answer conceptual cases. I felt this round was a bit more testing than the first round. But overall fist two rounds are almost similar.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: There was nothing asked about cases. The questions were aimed at knowing about me and my level of commitment towards my future and the company.

Skill Tips: I practiced a lot of cases. I had a partner with me, and we used to sit together and practice cases. I spoke to some of the pass-out seniors. Even that helped me a lot. If you ask what helped me more while preparing for interview, having a partner and practicing cases with him helped me and him a lot. You can literally know many things when you speak to someone rather talking to a book. I had no prior intentions for core. I wrote all key points on paper, sticked them to my cupboard and used to go through them. I didn't refer any books or any material or anything. Anyway I had this non-core stuff already in my mind. I choose my minors and electives in the interest of the management side. I started practicing cases very early. I also watched many videos about the cases.
Skills: Logic, Communication
College Name: IIT MADRAS

Round: HR Interview
Experience: These were typical ice breaking questions. She didn’t dwell into too many details of any of my responses. We immediately started discussing my ELP on increasing internet penetration in India.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I: As I am aware the value chain of providing the broadband service includes a. IXP b. Backbone rings and bandwidth c. Backbone routers/equipments d. Last mile connections Is this understanding correct? Seema: Yes I: And is our client present in all the bits of these value chain? Seema: Currently they are present in all the parts of the value chain. I: However you mentioned that they are serving corporate clients alone, so I assume their backbone might not be spread a lot? Can you give me some more details on what is their current spread at two levels? a. In what cities are they currently present? b. In each of the cities how is their backbone scaled up? Seema: They are present in 12 cities. (tier-1 cities). They have several backbone rings present in each of these cities to serve the corporate clients. (She scribbles and explains a bit more about the clients backbone) I: Ok. Are we looking for any time frame in mind or any financial constraints? Also, is client a conglomerate – I am trying to figure out the capabilities of the client. Also does the client have any minimum required rate of return from the project? Seema: No for all the questions. Lets not get into details of the numbers of required rate etc. Let us just discuss on what are things you are going to consider in helping the client. I: Because we are talking about broadband connections, we must focus on the number of internet connection market in India. There are 150 internet users in India. However there are only 50million PCs in India. Now because each PC will have only one connection 50 million is true market size. 30-70 rural-urban (tier-1) spit and 60-40 corporate-retail split leaves about 14mn as a potential retail market. The will like to consider the following: Customer Reach Company - PC Users -> Laying backbone -> Financing, structuring,etc Awareness -> Last mile -> Operations -- Content Language -> Pockets with in city -> capabilities -- Availability of content -- Ease of use Willingness --Price --Use/Need --Perception External factors included: Regulations: Getting licenses Competition: Internet penetration in the 14mn is presently low. I used some pointers from my ELP findings like Chinese perceive that using computer is very easy vs Indian perception that only skilled ones can use the computers. Some major points of discussion were: a innovative revenue model which we recommended as part of our ELP, and option of bundling services, expanding market by creating a resale market of 2nd hand PCs. After a discussion on the customer part, we talked about how to reach customers. There are two broad ways of doing the network bit. Organic and inorganic. Issues like network sharing, BVNO, cable TV like models for last mile connections were discussed but it was arrived at that scope of doing these was either limited or not possible. Organic was the only possibility of doing this. The retail market is sparse, requires lot of investment, especially in last mile connections. Also some profitable pockets are already occupied by the competition like BSNL, Bharti etc. Given the sparse market, high setup costs and unpredictable returns it doesn’t make sense in entering the market.
Tips: Connect your thoughts with the interviewer.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I:Why profitability per ton? Why would CEO bother about profitability per ton. Shouldn’t he be focusing on total profits or share price? R: We are talking about making changes in a year and therefore only profitability per ton can be changed. We cannot do much with quantity itself. I: Right. Could you please tell me where does client manufacture and where does it sell? R: It is a pan India producer with 14-15 plants and sells through out India. I: So how are the customers classified. I would divide them into Retail and Industrial customers. Is that how company does it? R: Yes. Let us focus only on retail clients. Bulk of the business happens through them. I: ok. How do we reach our customers? R: There are distributors who sell it to the customers. I: In terms of geography, are the profits homogenous? R: No. South there is excess supply and up north there is excess deman. I: Ok. Competition? R: 3-4 regional players around every plant and 3-4 other large national players I: How are we doing visavis industry in terms of profits? Any targets in mind? R: We are on par with the industry. Lets aim for 5-10% increase in 1 year. I: Profitability per ton = Unit price – Variable cost – unitized Fixed cost Increasing profitability will mean increasing prices or reducing costs. At this time he led the conversation into increasing price part, although I had written appropriate drivers for cost like DM, DL, Transportation, IM, IL, etc) I: To increase the price: I guess cement is a undifferentiated product and therefore commodity. R: Right. So how can you increase prices? Prices are different in each region. I: Can we look at differentiating the cement (on product dimension) or on relationship dimension and therefore command high prices? R: No. Cannot do that, its commodity. I: I draw 1 plant, some distributors around it and large circles around each distributor. These circles are their markets and each market has different prices) Price is decided by D-S curves. We need to maximize the profit/ton for each region or the following: Max(ΣPi-VCi) (i for all markets) R: Ok so what are the constraints? I: Plant capacity (cannot change this in 1 year), competition, market demand (cannot change that) R: Ok. I: @ Each plant to maximize the profit/ton, I will just sell it to the market with the highest profit. But this will reduce total profits ☺R: Smiles....right! I: So instead of maximizing profit/ton, we must look at cutting out non-profitable markets. That is instead of absolute maximum, just eliminate markets where profits are below acceptable levels. R: Ok. But do we not want to look at what can be done here in low profit markets? I: Right. Take some time Ultimately prices must increase. We cannot change demand. But we can play with our mix in the supply (which is also constant for the next 1 year). I: Draw a 2x2 matrix: Us (strong, weak) vs Competition(Strong, weak) Where we are strong and the competition is weak, we can drive them out easily and play with prices Where we are weak and competition is strong, we either exit or consolidate with other players to drive 3rd player out. Where both are weak, we need to send credible signal to competition to drive them away or collude with them,Then I blabber some stuff on what kind of credible signals can be given to the competition When both are strong, it is pretty straight forward anyways. Then I make a few recommendations on preventing volume/price fluctuation by long term contracts, on vertical integration etc.
Tips: Know the interviewer well and connect with the interviewer well. Ask him about what he did in the case, how he did, etc.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I am not describing this case in detail because we simply did some value chain analysis. Nothing right/wrong happened during the interview, barring her 6-8 calls and emails After the interview I was thinking that BCG is a history for me, given the level of disinterest she showed throughout the interview.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This was a very opened case. Also I don’t think I really had any idea of what he wanted me to discuss/solve. I tried to scope down the problem.> I: So tata has come up with this 1L car, and as the CEO of ReVA (I was thinking about the battery operated car, popular in Del/Bangalore) what should I do??? (I was like ok....a game theory case!)A: Nope, we are talking about Renault – the European car manufacture. I: Ok. Could you give me a little head’s up on Renault and its operations ? A: It is a Global player, has presence in all the parts of the value chain, makes cars in various segments. (I have just summarized his description) I: Have we started working towards a similar 1L Car? A: Reva has announced working on a $250 car. It has done little R&D and will take 5 years to launch. I: Alright. Tata has created a new market for cars. The CEO of Renault must be thinking about this in two ways – opportunity and threat. And what CEO must act taking in mind short term and long term. Do we consider all the four possibilities? A: Right way of looking at it. Lets look at all the four options. My structure: (I took like a minute for this as I wasn’t sure if that’s what he wanted) Customer Distribution Company Segments -> Distribution capabilities -> Financing, structuring,etc Needs -> Last mile -> R&D Perception -> Suppliers Preferences Capabilities Price Product External factors included: Regulations: Getting licenses, Pollution aspects Competition: A: Jitesh, why don’t you discuss as you come up with your structure. I: A: That’s alright. But this is gonna happen one the R&D of the car is over. Let us say this is long term. Now what can Renault do? I: Ok we can look at ways of speeding up R&D or pairing with others in the market to co-R&D? A: R&D will take 5 years...cannt play with that. I: Tata has created a new market. Let us treat this thing an opportunity first. Now because we can come into the market only after 5 years, we must look at ways of slowing down the growth of the market so that we can tap into this opportunity at the right time. (I drew 2 S curves with different kurtosis.) We can slow the growth by providing them alternate modes of conveyance @ same or less price! A: That’s good. Alright lets see how can we do that! I: .o0(Finally the first step in right direction ☺ ) Ppl generally use the cars to commute. 1L car users are likely to use it for local commuting. If we can provide substitutes to them, it will be good to slow down the market. The modes of public transportation are Buses, Cars, Trains, 2W (in the same price range) A: Good. So? A: Reva is also into 4W (high end buses). I: Right so, if Reva can help local tier 1/2 municipalities/govt. by establishing the public bus transport system, it will do the trick. I am not sure if we can play any role in Rail transports. We can rope in other players too (who are looking to play role in this market, but have capabilities in this area – Rail and 2W). A: What else can be done here? : 2nd hand market? A: Right! I: Some thing along the lines of true value of maruti. We must ease creation of resale markets for cars. A: Why do you think if may work? I: This business is largely unorganized. Price and credibility will come with Renault brand. But Renault is a small player in the Indian market. (Presence wise) so it must rope in other global players along with it. Also, it must look at getting 2nd hand cars from international markets, if the cost works out, coz I am aware that most of the used cars are dumped in the likes of USA. A: The import duties are likely to be very high. I: But as a lobby of the MNCs, both in India and outside, we can influence Govt Decisions. A: Thik hai. What else? I: We have looked at how do we impact their timing. However these kind of steps might be irreversible and therefore CEO must carefully weigh options. The market may permanently shrink by providing them a substitute where in getting out is not possible. (Like public transport service) One needs to be at the right time at right place with right product. We need to look at how can we block their distribution. They already have a right product (given that their production is underway) A: Right. I: I assume that in India they have their own outlets (single brand). Yes. So I am not sure if much can be done on the distribution front. However in the global markets, we need to erect barriers for Tata’s entry. This can be done at two levels. a. Get higher tarrifs/taxes by lobbying in the government. b. We are already large players globally. We need to prevent Tata from entering the market by blocking the distribution networks (They don’t have their own shops, and we can get others to block their alliances) A: Ok. Good so far, what else? I: We checked the time, distribution?...We need to see if we can control their volumes! (Right product to right customers @ right place in right quantity) A: Good...how will you do it? I: They are sourcing their raw materials from some global vendor. Renault is a large player and will have larger partners eyeing similar opportunity. We can get together and erect barriers for souring of components/raw materials to Tata. A: Ok. This was the opportunity part, how do we analyze this as threat? I : So Tata has created a new market. The threat are as follows: a. Tata dominates new market 5 years down the line b. Customer from our segment moves into tata’s segment A: What else? I: c. Tata can protect the technology with patents, which hampers our R&D d. Uses its technology to launch high end low cost products in our segments and erode our profits!! (d. was the biggest threat and the answer that he was looking for) .

Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: The interview lasted 40 minutes. I was asked a case before and after some HR questions.
Tips: Prepare your case solving part. Introspect a bit to find answers to some typical HR questions

Skills: Problem Solving Abilties
College Name: IIT Madras

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Market research skills and guesstimate questions

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: I started off saying that the problem statement looks like it’s a Go/NoGo decision we have to help make, so first we should establish the exact objective against which we would measure our decision. Once the objective is clear, we would need to establish our current performance against the objective, what is the target level we wish to achieve on that particular objective and then evaluate if the new terminal would help us achieve that or not. But before that I would like to clarify about exactly what is meant by a terminal here.
JC: Heathrow is one of the busiest airports and already has 4 different passenger terminals, now they want to add a 5th. A terminal provides the usual services like Bays for Boarding & disembarking, Check-In, Security, Lounges & shopping areas etc.
Me: Great, do we also have to look at the financial and operational viability of the terminal or that is not a concern.
JC: for the purpose of discussion let’s ignore that, those would not be the constraints.
Me: Ok, so maybe we should the start looking at what the administrations core objective is for the new terminal. Why does it want to come up with a 5th terminal?
JC: Why don’t you tell me what those objectives could be?
Me: Well there could be many (started jotting down options in parallel as I spoke): 1) increase the #Passengers served per year, 2) Reduce Flight Congestion if any, 3) Reduce the Time spent by flights on the airport, 4) Increase the airports revenue sources. Am I missing any other?
JC: No I think you have mentioned the major ones, let’s briefly talk about each of these. What do you mean by the revenue sources?
Me: Then we had a brief discussion about revenues from shopping areas etc. Then we came to Flight congestion – primary metric there was time spent in air waiting for permission to land etc. Then we came to #Passengers served per year which is more of a demand metric and effectively dependent on the number of flights we can serve per day. We also discussed Time spent by flights on the airport and split that into further two types – flight landing and takeoff time and turnaround at the gates. At the end of this brief digression it emerged that if Time spent by Flights on airport can go down, #Flights can go up and so can #passengers, at the same time congestion can go down as well. Me: (summarizing) So is it fair to say that the objective of building the 5thterminal is to achieve a higher capacity at the airport and our problem definition is to evaluate that claim?
JC: Yes, if you wish to frame it so - effectively our problem definition is if the 5th terminal adds to the capacity of the System? Me: Good just give me a minute to put my thoughts in place as to how we can go about evaluating this?
JC: Sure..
Me: Ok as I mentioned, what we need to decide what is the exact metric used for measuring Capacity? Then what is the current value of airport for that metric? Then what impact would the new terminal on the level of the metric? That should lead us to an answer.
JC: Ok, so what do you want to know
Me: How do airports measure their capacity?
JC: Two commonly used metrics are ATM – Air Traffic Movements, and MPPA – Million Passengers Per Annum. For our discussion lets focus on ATM.
Me: So just to clarify ATM refers to a single air traffic movement, therefore the turnaround of one flight i.e. landing and take off would count as one or two ATMs?
JC: Two Me: Ok, so do we know what is the current ATM?
JC: How would you find that out?
Me: well the annual ATM would be average Flights per day * 365 * 2 JC: Right lets keep the analysis to per day Me: Ok so what’s the current #daily flights?
JC: Am not sure why that is relevant here for answering our question but lets say 100.
Me: No, this would help us by how much will the Terminal increase the capacity. Ok so how many Bays would there be in the new terminal?
JC: 50
Me: And do we know on average one flight spends how much time at a Bay?
JC: 60 minutes
Me: Is that number in line with international standards or is there scope to impact that by way of terminal design or operations?
JC: No that’s about the best you can get ☺
Me: Fair is the distribution of traffic the same through out the day, or in other words is the demand pattern similar through out the day or is it varying with time? JC: Let’s assume that a bay is utilized effectively only for 12 hours in a day. Me: Ok so that means a given bay has the capacity of 2 ATMs per hour or 50 bays together would add 50 * 2 *12 or 1200 ATMs
JC: So should we add Terminal 5?
Me: Well yes from our analysis so far it does appear that adding the 5 Terminal could add upto 1200 ATMs per day and therefore one should go ahead.
JC: But what was our problem definition?
Me: (a little flustered) will the new terminal add to the capacity of the airport?
JC: yes of the entire system. So will it?
Me: (suddenly a light bulb strikes ☺, smiling) Ok I possibly get the drift of what you are trying to hint at, while the terminal has the potential to add so many ATMs, it is not necessary that the capacity of the entire system will be incremented by that number.
JC: Correct, and why that may be so? Me: Because the bottleneck in the system may be some where else.
JC: Right and so what defined a bottleneck Me: In any system the resource which has the lowest capacity and for which the implied demand is higher than its capacity constitutes a bottleneck, and also limits the throughput of the entire system.
JC: So what else could be a bottleneck in the system? Me: Runway JC: Ok and how can we find that out?
Me: We need to evaluate the utilization of the runway. How long does it typically take for a successive takeoff or landing on a given runway?
JC: How can we find that out?
Me: A mathematical way to do that would be to find the typical distance an aircraft travels while landing/takeoff and at what speed to find the time for which it uses the runway, another could be that there would be some minimum time set by the ATC/guidelines as the minimum inter flight time that would limit the number of planes that can use a runway.
JC: Right, let’s leave the mathematical way, what do you think the other number is?
Me: I don’t know for sure, but from my observation the time in India is something like 5-6 minutes between flight landings/takeoffs
JC: Ok those might be t he numbers in India, but Heathrow is a very busy airport and there the minimum time is 90 seconds.
Me: (quickly doing the numbers) 90 seconds implies 1 ATM every 1.5 minutes or a max of 40 ATMs per hour or a max of 40*24 = 960 ATMs per day per runway.
JC: Correct, so assuming there are 2 runways already what would now be the impact of adding the terminal 5 on the capacity of the system?
Me: Let’s assume that the current capacity of the terminals is X, then the current capacity of the system is min(960*2, X), and after the new terminal comes online the capacity of the system would become min(960*2, X + 1200). (I actually clearly wrote down the mathematical form) So depending on the value of X we will know how much the capacity of the system can improve by, and our decision should be driven by if that new number is enough to achieve our goal or not? For any positive value of X > 720 it seems we will only be able to go up to a max 1920 ATMs per day, without adding a new runway or decreasing inter ATM time for runway usage.
JC: Good I think we are done with the case. Do you have any quick questions for me?
Me: Sure why don’t you tell me a bit about the nature of work you have been doing and the kind of work BTO London does?
Tips: Listen carefully, especially the case question/problem framing Maintain a pleasant disposition, Do Smile Be ready to admit your mistakes and over sights Speak slowly (Especially when dealing with international interviewers) Write down stuff in your pad - write legibly Steps should be Think, Write, Read out & Discuss. Do revise the core concepts – just helps you with the right terminology in he interviews. On the interview day take each interview on by one – Never think about any that you have already given, and nor about any to come.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: NFK: McKinsey has done some work in innovation in the BPO and outsourced project management space..
...yes the Process 360 & Project 360 initiatives (brought in the fact that I had gone through the article. This also happens to be Noshir’s research)...
NFK: right.. they are operational excellence frameworks we have come up with to assess the best practices in the BPO and outsourced application domains.. so the question is if you were to develop a similar framework for excellence in the product development or product development outsourcing space what metrics do you think can be used to measure those?
Sure, may I just have a minute to think this over..
NFK: Ok..
(wrote down a few bullet points and then started).. We can think of different parameters/indicators at different levels – Individual/Company/Market/Users. The idea is to measure excellence in product development by not just focusing on the inputs, and the processes, but also by outputs both direct market facing and indirect outputs.We had a 1 minute discussion about each and at the end NFK seemed reasonably satisfied with the suggestions. NFK: Great, so we all know India has been known for outsourcing in the services and process space, what do you think ails the Product development? In particular I would say some companies like Adobe, Intel, TI and MS (only to a very limited extent though) have been successful at doing product development out of India, but not many others. What do these companies do differently? What do you think have been the critical success factors for them? (took a little time to ponder over things and really tried to dig into my experiences at Adobe an TI & what I thought was salient about the senior management there – therefore the lesson – do not ignore the Sr. Management talks & Company vision and strategy meetings that you used to have back in offices ☺) Well I think two overarching factors in the success of companies like Adobe and TI have been Vision of the founder & Execution, and I would want to break down Execution further into 1) Hiring & focus on employee growth, 2) Process & Discipline, 3) Sr. Management Commitment & push back, 4) Clear & continuous communication with the International parent. It might be a coincidence but in the case of both Adobe and TI, their India offices have been led by very strong and committed senior leadership teams who have grown from within the parent companies’ home operations. Therefore, one they knew what were the parent’s best practices, and two they had the ambition to set up something in India and make it succeed. Then once they had the go ahead they focused single mindedly on the execution.... NFK: What do you think are the key strategic challenges for a company like Infosys going forward? (again after a minute of pause and jotting down stuff) I think the three key challenges would be 1) How to remain competitive now that they are in the 4B+ league and starting to compete with the big league of IBMs, Accentures, EDS etc, not just in outsourcing but end to end IT management 2) How to manage such a huge work force and manage their skills 3) How to remain relevant in the face of changing business models specially the move to hosted & cloud computing and software as a service models. NFK: Let’s talk more about the 3rd one! (He immediately latched on to the cloud computing thing.. so this is an example of a hot word for a particular interviewer) We then had a lively discussion on what cloud computing and Software as a service and software on demand is etc., and what impact can it have for IT companies and their business models. NFK: Good. Any questions that you may have for us I asked on what the role definition of BTO was and how was it different from the high-tech practice of McKinsey?
Tips: If possible do read a bit about the interviewer’s background. You wouldn’t get to know your exact interviewers till shortly before the interview so you obviously can’t read about all, but try to read up about the senior people as well as people who will be from similar backgrounds as yourself. Excellent way to do that is to get on to company sites and browse for interview panelists profiles. In the case of McKinsey, try to get to McKinsey Quarterly, and then search for the interviewer and articles written by the person Be prepared to get the broad discussion cases even in the first round. Have a perspective on the industry of your choice and or background – again a good way to do that is to browse articles and industry reports. If you are able to go through even one consulting firms site reasonably you should be in good shape. Try to change the plane of your answers depending on the interviewers interests – when to give thr 50,000 Ft view and when to give the 100 ft view. In hind sight I think the corporate strategy course had a lot of articles about outsourcing and different models of comp advantage for multinational organizations and how to leverage offices in different geographies. Though I myself didn’t recall much of that article but then it just shows you never know which reading might come in handy where ☺Have questions that you want to ask ready

Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)