Stantec Accounts Payable Associate Interview Questions and Answers

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)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: We started the interview with a 3-4 minute chat about how painful it can be in the morning to travel and start working right away (He had just arrived).

He then quizzed me about leadership instances at work and in academic career; then I took him into what he believed leadership was. We had a long chat about why leadership was important in consulting. We also spoke about how I was to translate a very explicit form of leadership displayed at work (I was leading operations in a factory) to an implicit environment (like consulting). We talked about what leadership skills are transferable and ones which are not.

The case was about a global heavy vehicle manufacturer. The firm was planning to enter India; my job was to devise a strategy for it. A simple case to begin with I thought, but I knew very well that the challenges are higher in a simple case.
I started off with a simple framework (nothing great, decided the marketing mix and the way to enter – organic was the better route). I also identified the capabilities of the manufacturer that could be transferred to this setting. This went on for about 10 minutes. Here it was important to structure the problem well, following a MECE structure. I also shared some experience of a project with him that we had done in Competitive strategy project that we had done on cars and shared some uniqueness of thenIndian market with him. I am not covering this in detail as it was pretty standard and I just had to do the basics right. Then he told me to size the truck market in India. I told him that I will follow the stock method of analysis, by which I will estimate the number of trucks currently in operation throughout India. Since I was doing a demand side analysis, I divided the trucks into
variable loads (where capacity utilization is less than equal to 100%) or fixed loads (construction equipment carriers, petrol loads, car containers, etc.). He said that they normally don’t do it this way but he wanted me to proceed as he found it interesting.

Then, he told me that he wanted me to do it for the car carriers for paucity of time. I went ahead and assumed a certain number of carriers that are bought every year (the number wasn’t important, I assumed 1000 for ease of analysis). I understood the supply chain from him and he explained the dealer system to me. Then, I told him that I will assume steady state, as in the number of cars sold are the number of cars manufactured and distributed. I then divided it as per the number of manufacturers, number and location of manufacturing locations, distance, speed distribution, capacity of trucks, capacity utilization, number of hours driven in a day, maintenance days and the average number of days that a truck is driven in a year to arrive at the number of trips made and hence, the number of trucks that were plying. It was important to note that the trucks generally came back completely empty. I also told him that the transporters will like to keep some number of trucks on a standby. He asked me to estimate that as well. I gave him a framework to analyze that. I gave him a framework depending on locations, routes, failure time and MTBFs. He was ok with that. The case was extremely quantitative and was very intensive numerically. I also did a sensitivity analysis on one of the
parameters showing him that the whole estimate was sensitive to a few parameters.
Then, I told him that if I link both the cases together, then it gives me an interesting sight into what value proposition the truck
manufacturer can give to the Indian transporters. I told him that let’s look at each of the variables that I had estimated earlier and
see whether we can reduce them. Then, I said that we can try to increase the mileage and increase the size of the truck as well. Then, I told him that both the things might be inversely related. It can also be done that the truck speed can be increased on the back journey. Maintenance days can be decreased. He asked me for a few creative recommendations, which I gave – I don’t really remember them now but the method was as stated above.

Then, he asked me for a feedback about the case and discussion overall. I told him about how different the case would have been
had the case between about variable loads. He was ok with it.

He then told me to ask him a question. I asked him about the project specifically and to what detail McKinsey went. I also asked him how McKinsey keeps a tab on how clients implement suggestions. The overall case lasted about 25 minutes. I then linked it with one of the questions asked in the personal interview. I told him that it is a challenge that line managers like us will face in a
consulting environment, wherein we do not necessarily get to implement. Then, I shared a few jokes that I had played with consultants (mostly technical) and how it might be my turn to be on the receiving end now.
Tips: I think the skill that was being tested here was how comfortable I was with the interviewer in the beginning. It was important to
engage him in a fruitful conversation that is argumentative but not confrontational. I think basic presence and communication skills were being tested here. Overall, the whole experience lasted about 10 minutes, and when he was convinced that I was comfortable enough, we went into the case.
It is important to be your natural self in the interview. Comfort with numbers is absolutely crucial. It is also important that when using creativity, structure should not be lost. Never shoot ideas of the hat, always be structured. It is important to see and address the body language of the interviewer. The basic thing that works is that one should focus on bringing out one’s strengths in the interview. My strengths lay in creativity, structuring and quick calculations (which I specifically tried to bring out in the interview). Your strengths (preparation will yield that) could be very different and you should try to bring them out. It is very important to remain cool after the interview since one might get a feeling that he’s not done well but the results could be just the other way round!

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: We started the interview with a conversation about my career at IIT and my times in Cuttack (Orissa), my hometown. He was hooked onto my JEE rank and asked me why the number was unique. I don’t think he wanted a particularly great answer but he wanted to check my ability to think on my feet. He asked to give him 5 different uniquenesses.

He also asked me why Cuttack wasn’t doing as well as a Bhubaneswar. To this I replied taking geographic, political, cultural and economic reasons into account. We then discussed about my Summer Project with Reckitt Benckiser (this was an automation project with a FMCG major). He asked me to explain the labor implications of implementing automation. He then went ahead to ask me my experiences in dealing with unionized labor at ITC. He was also interested in one of the papers that I had written about
BOP and presented at XLRI. This was about how to bring your best people to the BOP. He asked me to explain the paper and then told me to explain how useful it can be to the corporate world. My observation had told me that he was very practical and won’t like flowery answers that this is the idea of the millennium! I gave him all the strengths and weaknesses of the idea (and real ground level ones) in implementation.

After that he asked me why I was looking forward to a consulting career. I told him that it links well to my long term goal, which is
leading a NGO. I told him that this is one of the reasons that McKinsey stands out for me as a firm, with all the public policy and
pro-bono work. We discussed a bit about India’s policy change from the ‘50s to the ‘70s. I gave him some funda about what I had
seen in the Commanding Heights video, though he was doing most of the talking.

He was visibly happy with the fact that I said public policy (Later I realized that he specializes in public policy at McK) and told me
that he will give me a case on it. The whole experience lasted 15 minutes.

He started off the case asking me what I knew about the Bharat Nirman Project. I told him that my knowledge is limited to what I have read in the papers over the past few weeks and I do not know in detail about it. He told me that this case will enhance my
learning about the challenges facing somebody working in public policy.

The case was about rural electrification. He said the objective of the central government has now shifted to putting an electric bulb in every Indian home by Feb, 2008. He asked me how the Government should go about it.

I started off telling him that the idea looked unrealistic to me. Assuming that 1 billion is the Indian population and 65% lived in
villages, 650 million is the current rural population. Assuming that there are 5 members per rural household, there are 130 million
households. Then assuming that 30% of rural India is electrified, 91 million households remain. We just have two years, which is
approximately 700 days. Even if we work throughout, 1.3 lakh households have to be electrified every day. This is by no means
easy. Add to this fact that there is huge geographic dispersion and the current state of the SEBs, the plan looks nonviable. I told him that I found it impractical. To this he replied saying that most public policy projects are such. They lack thinking about the design phase itself. He asked me to go ahead with the problem assuming it is doable.

I approached the problem saying that I would see the project from three standpoints – economic, organizational and operational. On the operational point, I would divide the project into generation and T&D phases. On the economic standpoint, I would look at the ways and means to fund this project. On the organizational front, I would like to see who would own this project. Here, he told me that the question should not be treated like any other consulting case and he is looking for completely creative solutions.

I asked him whether I should go ahead with the analysis the way I had structured or he wanted me to do something different. He
replied that he is looking for specifically the Generation area. I told him that when it comes to generation, there are four issues
that need to be looked at – Performance of conventional energy generation units, New conventional energy units, isolated units and non-conventional sources of energy. He said that I should discuss the non-conventional energy sources first.

I told him that I was aware of solar, wind and bagas (sugarcane by product). He asked me to describe the economics of Solar. I showed it to him that at the current rate, it’s unprofitable. Then, we went to Wind energy. I told him that the issues to look for
here are technology, fixed costs and practical viability (availability of areas) where they can be installed. We discussed each one of
them in greater detail from then on.

I told him that when it comes to buying technology, it would be very costly and technology transfer has to be on a mutual basis.
Then, we went it to the details of the windmill technology and its advantages in the Indian context. He was doing most of the talking here.

He asked me to do a commercial evaluation of all these technologies. I did the same considering three parameters – speed (because the industry has an external effect), cost and future viability (to incorporate learning curve effects). After shedding
some light on each one of them, he asked me to move on to the funding aspect in generation.

I told him that the money here can be drawn from four areas – government, Indian private, Foreign players and debtors. I told him how each one of them was different (most of the logic was thought on the spot). We then discussed about the amount of privatization that should be allowed. I was of the opinion that wherever private participation is allowed, it should be in both R&D and generation. Having only one of them was not of any use. He didn’t agree to it and he was of the opinion that we weren’t ready yet. We closed the interview on an argumentative note.

He asked me to ask a question at the end. I asked him what kind of persuasive powers consultants enjoy when it comes to public policy projects. He smiled and gave me a lot of insight into public policy consulting. He appreciated the fact at the end of the interview that I could make people talk. The whole experience lasted close to 20 mins.
Tips: Keep your cool. Show a good understanding of the things happening around you (may not be knowledge, but an opinion usually helps). Do not try to throw facts when they amount to nothing!

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: He asked me about the problems that dealing with a union entails. There were a few more specific questions about my resume, in
which I had to describe the work I did. I spoke for some time – maybe 2 minutes.

Then he asked me the kind of preparation that our batch had done for consulting. I gave him some feedback about how the interview workshop process done by McKinsey could have been better and how different it was from other colleges (stressing on poor institutional memory and ways to deal with it). He asked me what my last case was about. When I told him that it was about public policy and I had like it. He said that he also wanted me to do a case in that. The whole conversation lasted close to a little over 10 minutes.

An extremely short case. It lasted less than 10 minutes. He asked me what a government could do to improve the banking
policy of a third-world country. To begin with, I told him that there is no generic answer and the policy has to be case specific. I also told him that I got a feeling that he was speaking from personal experience.

He said that I was right and asked me to take the case of Bahrain. He asked me what I knew about Bahrain and its banking industry. I told him that I knew it was a Muslim country and was staunch in protecting Muslim values (I used to collect stamps; I knew that they did not have a word of English – I told him that).

Then he gave me a good overview about Bahrain (lot of tangential stuff) and told me that the Finance minister was worried that the industry might lose it. He told me it was majorly into fostering corporate banks.

To begin with I told him that it was a case of B2B marketing and banks would stay if they get a good value proposition in Bahrain.
But then, if they get a better value proposition elsewhere, they’ll shift. He said I was right and asked me to think ahead. I asked him who these banks were. He told me that they were the Middle East bases of MNC banks. I asked him why the banks were there in the first case. He told me that it was centrally located and had liberal laws. I analyzed the geography and told him that what struck me was the fact it was close to Dubai. I asked him why not Dubai?

He told me that there was an announcement by the Dubai officials that they would make their policies freer than Bahrain and would make it a free trading zone.

I inferred from this saying that this might be a symptom of the real issue but wasn’t the actual problem. To this, he agreed. I told him that first of all I need to analyze the Dubai threat more closely. I told him first that we need to establish whether Dubai’s threat is credible or not (look at their history and look at the economic impact). He asked me to assume that they can do it. Then, I told him to look at the value proposition (including the switching cost to Dubai – local knowledge, skill base) that Bahrain provides and compare to the value proposition that Dubai gives. I told him that it is important to keep a futuristic view in mind. Then, I told him that what strikes me about the case is the fact that in this industry, it is very important to build your local clientele and not rely on foreigners. He said fine.

Then, I quizzed him about how developed was Bahrain’s retail and corporate banking was. I told him that it would relate very closely to the economic development was in Bahrain.

I told him that I felt that the real issue with Bahrain was the fact that the industry relied too much on MNCs without first satisfying local demand. I told him that I would like to create a policy keeping this in mind.

He asked me to stop the interview then and there.
Tips: Thinking on your feet is extremely important at the beginning of the case. First think commonsensical and then get on to the regular consulting case analysis. One way of dealing with a person you know is to use your previous experience with him (in any which way).

Round: Other Interview
Experience: I was told at the beginning that I won’t have a case. He asked me to ask a few questions that I felt were relevant.

I asked him how McKinsey makes the environment conducive for knowledge sharing. He gave me a few inputs.

I told him what I had read about McKinsey’s knowledge management in a HBS case. He heard it attentively. He then gave me an idea about the state of affairs now and particularly in India. I asked him about how sharing gets linked to performance initiatives. I also asked him how other firms (esp. consulting) do it. He then asked me to narrate a few instances about ISB. I told him that any education program is incomplete without pranks. I told him a few pranks that I had played on a few friends in ISB (and vice versa).
Tips: Be your natural self and try to gauge the interviewer’s body language when telling a story.

General Tips: 1. One of the key facets is to make the case completely seamless, wherein you have to link both the PI and cases and both the cases together.
2. Structuring is very important.
3. The other thing is to make the interviewer comfortable.
4. Do not speak a little too much.
5. With seniors, I think it is very important to listen.
6. It is also important to observe as you go along the interview process that every interviewer is looking for a particular skill or dimension in your personality.
7. It is also important that whenever you give a radical thought, you should back it up by sound strong logic.
8. Control the interview.
9. A bit of formal attitude would help.
10
Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: LHR airport is building Terminal 5. Why? Identified the purpose of terminals, and its physical layout. Defined capacity as throughput of baggage (big mistake: capacity here was supposed to be that of airport with runways being the bottleneck!!). Compared capacity of T-5 with that of other terminals. Basically, T-5 is being built to accommodate the A380. I knew this from my GK but didn’t exactly shine through in the interview.
Identified it as an operations issue. After that everything went downhill. About halfway through the interview, I realized that I was dinged anyhow (I’d have rejected me had I been the interviewer), so there was less pressure and I had a relaxed time with the case after that.
Tips: Don’t neglect operations based cases. These were the least favorite ones of mine during prep. Even if interviewer is hostile, keep a cool head and think logically, don’t let the pressure get to you

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

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Here we had to look at alternatives, such as cost of wearing glasses all your life, and the amount you would be spending, and discounting the amount you spend each year. I mentioned the cost of glasses, doctor visits, contacts, also laser surgery etc, to finally compute the price.
The second case which I got in the 3rd round, was also about a medical company which was facing a problem of falling profits. Here there were several problems, low productivity, and falling sales as well. Here the sales force was required to convince the doctors about its products, as they would then prescribe the medicines. Important thing here was whether they were targeting the right doctors who had a lot of patients, whether doctors were already loyal to some other company etc.
Tips: Practising a lot of cases not only with others, but also going through solutions on your own helps a lot. It is important to keep analyzing your mistakes rather than doing a lot of cases. HR answers are probably even more important than the case themselves, so it is important to prepare them well in advance.

Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a PSU Bank. Currently the account opening process takes between 60 minutes- starting from the time he comes to clerk counter to the time customer leaves with Passbook, Cheque-book and account number. How will you cut it down to < 10 minutes and still deliver all the 3. Drew a complicated process map.

Basic facts given at start of case:
Current process (60 minutes) : The clerk interacts with customer to provide him the account opening form, does the first round scrutiny, does the KYC, sends form to officer for approval, officer approves, clerk opens account & creates account number & passbook, sends to officer to approval , officer approves, clerk creates the cheque book, sends to officer to approval , officer approves. Clerk hands over the Account Number, Pass book and cheque book to customer.

Facts shared ( shared by Nigel only if you ask)
• Customer is issued form and he submits a filled up form to clerk = 15 minutes
• Scrutiny of form = 10 minutes
• KYC takes 5 minutes
• Each approval loop with officer takes – 10 minutes ( 3 loops=30mins)
• Approval cannot be done by Clerk as per union rules

Key Issues :
Methodologies recommended
a. Break down the process into various smaller steps. Do a time work-motion study to understand the component steps. Then do a Pareto (80/20) and attach the areas which consume the most time.
b. Break down the process into various smaller steps. Classify each step as
1. Adds Value to Customer from a/c opening perspective
2. Non Value Add – can be minimized, not eliminated
3. Non Value Add – can be eliminated.

By experience, 80% of the time is Non Value add ( 2&3). Do a Pareto within that and work out the various ways of reducing time.
Solutions
1. I had recommended an Internet based system where major customer information and checks would happen online and only a mandatory KYC (Know Your Customer) process would take place onsite.
2. McKinsey had (a) Combined the jobs of the clericals and officers (b) Used Pre-printed blank welcome kits with cheque books, pass books & account numbers. (c) Only KYC was done onsite (RBI regulations)..account names were incorporated subject to KYC confirmation.

Ramifications
1. Banking Unions (PSU): How will they react to job rationalisation/ eliminating clerical roles?
2. If you combine the roles (clerk & officer) and make the officer do it…wont your salary bill increase…since the initial clerk to officer ratio (5:1) is now (0:5). What emerged is that in most PSUs, experienced clerks earn similar or more to officers. Hence not much of wage impact.
Tips: 1. Stay Confident & Cool.
2. Take control of the Case discussion. If the interviewer presents information in a user-unfriendly or non standard manner, ask him to do it in the way you want to or ask him to help you out in mapping the information in your framework.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client is a no 1 boiler manufacturer in India. His profit margins are at 11% while industry expectations are at 15%. Help him out in reaching this target.

Tried to evaluate product mix, profitability etc. – Client makes a wide span of products. But interviewer was not interested in specifics. Wanted me to identify the key cost & revenue drivers.

Costs
1. Are we sourcing Raw material effectively & cheaply? Can we go to china etc?
2. Can we re-evaluate Make vs Buy option for all products in the Bill of Material.
3. Are our products over- designed? Do they consume more raw material than competition.
4. Do we have higher fixed costs- new investments, labour<>variable costs?
5. Do we have economies of scale for all products, parts etc?

Was told to identify sources of revenue to increase margins
1. Change product mix
2. Evaluate newer- more profitable markets
3. Brand your own products (the client is a manufacturer for others, not seller) -> refer to brand and market creation
costs.
4. Service Business – Repair, Spares & Consumables ( Missed this out completely- was finally hinted by interviewer)

Conclusion: Services were neglected by client. Potential revenue source. Client has a large installed base of customers. So he can do this business better, build service model and capabilities.

Options
1. Sell Maintenance contracts with boilers
2. target installed base of boilers

I had added that he can widen his base by targeting all brands of boilers (assuming differences were not significant). Service is a high margin business since operations at units are hampered leading to production losses in the event of boiler failure.
Tips: 1. Stay Confident & Cool even if you miss the above fact. Move on and build on it. Relate the case or elements of it with work and
discuss it.
2. Show Energy during the interview!

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case 1
Client is a music company ( RPG-Saregama). It was not making money.

Revenue side- affected by Music piracy and music channels. They affected price and sales negatively

Cost Side – Producers still sold music rights at higher prices. Since music producers are few- their consolidation hurt the music
industry bad.

Additional facts : All big banners like Yashraj films etc end up making losses for the company due to high music right costs.
Typical successes / margins have been in low (B/C segments with films like Murder etc)

Analysis
Structured case as Customers, Suppliers and Competition.
Option1 – Increase revenues
While analyzing customers- not much information available- no segments -> based on discussion, generated multiple sources of revenues for music industry
a. CD/Cassettes
b. Radio / TV rights – do not provide full song clips to channels. Only teasers. If song is a hit, channels would ask for it and thus can pay for it.
c. Internet- Streaming rights
d. I-pod type devices
e. Ring tones

Told to explore the cost options in details.
Option2 – Decrease costs
Me :Proposed Risk sharing / royalty based mechanisms.
NK : All the big banners do not agree to it
Me : But we can get the smaller producers to agree… (NK agreed that it can be explored)
NK: Why do these companies deal with big producers when they make losses? What is important in the buyer industry structure

After some discussions…arrive at the structure – Big producers (A type) and Small Producers (B&C types)

Possible reasons I could come up with include-
Me: Possible reasons can include
a. Long term relationship in the industry
b. A large number of smaller successes subsidizing the losses from larger ones
c. Association of music companies with big producers offers
them clout in the industry to deal with smaller producers…they can thus negotiate better deals with B&C type producers.
NK : Yes.… the big banners are like loss leaders.... they help music companies in getting better deals from smaller producers. And also, the industry is very relationship driven…some of the deals are purely based on established long working relationships.

Case 2 :
Your client is Tata Motors. The Direct material cost of Tata Indica is ₹150,000. The basic design is same for the 1 lakh car. How can you bring the cost down to ₹75000…outline the basic levers.
Structured it into 4 areas
a. Rationalize the vendor base to get economies of scale and scope.
b. Rationalize parts across platforms of vehicles to get further economies.
c. Rationalize design – Certain parts might be over designed or inefficiently designed leading to increased costs on account of excess materials or additional processing (labour, overhead etc)
d. Evaluate every part from a Make or Buy perspective. This would enable focus on core areas and help gain cost advantage in sourcing items like Tyres, O Rings, Nuts-Bolts etc.

After that he wanted to do a numbers/ quant check on me…so the example was extended to calculate certain % values.
Tips: 1. Prioritize issues for discussions with the interviewer.
2. Be prepared for anything!

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case
Client is a confectionery manufacturer making chocolate bars. In the 1980’s it had a mfg base in UK. However, in early 90s it set up another facility in France. During mid 90’s the business faced decline in revenues and profitability. What could be the reasons / hypothesis and what would you recommend?

Enquired about the basic details
a. Product mix – single chocolate bar
b. Supply- demand check -> Demand has been declining. No problems in supply side.

Discussed the Revenue- Cost equation.

Revenue can go down by the following
a. Competition introducing newer/ better/cheaper products
b. Changing customer behavior- more health conscious people/ availability of substitutes/ imports etc
c. Any changes done to product flavour/ taste etc..which can turn off customers.
Cost :
Discussed the standard Fixed and Variable costs. Was asked to break it down further.
Variable – Raw Materials, Distribution etc
Fixed – Depreciation, Capacity Utilization etc
a. Fixed Costs – New plant – higher depreciation costs. + Degree of capacity utilization ( this was reason 1)
UK – mfg capacity = 15 mn units / year
Actual production = 700,000 units per month approx 55% capacity utilization
France – mfg capacity = 20 mn units / year
Actual production = 650,000 units per month approx 39% capacity utilization.
These numbers were generally thrown around to evaluate my comfort with numbers.
Interviewer himself jumps to part (b)
b.Variable Costs
Fact 1 Raw material costs are 25% of Sale price vs 20% for competition
1/ Asked Oliver on the supplier base (local, import & no of suppliers) and amounts sourced. Decreased revenues could have decreased our sourcing economies. OK with this…wanted more reasons….
2/ Checked if both were importing same quality of material. We could be using better quality products compared to competition.
3/ Checked if we hedged these items while procuring…(Key Point
2) Competition was obviously doing this better and saving costs.
Fact 2 Our Distribution costs are 15% of sale price vs competition 10%

Key differentiators could be…
We have our own trucks ..competition uses 3rd party suppliers
1. More costs on account of people, fixed costs of trucks + empty trucks coming back (Low utilization)
2. We send part loads…competition does not worry since his transporters can optimize on truck load thru other customers.
c. General calculations

Another round of quant check. Thrown some numbers to calculate cost per unit of the 2 factories (UK & France )
Each unit has 200 employees x 40 hrs/week x 50 wks /yr
UK wages = $ 15/ hour
France Wages = $ 20 / hour
After this told to calculate profitability of each unit at both locations given Raw material = 25% of sale price ($ 2/unit).
Total numbers check

Recommendations
1. Rationalize the production quantities at each unit - would depend on the overall inward and outward transportation costs also..apart from capacity utilization. (Excess transport costs in serving new markets would need to be checked for)
2. Use excess capacity for producing 3rd party chocolates. Also evaluate if factory can be re-tooled / flexible to manufacture other products apart from chocolate.
3. Shut down 1 plant. –
a. See how efficient it would be operationally. No backup/excess capacity would then be available as a strategic/contingency resource.
b. Also potential trouble on the political front – example if French unit was shut down, there could be a political fallout as well as French customers might boycott your products. (cited Mittal-Arcelor )
c. Union issues- long term dispute- can dilute brand value of business.
Tips: Be prepared for all sorts of numbers/calculations…take time out in case there are huge calculations…I did that…small calculations
were done verbally.

Interviewer also wanted to check if I could come up with all types of hypothesis on various facts. Be prepared to think creatively and use your common sense to remove non relevant stuff.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Client manufactures auto forgings @ 200 per day. Increase it to 400 per day… How?

Enquired if market demand was justified to double output…Market would be able to accommodate 200 additional units.

Wanted me to identify key levers. After a lot of round-about and false steps…learnt that current capacity utilization was 33% only!!
Interviewer wanted a list of things to check …this is what I discussed..
a. Maintenance time records– Breakdown & Planned
b. Setup/ Changeover times on a/c of high product variety
c. Non availability of Material
d. Non availability of Labour – absence/ unmanned breaks
e. Shut down due to utility failures (electricity etc)
f. Quality related losses.
Tips: Be prepared to be grilled.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: This seemed a test of whether I could do hypothesis and do some basic math.
Client is a Financial planning & management software company. 3 product lines + 1 service line.
1. Large enterprises – highly customized, large business customers, direct sales force used, consultants needed, sold at CEO/CIO level.
2. SMEs – industry specific package- sold thru dealers/ distributors etc to anyone who wants to buy
3. Individual customers thru regular retail channels.
4. IT consulting – pre/ post support

Question 1: Revenues are declining. What hypothesis would you generate to identify sources of decline…
g. Along segments mentioned above
h. Geographical segments
i. Industries
j. Existing vs New Customers

Question 2: Assume Enterprise segment is losing revenue. What hypothesis can you generate …(asked to generate 15…came to 11) Just think out aloud and discuss ..some of the hypothesis discussed were
d. Changes in regulations
e. M&A in the industry..customers hesitate to buy.
f. Customers think a better product is in the wings and don’tbuy the existing one.
g. New product is complicated …has greater cost and training needs.
h. Sales force not qualified etc.
Question 3: Suppose you find out that the sales force has been spending more time selling simpler product to SME than attend larger customers…enterprise product needs greater effort. wWat would you do?
1. Track sales and channels actively
2. Change incentive structure…
What actions would you take and implications of those.
Tips: Think out loud with the interviewer.

Skills:
College Name: Indian School Of Business (ISB)

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Dual Degree students with decent CPI, relevant projects and extras
Tips: Highlight subjects and projects involving data mining, machine learning, marketing research

Round: Test
Experience: PST had 26 questions to be done in an hour (3 cases) and 20 QUESTIONS in 30 mins general apti (level: 2-3 of Arun sharma)
Tips: practice!
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Questions: 46

Round: Technical + HR Interview
Experience: Since my resume was filled with

College Name: IIT Kanpur

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Be honest
Talk about skills in which you are perfect

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - study the technicals and know the industry cold