XYZ Distributors Counsellor Interview Questions and Answers

Tell me about yourself.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate.

C- Good evening, Sir. My name is Dhanushmanth and I come from a town called Palvancha in Telangana. Its specialty is that it hosts multiple industries such as a thermal power plant, spong iron unit, heavy water plant etc. Its unique standpoint is that it is very nearby to the place where according to hindu mythology, Lord Ram spent his days of exile. This lead to inculcation of not just scientific temper but also philosophical sense in me.

I was always curious as to how so many industrial units come together to create a universe that is much greater than their sum total. My parents were teachers in Mathematics and Physics.

They had a profund impact on me. My father prodded me to always stay curious and understand how this universe works. My mother on the othered, contributed a lot towards my all round development. She introduced me to the world of Aesop Fables, Jataka Tales, Vikram Betal etc. She used to help me participate in elocution and debating competitions. She made me understand how vital it is to inculcate a habit of reading and besides, underscored the significance of learning lessons for life.

I- Okay, so you are interested in books?

C- Yes, Sir. I am.

I- What are your favorite books?

C- Harry Potter

I- (Chuckles) That's very common book.

C- ( I felt he was overlooking me.) I also like the works of Frederick Beckmann, Mitch Albomm, Sudha Murthy, and Ruskin Bond.

I- : Well, those are some quite contrasting choices.

C- Yes, Sir. They are.

I- Okay, let us do a case. Do you shop online?

C- Yes, Sir. But not very frequently.

I- Where do you shop?

C- Amazon, but mostly for books

I- : Okay, let us do a case around books only. Imagine yourself as the Senior Product Manager for 3-5 year old children's books category in Amazon. ( He explained to me the importance of maintaining optimal inventory levels). Tell me the 5 most important data points according to you in order to decide for this and rank them.

C- To begin with, our objective is to find out the 5 most important data points using which we can decide upon the optimal inventory level in
our firm, right?

I- Yes

C- Can you please tell me our operational level? Are we planning to supply to the entire country?

I- yes

C- To decide upon the inventory levels, the key factors we have to see is that whenever there is any demand, we must never have any shortfall and whatever supply we are getting, we must be able to send it out.

Now, if there is excess demand and we are unable to cater to the needs of the customer, we would lose the customer for life. On the other hand, if we have excess supply and less demand, it is us who suffer the loss. To me, the first case is more damaging. So, I would first like to analyze the supply side.

I- Okay, how would you go about it?

C- I have to check about our supply sources. One thing is if we have enough quantity coming from our suppliers such as wholesalers. We have to look if we are sourcing the books of the latest authors in trend.

Once we confirm the availability of source, then transporting it to go down and from go down has to be seen. Then the option of last-mile delivery has to be seen.

I- We have a single go down in Madhya Pradesh. It is in the center of the country so that we can supply it easily to the entire nation. Does your preference remain the same now?

C- No Sir. In that case, we won't have much f a problem with our supply as long as we have enough material coming into our go down which means I have to look at demand an accordingly source the material as well.

C- I have to forecast the demand for the period we want to maintain optimal inventory.

I- Yes, for 6 months.

C- One way for this is to see the demand over the last 18 months. Another can be to analyze the recent activities of customers.

I- How would you do that?

C- We can look at the online behavior of the parents in this category who are the subscribers of Amazon. Also, we can monitor the behavior of customers who have begun to recently search for children related content online.

I- So, what is the data point?

C- Number of customers who are visiting these sites.

I- Yes, this is something I want.

C- I went on to describe some more data points such as how the children's books market is currently operating( market share, growth rate, etc.,) and I began ranking them.

The interviewer was satisfied and he ended the case.

I- Why Amex?

C- I told him about the example of Shop Small initiative by Amex mentioned in the MM-1 Kotler book. According to it, Amex has nudged its customers to shop in the local shops on Saturdays.

They started to give customers incentives for doing so. I said that this not only increased Amex's base by bringing the small shoppers into their network but also denoted a sustainable growth. Apart from that, I mentioned that I attended their PPT and have observed that people who began their careers in Amex are now in positions such as CTO of Uber, etc. I mentioned that since I have the interest to get into policy and administrative roles, that encouraged me to apply for Amex.

I- Did you ever work with data during your undergrad or do you have any experience with analytics or are you even interested in working with data?

C- I explained to him that as a Mining student, I was very interested in understanding the risk of rock failures since it posed a grave threat to the industry. I mentioned that I took courses such as Probability and Statistics, Fuzzy Set theory as part of my curriculum as open elective.

I- Let me give you a problem on Probability. Your section has 27 students. Calculate the probability that no tow people share their birthdays in the same year?

C- I solved it.

Why Amex?

What do you know about Amex?
I answered based on what I heard in PPT. I told him that Amex has three divisions: Global Risk and Credit Banking, Risk and Fraud Analytics, and Digital Marketing Enterprise Analytics.

I mentioned my interest in understanding the risk of an economy and that Amex is one of the best options I have since it provides a bird's eye view of the economy.

So you are interested in risk analytics?
Yes, Sir.

Let me give you a case on risk analytics. You have 1000 customers who have not been paying their bills. They are called delinquent customers. Now, there are 5 action plans:

1. Do nothing because you trust them.

2. Do nothing because you cannot extract money from them.

3. Write a letter to them.

4. Make a phone call.

5. Go for a court case.

Tell me how you will categorize these 1000 customers into these five categories.
I restated the objective and gave him a step by step plan as to how we can determine who we can trust and on whom we have to take immediate action.

I asked him if we have the credit history of these customers with us. The interviewer said yes. Then I said we could look into that and see if their transaction pattern has seen a recent spike. I also mentioned that we could check if there is any geographic, demographic, work-related commonality among these 1000 customers.

I also suggested checking the details of the shops they are shopping in since if there is a common shop, it could be possible that they are swiping the card there and cartelling with the shopkeeper to steal money.

Later I also suggested using CIBIl data. Overall he saw my approach to the case and appeared to be satisfied. In between the case, he used to go out of the room giving me 2-3 minutes. He told me to wait outside so that his colleague could tell me the result.