IIML Casebook 2014-15

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The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow No part of this casebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without prior consent from The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow.

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Foreword As companies worldwide get more and more concerned about hiring the right talent for their key positions, candidate evaluation during interviews has become all the more sophisticated. The case interview is unique in the sense that it presents the candidate with a problem to be solved in the context of real-world business situations and seeks solutions that tests both logical reasoning and creativity. It allows the interviewer to evaluate the candidate’s skills in deconstructing a problem and communicating their thought process, the ability to think on their feet, handle ambiguity and assess their comfort with numbers. Although, traditionally used by consulting firms in their recruiting processes, the case method is now increasingly used for jobs across functions whether general management or investment banking. The casebook by The Consulting & Strategy Club of IIM Lucknow documents candidates’ interview experiences by different firms that have been hiring from the IIM Lucknow campus over the years. The ideal way to use this book would be for the candidate to first arrive at a case solution employing his own approach and then enhance his learning through comparison with the approaches documented in the casebook.

The Consulting & Strategy Club Anmol | Ankit | Devanshu | Rahul | Prince | Suraj Amit | Arushi | Devika | Jyothirmayi | Riya | Saksham

The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Contents Foreword..................................................................................................................................... 2 About Case Interviews................................................................................................................. 6 Skills Tested................................................................................................................................ 6 Types of Cases Encountered ....................................................................................................... 6 Do List for a Case Interview ........................................................................................................ 7 Frameworks ................................................................................................................................ 7 Some Important Frameworks ...................................................................................................... 7 Summer Internship Experiences 2013 ......................................................................................... 12 Accenture Management Consulting ............................................................................................ 12 Interview Experience 1 ..................................................................................................................... 12 Interview Experience 2 ..................................................................................................................... 13 Interview Experience 3 ..................................................................................................................... 15 Interview Experience 4 ..................................................................................................................... 18 Interview Experience 5 ..................................................................................................................... 19 Interview Experience 6 ..................................................................................................................... 23 Interview Experience 7 ..................................................................................................................... 25 A T Kearney .............................................................................................................................. 28 Interview Experience 8 ..................................................................................................................... 28 Boston Consulting Group............................................................................................................ 29 Interview Experience 9 ..................................................................................................................... 29 Interview Experience 10 ................................................................................................................... 31 Deloitte ..................................................................................................................................... 34 Interview Experience 11 ................................................................................................................... 34 Interview Experience 12 ................................................................................................................... 35 Interview Experience 13 ................................................................................................................... 38 KPMG ........................................................................................................................................ 40 Interview Experience 14 ................................................................................................................... 40 McKinsey & Co ........................................................................................................................... 41 Interview Experience 15 ................................................................................................................... 41 Interview Experience 16 ................................................................................................................... 43 Interview Experience1 7 ................................................................................................................... 44 Interview Experience 18 ................................................................................................................... 47 The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Interview Experience 19 ................................................................................................................... 50 Interview Experience 20 ................................................................................................................... 51 Interview Experience 21 ................................................................................................................... 52 Summer Internship Experiences 2012 ........................................................................................ 54 Boston Consulting Group .......................................................................................................... 54 Interview Experience 1 ...................................................................................................................... 54 Interview Experience 2 ...................................................................................................................... 58 Interview Experience 3 ...................................................................................................................... 59 McKinsey & Co ......................................................................................................................... 61 Interview Experience 4 ...................................................................................................................... 61 Interview Experience 5 ...................................................................................................................... 64 Interview Experience 6 ...................................................................................................................... 65 Interview Experience 7 ...................................................................................................................... 66 A T Kearney .............................................................................................................................. 68 Interview Experience 8 ...................................................................................................................... 68 Accenture Business Consulting ................................................................................................. 70 Interview Experience 10..................................................................................................................... 71 Interview Experience 11..................................................................................................................... 71 Interview Experience 12..................................................................................................................... 73 Interview Experience 13..................................................................................................................... 74 Interview Experience 14..................................................................................................................... 77 Interview Experience 15..................................................................................................................... 78 Interview Experience 16..................................................................................................................... 80 Interview Experience 17..................................................................................................................... 82 Interview Experience 18..................................................................................................................... 85 Deloitte ..................................................................................................................................... 87 Interview Experience 19..................................................................................................................... 87 Summer Internship Experiences 2011 ........................................................................................ 89 Accenture Business Consulting ................................................................................................. 89 Interview Experience 1 ...................................................................................................................... 89 Interview Experience 2 ...................................................................................................................... 91 Interview Experience 3 ...................................................................................................................... 96 Boston Consulting Group .......................................................................................................... 99 Interview Experience 4 ...................................................................................................................... 99 The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Interview Experience 5 .................................................................................................................... 106 Interview Experience 6 .................................................................................................................... 109 Interview Experience 7 .................................................................................................................... 111 Interview Experience 8 .................................................................................................................... 112 KPMG ..................................................................................................................................... 117 Interview Experience 9 .................................................................................................................... 117 Interview Experience 10................................................................................................................... 118 Mckinsey & Co. ...................................................................................................................... 123 Interview Experience 11................................................................................................................... 123 Interview Experience 12................................................................................................................... 124 Interview Experience 13................................................................................................................... 125 Interview Experience 14................................................................................................................... 128 Interview Experience 15................................................................................................................... 134


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About Case Interviews Case interviews are usually based on real problems which interviewers themselves have encountered in the course of their client engagements. They usually last for about 20 minutes and seek to test the candidate’s problem solving skills. In a typical case interview, the interviewer states a problem and the interviewee goes about tackling the problem by asking a series of questions. The interviewer answers these questions based on how he wishes to direct the interview. The candidate must put forth a logical framework for solving the problem after having understood the key issues and must ideally make some recommendations/conclusions towards the end of a case. Skills Tested     

Problem solving skills Quantitative skills Communication skills Poise and professionalism Firm fit

Types of Cases Encountered  Estimation cases–Determine something by making reasonable assumptions about critical variables. For example: How many golf balls fit into a 747, or how many pens are sold every month on the IIM Lucknow campus?  Market Sizing & Entry/Expansion  Profit/Losses – Analyze changes in profitability, revenues and costs  Industry Analysis  Product Launch – Help a client gauge if and how to launch a product  Mergers & Acquisitions  Competition Handling


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To-do List for a Case Interview      

Take notes Do not make any assumptions Ask questions Take your time before responding Lay out a structure for the interviewer Summarize at regular intervals

Frameworks     

Knowledge of basic types of frameworks is helpful in case interviews Helps in structuring the case analysis especially complex cases Attention should be paid to minute details of the case Identify the most critical issue and try to find solution for it All the frameworks are very well-known and just using them won’t help you in cracking the interview  Don’t fit a framework forcefully. Use it as a checklist to be exhaustive in case you are stuck  Try mixing and matching frameworks with different types of cases  Try to form your own effective framework Some Important Frameworks SUPPLY AND DEMAND: The market-clearing price and quantity is determined by the intersection of demand curve and the supply curve.


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PROFITABILITY: Try to find out the reason for change in profitability. Profit = P * Q - ((VC * Q) + FC) Profits are defined as total revenue minus total cost. Changes in revenue are due to a change in quantity, price or both. Total cost is the sum of variable plus fixed costs. Variable costs vary directly with quantity while fixed costs are set for a given period. 3Cs: It is one of the most widely used frameworks and one can differentiate their analysis by not using it. Still, a quick and effective framework for industry analysis!

PORTER’S 5 FORCES MODEL: It is usually the first step in industry analysis and should be followed by further analysis. This makes it very time consuming in nature. Analysts use it for qualitative evaluation of a firm’s strategic position. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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VALUE AND SUPPLY CHAIN: It can be used to examine an industry’s depth.

PORTER’S GENERIC STRATEGIES: It is a very effective tool in analysis of the cases.


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SWOT: In a full case analysis, this framework leads to time wastage and should be avoided. It can be used as a presentation framework.


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MARKETING FRAMEWORKS: These frameworks are very helpful in analysing marketing cases in consulting interviews. STP: Segmentation:  Consider variables for segmenting markets  Analyse the profile of emerging segments  Validate emerging segments Targeting:  Formulate a targeting strategy  Decision on which segments should be targeted Positioning:  Understand the perception of the customers  Position products in the minds of the consumers 4Ps:    

Product – Functionality, brand, packaging and services Price- Absolute and relative price Place- Channel, inventory, logistics and distribution Promotion- advertising, publicity, sales force, sales promotion


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Summer Internship Experiences 2013 Accenture Management Consulting Interview Experience 1

Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation

Ankit Singhania AMC

Round (First/Second/third)

3 Rounds

Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

One senior person , One HR, One Partner

BITS-Pilani, Chemical Engineering, Oracle Financial Services Software -22 months, CFA Level1, family work experience in pharmaceutical Round 1: Tell me about yourself Why AMC? Why Consulting? Why not finance? Why MBA from Engineering? Any question you would like to us? Round 2: Mostly HR Tell me about yourself Why AMC? Why Consulting? Any question you would like to us? Round 3: Tell me about yourself Why AMC? Why Consulting? Any question you would like to us?


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Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible)

What do you think went right in this interview?

What do you think went wrong in this interview?

Round 1: 1. Ranbaxy production is falling. Give me the structure and exhaustive list. 2. Ranbaxy profits are falling. Give me the structure of all the parameters under consideration. Round 3 : 1. Calculate the cost of the disease ( opportunity cost+ medical expenses+ social +emotional cost ) 2. List down all the parameters to be considered while constructing a Toll booth on highway to generate maximum revenue. Knowledge about company and cracking the case.

Why consulting could have been more better

Any tips for future batches Read about the company on their website and include that on the basis of your information in your answers. experience Practise basic case solving frameworks

Interview Experience 2

Name: Company:

Arpit Agal Accenture Management Consulting


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Name of interviewer and designation

Round 1: Senior Manager Round 2: HR Round 3: Partner

Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

Chemical Engineer from IITB, 22 months of work experience at Capital One Round 1:  Mostly questions on my work experience at Capital One and what I learnt out of it  One basic question on marketing strategy of a company  Why Accenture? Why consulting? Round 2:  Pure HR interview with all kinds of standard HR questions like leadership examples, strengths, why consulting, hobbies, social work etc.


Round 3:  Partner Round- Checking the fit. Similar questions as earlier. No case studies or guesstimate. All the rounds had a common objective: checking whether consulting is fit for me. They were especially keen on the learnings out of my work ex. Any standout achievement will really help here. Otherwise the questions were quite straightforward. No technical stuff for me (cases, guesstimates). “Why Accenture” is one question which was asked in all the three rounds.


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I was quite relaxed and had prepared well for my HR answers. I had prepared couple of questions on Accenture based on their ppt and website which helped in making conversation a better one.


I had a break between my second and third round due to other interviews. It caused a slight break in the flow although not a major one.

Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

 Go through the website and their campus ppt well  Be prepared with “Why Accenture” answer  Prepare for all the standard HR answers well in advance. It really helps on the final day.



Mohammed Mudassar Accenture Management Consulting Rounds 1,3: Do not know Round 2: HR Round 4 (Telephonic) : Vishwesh Prabhakar, Partner

Round Brief Profile :

4 Rounds Computer Science Engineering, Osmania University, Hyd. 12 months at Google as Corporate Operations Engineer


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Interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

Round 1: Why would a person with a very technical background want to go into consulting? What is the current mobile phone I use? (At the time, I used a Micromax A74) Why has Micromax succeeded? What has it done correctly? What do you understand from Micromax’s recent advertising campaigns? Why has it cast Hugh Jackman? Why is Nokia doing badly? What are the strategic mistakes it has made? Which other industries interest me? (Apart from technology, my answer was Aviation) Why is the aviation industry not profitable? Caselet: How would I approach the situation if Boeing asked me to help their suppliers (HAL) improve their output? What recent major deals in aviation did I know about? How would I be able to handle the pressures and challenges of a consulting career? Round 2: Largely conversational, my experiences and expectations from consulting and whether Accenture would fit me. No clichéd HR questions. Round 3: Guesstimate the size of the Indian Diaper market. Repeating the point about me being too technical for the role.

Narration of the case interview

Round 4: What is Accenture’s current stock price? Is Accenture a public or a private company? Where is Accenture headquartered out of? What is causing deflation in Japan? More questions about the state of the Japanese economy and macroeconomics in general. What should the governor of RBI focus on? Boeing parts:  I was only asked to list the broad areas I’d look at. Listed transportation, supply chain, labour relations, and legal arrangements.


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 Added one or two possible problems under each issue and suggested solutions. Guesstimate(Diapers):  Structured using the number of kids in India using population statistics, the family income, and cost of diaper by guessing the percentage of families who would use diapers.  My initial estimate was $12 billion, way too high, and without him pointing it out, I tried to adjust my various estimates.  He was fairly happy with the structure and did not try to correct the numbers too much. What do you think went  Google on my resume helped. My interviewers looked right in this interview? at that, smiled at me, and probably did not look beyond that on the CV.  In Round 1, the interviewer stated an incorrect fact about the aviation industry and I corrected him. This made me look knowledgeable and he didn’t ask too many factual questions after that.  Also, on the questions involving me being too technical, I took a consistent stance that I like technology and I believe it can be applied through consulting. I felt they were trying to get me to change my stance, but I stuck to it while respecting their point of view. I think this helped.  The spontaneity I was able to show was helpful in turning the interviews in directions I preferred. What do you think went  In the second round, I wasn’t really sure what I had to wrong in this interview? say as I was more prepared for questions than a conversation, I felt I rambled a bit.  In the fourth round, I could plainly not answer many questions on macroeconomics.  The questions I asked were perhaps a bit naïve. Any tips for future batches  In-depth knowledge of one or two sectors is very on the basis of your valuable. experience  Consistency of answers across interviews and your CV makes you look sane.


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Rhythem Pahwa Accenture Management Consulting Round 1 – Senior Manager from Supply Chain Vertical Round 2 – Some HR executive Round 3 – Vikrant; Partner, heads the sustainability practice area


Three rounds


B.Tech from PEC (2010 batch); Prior work experience of about 5 months with Mu Sigma, Bangalore and 26 months with ZS Associates, Gurgaon Round 1: Some basic questions like tell me about yourself, why consulting Discussed one project from Mu Sigma and one from ZS in detail, nature of responsibilities Case on an FMCG giant who was facing a sharp decline in profits. The interviewer did not allow me to use a pen and paper and rather asked to orally discuss the case. I questioned the ins and outs of the business, the industry and other basic qualifiers. The issue was with the supply chain. Gave him recommendations on how to enhance the profits. After this he gave a couple of hypothetical situations pertaining to sales and distribution issues and how I would go ahead. The interview lasted for about 45 mins. Round 2: Tell me something about yourself, typical HR situations (significant achievement, situation where you achieved something significant after overcoming obstacles, etc.), which practice area would you like to work in at AMC, what do you


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know of that practice area, what do you remember of the ppt, what did you like, what is it that you didn’t like. The interview lasted for about half an hour Round 3: This was the Partner round. Some general questions from my work-experience, which practice area would you prefer, why, recent developments in that practice area, a couple of projects from my stint at ZS


He asked me an HR case. A Financial services firm recruits and trains Financial Advisors but for some unknown reason the attrition rate is huge. Investigate why. He just gave me 5 mins to discuss and solve the case with him so had to be really fast with the analysis. After this round he made the offer and I accepted it. Explained above


Spoke enthusiastically, did well in the cases


Couldn’t justify satisfactorily why I wanted a particular practice area

Any tips for future batches Prepare well for HR questions, it helps on the basis of your experience



Sabyasachi Dhar Accenture Management Consulting Principal


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3 Rounds Economics (Hons.) St. Xavier’s College. Worked for 35 months as part of the Essar Group Corporate Risk and Insurance Management Team Round 1: Tell me about yourself (was the only HR question in this round) How did you balance your work/studies with your extracurricular activities? Explain your work experience Questions on work experience like the type of risks associated with vessels or the state of the Insurance industry in India If your previous employer came to accenture for consulting advise, what advice would you give them? Case 1st asked me about how Tata Sumo is doing in India, to which I replied not well at all. Then the problem statement was to help Tata come up with a decision regarding the future of Sumo. Walked him through the value chain and stressed on the cost and value drivers and came up with 3 solutions, to which he seemed impressed and stopped the discussion there Post the case, he asked about the current Economic condition of India and what implications the forthcoming elections and the budget hold. Had a discussion on that for 10 minute and then he asked me if I had any questions. Asked him why Accenture is the only Consulting firm that is publicly listed while the others are privately held? He seemed impressed again and explained the whole idea behind going public. After 10 minutes of discussion, the interview was concluded. Round 2:


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HR round. Asked various questions like tell me something about yourself, why Accenture, why consulting, tell us something that drives you, why did you give up on sports, what convinced you to do an MBA. Also ran through my CV and asked HR related questions regarding the Positions of responsibilities that I held and the extra-curricular activities I took part in. Round 3: Was the final round. Again asked me to introduce myself and in general spoke about what I did in life and what drives me. Also wanted to know what I was passionate about in life. I had a feeling that the objective was to test whether I was passionate about the things I care about. The conversation ended with him asking me whether I would like to choose Accenture Global or Accenture India, to which I replied Accenture Global and linked it to everything else I had spoken to him about. Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible)


The problem statement was to help Tata come up with a decision regarding the future of Sumo. I took a minute off to get the 1st two layers of the structure in place. Then started with the Cost and Value drivers and complemented it with the value chain to figure out where they were going wrong. After looking at every aspect, we came to the conclusion that the Tata Sumo is falling behind due to improper positioning of the vehicle vis-à-vis it competitors and the lack of sheer innovation that the subsequent models have shown. Clarity of thought Structure to answers, especially HR answers Interacting with the Interviewer, asking questions wherever necessary Not fumbling and losing the main chain of thought



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Preparation of HR answers, most essential In a case, look at every aspect possible If you don’t know how to proceed, take time out to think and involve the interviewer as much as possible Don’t jump to conclusions


Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

Stuti Garg AMC -First, Second(telephonic) MNNIT Allahabad, Electrical Engineering Worked at NTPC Ltd. for about two years Round 1: 1) Walk me through your CV. Ans: I started with academics. Elaborated on the special achievements in it. Talked about my stint with NTPC and the projects I did there. He himself asked about various extracurriculars and PORs I mentioned and asked me to elaborate on them. 2) Which project was your personal favourite at NTPC and why? Ans: I spoke about a rural electrification project and told them how I got complete autonomy while executing it. Spoke about other facets like interacting with gram panchayats etc. 3) Do you think Kyoto Protocol is biased? (I conducted a panel discussion in college about carbon emissions control) Ans: Talked about its various clauses, how they are administered and how much say developed nations have in it. Finally giving some examples concluded that isn’t biased. 4) Which are your favourite three books? (I was a member of literary club in college) 5) What did you read most as a kid? Ans: I said Tintin. He too turned out to be a huge tintin fan


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and we went on talking about it for another 10 minutes. 6) If I ask your best friend to describe you in one word, what do you think she’ll say? 7) How is coal paucity hindering our progress? (worked in thermal plant) Ans: I said that we had abundant coal. The problem is in our policies and practices. Elaborated on that. 8) Do you want to ask me anything. Round 2: Was a telephonic round. Three very generic questions were asked. 1) Which was your favourite subject in term 1? 2) What do you do in free time at IIML? 3) How has the journey been so far at IIML? Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible)


1) A burger joint’s profitability is falling despite same sales revenue? Analyse the reasons. 2) ESPN has to bid for an upcoming cricket match series. Give them a reasonable quote. Ans: I asked about the kind of series: test, oneday or IPL. I asked about the match’s location. He replied India to which I asked if India was playing. Enquired about the sponsors, ad revenues etc. Coherence and structure in answers I was very candidly chatting with them which probably worked in my favour

What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

Know your CV really well. Sort things out in your mind before answering. Ask them only relevant questions. Never beat around the bush. Stay calm and composed.



Suraj Serikar Accenture Management Consulting Don’t remember Round 4 (Telephonic) : Vishwesh Prabhakar, Partner


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4 Rounds


Graduated from IIT Madras, 2 years work ex at Olam as a consultant Round 1: Case + HR Interview kicked off by tell me about yourself. Then asked about my PORs at IIT. Gave a case on Olam expansion strategy in between discussion about my work ex. Then some questions about Accenture and HR. Asked if I had any questions for him. Round 2: HR Tell me about yourself? Why Accenture? Why consulting? HR person was interested in my work ex and PORs, asked a plenty of questions on that. Round 3: CV Based + HR Tell me about yourself? Asked how my day was, as my energy levels were bit low at that point of time. I had an entrepreneurial venture at IIT and interviewer was asking questions related to entrepreneurship trends in India and issues faced in my venture, key learnings etc. Interviewer was working in a similar domain of supply chain (Sales and distribution) and we had a discussion on challenges involved in projects. What were my expectations from Accenture and why I prefer it over working for Olam? Round 4 : Telephonic interview- CV Based Was very short interview and partner was quickly running through my CV and asked about my entrepreneurial venture and why it failed?


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Suggest a strategy for Olam to expand in next 2-3 years in coffee commodity business unit? Interviewer was looking for structure and logic in the approach. I walked him through the value chain in coffee business and then focussed on areas in procurement and distribution currently controlled by other parties. Then proposed for forward integration for the product and explained the rationale using some examples of other businesses of Olam. Interviewer appeared to be quite convinced at this stage and he moved on to some specific set of questions in commodities.


I was quick to realise the case presented to me in between conversation and I had asked him time for structuring it. There were no signs of nervousness as I had sat for ample number of interviews before and was very comfortable and confident throughout the process. Was quick to catch cues from interviewer and focused discussion on topics that engaged him. Was cheerful throughout the process.


I was completely exhausted as interviews were scheduled towards end of the day and my energy levels were not high.

Any tips for future batches Be confident, energetic and enjoy the process. on the basis of your experience



Swati Singh Accenture Management Consulting


Four rounds in all

-


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Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Delhi (Mechanical Engineering) 2.5 years’ work ex. with an Indian automobile company (R&D) Round 1: 1) Tell me something about yourself? 2) Work profile? (Some more questions related to it) Most questions after that were supply chain management (SCM) related because I had worked in an automobile company (caught me off-guard since my area of work was research and not production). Some of the questions were 3) Difference between SCM inside the firm and outside the firm 4) How does an automobile firm manage its inventory? 5) What is the difference between centralized and decentralized supply chain? Advantages and Disadvantages of each 6) What are the various ways in which you’ll reduce inventory pile up? Round 2: (HR) 1) Tell me something about yourself 2) How was your experience of working with XYZ Company? 3) Why consulting? Why not join the old firm back? 4) Why Accenture? 5) How do you fit in? 6) What if we are not able to recruit you today? Round 3 : Started with the usual tell me something about yourself. Then he started questioning me on why I want to choose consulting as a field and why I don’t want to work with my old firm again. Then he gave me a guesstimate: Estimate the no of passenger shared auto rickshaws in Lucknow The guesstimate could have been done using multiple approaches so he asked me the different approaches I can use to arrive at the final answer. He also cross questioned me on the assumptions I had made while solving the guesstimate. Round 4:


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The interviewer was also a mechanical engineer so he asked me a lot of questions on SI/CI engines, Torque Speed curve, Knocking etc.


Round 4: Market entry strategy for a Chinese automobile firm


Round 1: I was able to give some work related examples to support my understanding of concepts which I think he really liked Round 2: I was calm and confident throughout Round 3: I logically explained my assumptions without getting perturbed by the interviewer’s cross questioning (even though a few data points actually turned out wrong) Round 4: The case went well as I could cover almost all the areas Round 1: I was not very well prepared to handle SCM related questions. Round 2: Nothing as such Round 3: I should’ve taken more time in solving the guesstimate and not rushed into getting an answer


My approach was to first evaluate whether it is the right environment and time to enter and then move on to how to enter- by utilizing existing capabilities or developing new ones.

Any tips for future batches If you have core manufacturing work-ex, irrespective of the on the basis of your department you were in, be thoroughly prepared with experience operations related questions. Also, be prepared for a few question from your undergraduate stream


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A T Kearney Interview Experience 9

Name: Company:

Naveen Bansal A T Kearney


-


-

PEC, Goldman Sachs Round 11. Tell me something about yourself (was asked the same question multiple times in the process) 2. Your most significant achievement in life 3. Support your hobbies with examples: I mentioned reading novels and was asked about the last novel i read and what did i like the most in the novel Round 2 1. Explain what I did at Goldman Sachs (Job role and responsibilities) 2. One instance where you think team work was most important (linked to work experience) Guesstimate 1: Estimate the demand of ACs in India Case 1: A two wheeler manufacturer, a market leader in the category, has a lot of cash available for investment. The firm is a proprietorship and has an owner. The owner now wants to move to the small car segment. Advise him if he should venture into small car market or not. Case 2: Estimate the demand of Cement in India. - Was asked to devise both top-down and bottom-up approach for estimating the number. Top-Down approach included looking at Macro indicators


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(GDP Per capita and Cement consumption per capita). The Interviewer had all the numbers but he was waiting for me to ask. Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible) What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches Prepare some questions to ask to the interviewer. on the basis of your 1. Stay happy! a smile on your face really works! experience 2. Don't hesitate in asking for time to think. It is perfectly fine! 3. Make HR questions as personal as possible! ( a BIG +) 4. Maintain your stand following the Pcom rules if asked about offer. Ask for some time to think and contact PCom immediately.

Boston Consulting Group Interview Experience 10

Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.)

Aditya Dogra The Boston Consulting Group Rishabh, Project Lead (First Round) Sachin Kotak, Principal (Second Round) Priyanka, Principal (Third Round) Amit Sachdev, Principal (Fourth Round) B.Tech. Civil Engg, IIT Bombay, Work ex – 11 months at Inductis (Analytics)


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Round 1: Brief introduction followed by a case Round 2: No HR questions, went to the case straight away Round 3: Brief introduction followed by a couple of experience based questions, this was followed by a case Round 4: Introduction followed by a guestimate


Round 1: The case was concerning a mobile device manufacturer facing a decline in profits. It had opened new stores through a franchisee recently and started selling products at a lower price. This had affected the equation with the set of old retailers. In addition the margins provided to the retailers by the client weren’t competitive which were causing it to lose sales. Round 2: The interviewer had shaken things up a little by doing away with the conventional over the table discussion and the case was solved on a blackboard. Problem statement was developing a presentation to be made at a round table conference of procurement managers. I started off by laying out the broad structure of the presentation. Later the discussion moved onto coming up with different environmental factors that need to be included which would concern the day to day work of a procurement manager. I bucketed these factors into Political, Economic, Social, Technical and generated ideas for each backing them up with recent events eg. Under economic factors one of the concerns was currency fluctuation which would affect price of procurement and how hedging could mitigate the risk. Round 3: The case was about a pharmaceutical company launching a new vaccine and looking to decide upon a pricing strategy. I listed the 3 factors I would consider to fix the price point - manufacturing and selling costs, pricing of competitive products, value of product to customer. The interviewer directed me to consider the first factor since there were no competing products and the third factor was very qualitative. The problem was then reduced to estimating the size of market, forecasting sales and asking questions to get complete information about the costs involved (R&D, Patents were major costs). Round 4: The case involved estimating the demand for the upcoming Mumbai metro. I proceeded by breaking the problem into three parts – shifting of passengers from


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Mumbai local, shifting of passengers from other modes of public transport, people shifting from private to public transport. I made reasonable assumptions about the % of passengers that would shift from each segment on the basis of the information I had about the metro routes. Post that there was some calculation involved in estimating the size of each segment as frequency multiplied by capacity (separately for peak and non-peak hours).


The interview ended with a good discussion about my work at Inductis on a financial services project as Amit himself had been working in that domain. Picked up the hints given by the interviewer – in my first round, after laying down the approach I was going in a different direction. At that point I picked up a hint from the interviewer’s expressions and took a step back to then move in the right direction. 2 of my interviews had lots of calculation involved which I was able to handle extremely well.


With a new format and a very unconventional case in the 2nd round it took a little time to adjust and for a while I wasn’t giving the kind of ideas the interviewer was looking for.


Extremely important to stay calm and confident throughout the interview and have a good discussion with the interviewer.



Chinmaya Golecha The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Amit Sachdeva, Principal


One round


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Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.)

Worked at Deutsche Bank Centre as a part of the TMT team in London (11 months) B.Com (H) from SRCC CA Inter


Round 1: 15 minutes - Quick chat about the CV, some relevant interest areas around my work-ex and some PoR’s. 25 minutes - Case around Computers/Laptops manufacturer’s service revenue increase. Round 2: n/a


Round 3: n/a Case overview: There is a computers/laptop manufacturer, global leader, with two revenue streams – Primary selling of products Service revenues from maintenance, repair and replacement parts Global average split is 75%-25% respectively but India split is 95%-5% Problem Statement: To increase revenue stream from services in India Case Approach: 1) Background questions: Inquired about the supply chain. What services are offered, how they are offered, who offers them. Discovered that problem area was sale of replacement parts and the services entailed therein Discovered that the company follows a hub-and-spoke model, ie: one central distributor in the country who gives spare parts to all retail stores (100% franchisee system) 2) Approach: Decided to approach the problem using the most basic Revenue breakdown = Volume x Price If we can find why revenue is down either because of Volume or Price than we can find the issue.


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I felt, prima facie, that the problem lay in Price (as my understanding is for a replacement part, I would get something cheap rather than go the actual store after warranty and overpay). However, I was told that the price offered outside the stores was 20% higher than the in-store price. The Problem statement thus became: Why are people not buying replacement parts from us even if they are cheaper? To drill into this, I decided to get into the shoes of a consumer. The various problems (logical flow, thus MECE) could be: Do I have access to a store? Do they have parts? Do they have good staff (technicians that can help etc)? Turnaround time? Other service elements? I dived into each bucket to find that the problem lay in spare parts after spending considerable time on good staff and access. (I established that distribution/reach was good so people did not find it inconvenient to visit our stores as well as we had skilled help that could effectively and quickly solve consumer problems) Re-visited the supply chain to figure out where the problem was with spare parts. Discovered that the hub sent them to the stores but still the stores did not have inventory. Spent time analysing the inventory situation using the interviewers help. Discovered that each store had an individual P/L and were giving the inventory to other people (who were in turn selling it at a 20% markup) and taking a cut!


Recommendations: Establish Inventory issue norms, and ensure random checking of inventory at stores. Very Interactive – Interviewer was very involved in the case Picked up all the hints dropped – the interviewer lit up when we spoke about black market selling of the replacement parts


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Nothing majorly, Missed a couple of things where the interviewer had to prod me along in the right direction

Any tips for future batches Enjoy the interview! It is actually great fun, and if the on the basis of your interviewer realises you’re enjoying it, it acts as a huge positive! experience

Deloitte Interview Experience 12

Name:

Abhinandan Pandey

Company:

Deloitte

Name of interviewer and designation Round (First/Second/third)

1st Round : HR 2nd Round : Case based 3rd round : Case based + presentation round


Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering Ericsson India Global Services Pvt. Ltd. – 35 months Round 1: Questions on hypothesis testing (I had mentioned QAM as my subject of interest) Why consulting, Why Deloitte, Asked me to sing as I looked nervous in the beginning of the interview, How your analytical skills will help in consulting. Round 2: It was a case based round. A case was provided which dealt with the sources of revenues and profit and the various advertisement mediums to be reckoned for the summer Olympics in 2015. It was a calculation intensive case, so it involved simple calculations for which the interviewer gave some time. Went for around 40 minutes Round 3: The case which was discussed in Round 2 had to be presented to a senior partner. What followed was an in-depth


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discussion on the same case and another case. This round lasted for around 30 minutes. Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible)



Summer Olympics will take place in 2015. Our customers are conducting the event. What are the major sources of revenues for them? Major sources of profit? What are the costs involved? How will you price the tickets to earn so and so amount of profit? How will you make a team. How will you prioritize the tasks? I was confident and bold enough to think on my feet. The interviewers seemed more interested in how one approaches a problem. They were complicating the problem as I got deeper into it. The key is to consider all possible aspects and quickly chose the best possible alternative as a part of the questions which were asked. Might sound like a cliché, Thinking out Loud helps a lot! I fumbled in 2 instances. There are times when the answers just don’t strike! But keep your calm, keep thinking as there is always a next question and there is always a better way to answer the next question!




Anmol Mahajan Deloitte US S&O Senior Manager


3 Rounds


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B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Comm. Engg. from IIT Kharagpur (2010). Worked for three years as R&D Design Engineer at Analog Devices, Bangalore


Round 1: In this round, I was asked some basic HR questions like, Tell me about yourself? Why did you choose consulting as a career? Why Deloitte? Long term goals? Questions regarding my prior work experience and my role and scope in R&D. Then the interviewer introduced himself and we briefly talked about his role at Deloitte for some time where he answered some of my questions on his career. He asked me if I had any questions regarding Deloitte as a firm. I responded with a question to which he gave a detailed response. No guesstimates or case questions were asked in this round and it primarily focused on HR questions and clarity about my long term goals. This was an elimination round and some of the candidates were eliminated after this round. Round 2: Case based round with two Senior Managers Round 3: Synthesis presentation round with two senior managers.


Round 2: Round 2 was with two Senior Managers from Deloitte. There were a few HR questions primarily based on why consulting as a career. Then the interviewer told me that this is a case round and if analysis is done right I would be expected to come up with apt recommendations for the client. The client is an automobile firm with an annual turnover of around $10b. Our client has a parts supplier which has an annual business of around $400m (90% of their total business was done with our client). On one day, our client company’s CEO gets a call from their supplier that due to financial troubles, they are going to shut down operations from next month onwards. The case was about recommending solutions to our client in this scenario.


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I started by asking questions regarding the business model of the automobile client, their other suppliers, current inventory of parts with our clients and when will they exhaust it, environmental factors like geographies they operate in, availability of substitute suppliers in these geographies. From the responses to such questions it became clear that a solution was to found with their current supplier itself. So I started asking them questions regarding the details of financial problems the supplier was facing. Upon few of such questions I was given a data sheet with 5 to 6 tables detailing the various factors like direct costs, overheads, expenses, number of units sold, unit price, environmental factors like industry comparison of costs, labour unions etc. at each of their three plants. After this, the discussion was more quantitative in nature with me calculating present profits/loss for each of the plants, suggestions for cost reduction based on industry comparisons etc. These questions primarily focused on the ability to understand the data given in various tables and link them with each other and come up with tangible parameters through some number crunching. Once this analysis was done, he administered another angle by giving an option to our client to invest $10mn in the supplier’s firm in return of advancement of technology which would lead to reduction in prime cost. He asked me if our client should make this investment. I asked further questions on time factor as to if we invest now how far from now would we see reduction in costs. He said we would analyse two situations one where the returns are immediate and the other where the reduction in costs is earned three years down the line. For the current scenario, since I had already calculated the profitability/loss of each of supplier’s plant, it was easier to calculate the benefits of the investments. For long term analysis, I answered that we would have to look into NPV of our investment with discount factor depending on many risk factors. We briefly discussed about what could be the risk factors given the data in the data sheet. On this he was happy and said that I would have to present the synthesis of the case in the third round. Round 3: The third round was act based with a senior manager acting as a client. I briefly gave the synthesis of the case with my The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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recommendations. This was followed by a few counter questions asked by senior manager (acting as a client) which I answered briefly. Once they were satisfied with my answers, we went back to normal mode where few questions regarding the expectations from the internship, expected learnings, etc. were discussed.


- Preparation of HR answers and knowledge about Deloitte and the role on offer - Ability to perform basic calculations at a good pace - Exploring various avenues of solving the case and giving logical pros and cons of each

What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience Interview Experience 14


N Susheel Kumar Reddy Deloitte US S&O Rd1,2 - Senior Manager Rd 3- Partner


3 Rounds


Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras Work in Caterpillar – 35 months, operations


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Round 1: Tried to unsettle by saying you are in the wrong room, and I worked for your company so expect really tough questions Why consulting and why deloitte? Few questions from work, and then extracurriculars. Guesstimate on stadium gate receipts for Indian Hockey league? No.of matches played, no.of seats in each stadium, occupancy rate, etc. were calculated What are your long term goals? Round 2: Case on a firm which has 3 plants and is making huge losses. Data sheet is given with details of cost and productivity of all 3 plants. We decided to look into the costs being incurred, split the cost into 3 buckets – Wages, Material and overhead costs. Material had no scope of cost reduction, Wages – we identified in plant 3 the no.of salaried were more than hourly hence more cost. Similarly in overheads – Plant 3 has too much inventory holding cost. So we decided to reduce these costs, but even reducing these didn’t turn a profit so we decided to shut plant 3 and move the production to plant 1 and plant 2 Later I gave suggestions on how to raise cash for increasing the production in the other 2 plants – Money by selling plant 3, Loan or money from market Later did profit analysis to prove the investment is giving good profit Round 3: Had to present the case I did in Round 2 to the partner – he was acting as the client whose case we took up and solved. Drew the tree structure and explained him how we went about each and every bucket before identifying root causes. Possible solutions for root causes and suggestions to improve. The partner kept asking many questions, not agreeing to most. He was only satisfied when the arguments made were based on numbers. Later he asked basic HR questions like, what field of consulting would I choose? Why deloitte? Etc.


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Mentioned Above

What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

KPMG Interview Experience 15


Prince Arora KPMG Advisory Services 2 interviewers over a video call. Do not recall their name and designation


Only One Round


Fresher, Dual Degree IIT Madras [8 pointer] Member of The Consulting & Strategy Club Round 1: Tell us about yourself. Questions on Business Current Affairs, leaders. Why KPMG? Who all are its competitors? What are its business lines? A few questions on FRA acronyms and their importance (like EBITDA)


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Estimate the market size of Biscuit Industry in India. It was a guesstimate. They gave me some time to work out the solution but I made some quick assumptions and took them through my thinking process. I solved the case from supply side. Then once I was done, I asked if I should solve it from the demand side as well. The interviewers asked me to elaborate upon the way I’ll go about it. Came up with a ball park figure.


The guesstimate and the level of enthusiasm shown towards solving it. I think they were looking for the right approach and not the correctness of the final figure.


I messes up a little on the company specific questions. Do go through the Company RG before you enter the interview.

Any tips for future batches Stay confident. They seem to like people who are confident on the basis of your about what they speak. If you don’t know an answer, tell it to experience them politely.

McKinsey & Co Interview Experience 16


Abhishek Gupta Mckinsey & Co. Involved an Associate Partner (Pradeep), Partner (Navtez)


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All NSIT (2011 Passout) 18 months in J.P. Morgan and 5 months in Reliance Capital Round 1: Short tell me about yourself. Then one guesstimate and then a case discussion Round 2: Tell me about yourself. HR question on leadership qualities and instance related to that. Case discussion. Round 3: Purely HR with partner, asked questions on why not finance, why consulting, why Mckinsey?


After each round you will be asked if you have any questions for the interviewer, if you have some good questions then do ask, but do not ask for just for the sake of asking. Round 1: Guesstimate: Value of a bulb with infinite life (involved basic DCF calculation, evaluation of expenditure you might do in case of a normal bulb). Case: Problems that a truck association might be facing in getting truck drivers (possible problems and solutions for those). Be innovative as possible. Although I didn’t reach the exact problem in the end (only got to know this after the interview from a friend), but explored quite a few areas to get through to the second round. The interviewer was very silent and unresponsive, you just had to carry on with the case on your own. A solution to the truck problem was that the people got AIDS as they went at different places, and then they had problems getting married. Second was that there were health problems, due to them eating food at different places and uncomfortable seats, no proper place to sleep. Round 2: Case: Why a shipping company is going in loss. Evaluate the possible problems and suggest solutions. Suggesting solutions to every case in the end will be required and this is where one’s idea generation will be tested. Also involved testing of quant skills, specifically math calculation required (basic but one can panic under pressure).


Being calm and confident, thinking on the feet really helps. I had already gone through a fair set of interviews before, so wasn’t nervous at all. While you would have done an umpteen


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number of cases before hand, but every case will be new and will require you to go to different breadth and depths. While case solving remains a very important part, they also test you on your HR skills. The second round was the deciding factor, after which directly there was a partner round. In the end managed to convert the call. Finally, it was very important to smile over the course of interview which lasted 30-45 mins To be frank, I think everything went right for me in this process. Although I did miss out the exact cause of the problem in the first round but wasn’t so much a big deal. The way you structure your thoughts is more important. To me case solving had much more importance in the course of the interview, but HR answers shouldn’t be ignored for sure. Make sure you are properly dressed. You get evaluated on every aspect.


Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation Round Interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

Anonymous Mckinsey and Company Rounds 1,2: Case Study Round 3: HR 3 Rounds Round 1: 1.) Tell me something about yourself? 2.) Convince me to sell my company even when it is doing very well in the market. Round 2: 1.) Case study on Indian Telecom sector Round 3: 1.) McK vs BCG question 2.) 5 ways India can win 5 Gold medals in upcoming olympics


Case 1: Selling the Company  Started by giving financial benefits of selling the company.  Gave implications on entrepreneurship front, brought views surrounding family society


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What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview?


Case 2: Indian Telecom Sector  Case was about increasing revenues from Mobile apps.  Started with geographical expansion of the company service by looking at various strategies (M&A, Alliances, Joint venture etc).  Went ahead and looked at companies promotional strategies, delved into customer segmentation for better targeting.  At last suggested some modifications in apps to make it more users friendly and appropriate for smart phone users.  Case went well, Interviewers were happy in both the cases about the approach I took.  Were happy about my past work ex  I could have better put recommendations in cases  Could have brought more practical examples during my HR answers  Engagement with partner could have been better.  Keep Structured approach throughout interviews  Consistency within answers is important  Be confident and calm on D-Day.



Aviral Srivastava McKinsey Vikas Bhadoria, Partner Shivanshu, Principal Mukund Sridhar, Associate Partner (Not sure)

Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.)

B.Tech Mechanical Engineering from IIT(BHU), Varanasi. One year work-ex as Analyst in Inductis, Gurgaon (Analytics consulting).


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Round 1: Tell me something about yourself not in your resume. (I talked about how being a good student in school opened up avenues in leadership and extra-curriculars and shaped the person I am). Turning points in my life that shaped me. Regrets in life. A short description about my work at Inductis. And then case. Round 2: A very brief tell me about yourself. How did your previous interview go according to you? Couple of things about my interests in meditation. And then case. Round 3: I was ushered in within 5-10 minutes of my previous interview. Mckinsey had made us fill a subjective sheet during out Aptitude test. Mukund had access to the sheet. He asked about a regret I had written: My CGPA in college. He asked if I had any questions about Mckinsey and my company priorities. A little chitchat and that’s all. This round hardly lasted 5 minutes.


Round 1: Vikas brought in the case decisively (not as a gradual flow in conversation): “My friend owns a standalone cinema theatre in Mumbai. Profits and revenue taking a hit. What should I do?” I started the case with the usual qualifiers (since when, what has changed, industry, competition, type of movies, location etc). I made a structure but he sounded disinterested. Kept throwing me off my game with vague disinterested hints. None of my directions seemed to appeal to him. I persisted. Took some timeouts to rethink approaches. Came up with 3-4 approaches before we went into one. Then he asked me to ideate. Round 2: I am a shipping company. And my profits slipping. Give an exhaustive list of things you will evaluate. I did reasonably well. I missed the factor of fuel and he pointed it out. New scenario: cost in fuel changed drastically 3 years ago. What will be your current profit/ loss if the fuel cost hadn’t changed? Sounds simple and it was. I kept looking for a trap and started number crunching only after a minute. The moment I got the number, he seemed satisfied. He asked me to give recommendations. And I took a 20 sec pause to structure


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recommendations instead of hurtling them all out. The interview ended here, on a much more positive note compared to the first one.



I was calm across interviews and somehow managed to leave the stress at the door before all rounds. I received positive feedback regarding this later on. Round 1: My HR answers were interesting, passionate, structured but natural. I never gave up during the case and persisted despite several setbacks. I didn’t mind starting from scratch repeatedly. My idea-gen was adequate. Round 2: I gave an honest and humble feedback about round 1 when asked. Initial structure during case was ok (I missed fuel, but he pointed it out). Most importantly, I could crack the math in the case in my first attempt (it was quite simple really, but turns out, many silly mistakes were made during the day). I managed to structure my recommendations as well and generate several relevant ideas. Round 3: Frank genuine answers about my academics and work experience. He asked about people at my previous company, expectations from Mckinsey etc. Round 1: I didn’t think my case went all that great, as the interviewer looked disinterested throughout and kept redirecting me. Halfway through the case, I realised that cracking the case was out of the question. I came out of the interview apprehensive but luckily was ushered into round 2 before I could dwell on it. Round 2: I entered the interview unsure, given my performance in the first interview. I kept trying to give subjective solutions and state assumptions when all the interviewer wanted was simple math. I kept thinking the case can’t just be simple maths, but initially it was! Round 3: I was mentally prepared for a case but there was none.


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Any tips for future batches Prepare on your CV. You need to have recall value in the eyes on the basis of your of the interviewer. Structure HR answers. But they will sound experience natural only after practice. It helps if you have 2-3 USPs in your mind. For example, I had quizzing, meditation and a childhood abroad. Never give up in a case. Keep your cool as people get unsure of simple math during cases and literally end up doing written calculation where mental should have sufficed. Don’t read too much into the interviewer’s body language (unless he’s giving you hints during a case). Take pauses during cases but don’t let the silence get heavy. Each interviewer may ask you at the end if you want to ask him something about the company. Don’t do DCP. Ask him genuine questions that you think that a person of his stature and experience can answer better than a younger employee at the firm. Do not judge your own performance in the interview. You will never know what the interviewer is thinking. You might have been given a tough case just to see your response.



Ishani Roychowdhury McKinsey & Co. Round 1: Gunjan (Partner) Round 2: Vikas (Partner) Round 3: Navtez (Partner)


Three rounds in total (third round was purely HR) Economics Honours from St. Stephen’s College, 21 months of work experience at Bain Capability Center (BCC) Round 1: Tell me about yourself, followed by related questions on my answer, why consulting. Next 15 minutes was a case. Ended with a brief discussion about the Partner’s consulting career so far.


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Round 2: Follow-up question on an answer that I had written in the HR form filled a week earlier. This was followed by questions on my work experience and how the BCC model works. This was followed by two quick cases. Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible)

Round 3: Pure HR round Round 1: This was the first case of the day for the Partner and we spent 12-15 minutes on HR at the beginning. She asked me about myself which I had prepared well. That led to questions around my career decisions, a bit about my work experience and society work at undergrad college. This was followed by the case. She gave me two choices and asked me to pick one. I chose the IT case. Case statement: I run a software company which sells accounting software in India. Before launching accounting software, I had hired a market research firm who estimated the market at Rs.XY (some figure). However, in spite of having a share of 45%, we have not been able to penetrate the market any further. The idea was to start with exhaustive qualifying questions that covered competition, region of operation, industry dynamics. I figured that the problem did not lie in the company per se, but in their target customers. They focused mostly on the SMEs who used traditional accounting books rather than accounting software. I was also abruptly stopped in between, after which I quickly synthesized and gave in my recommendations. My recommendations were around creating awareness to migrate more people to online accounting applications She asked me if I had any questions for her. I asked her a question which extended the discussion for 5-7 more minutes. Round 2: 2-3 questions on the HR form submitted earlier. This was followed by a detailed discussion about my work experience, some case examples from my previous work, the BCC model and how it works and why consulting. Case statement: My friend owns a single theatre in a metro city, has been losing profits steadily. Suggest ways to improve his profitability.


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The case was about generating options and the Partner kept insisting on more suggestions. I looked at the revenue and the cost side separately, divided them into short term and long term plans, and tried to logically structure my suggestions. For the revenue side, I had gone by the customer purchase process approach to ensure nothing is missed. This was followed by a second case which was a guesstimate: Another friend of mine wants to sell tennis balls in India. Estimate the demand. The approach was usual, starting with sources of demand and estimating it using population. Finally, he asked me if I had any question for him. I had a question and the discussion went on for 5 more minutes.



Round 3: This was the most interesting interview experience of all. I was told it was like a hygiene test before I went in, and I was relaxed yet energetic. The partner looked at my HR form and asked me similar questions, as in my previous interview. The discussion touched upon various topics- mostly around my work experience, family, school life and career decisions (it was like a friendly chat after sometime and I had much to talk about). He also asked me why I would want to join McKinsey. At the end, he said it was a good discussion, that he thought I am fit for consulting and felt no need to give me a case. In all the rounds, I was energetic, smiling and engaging. The HR questions were extremely crucial which I thought went well. About the cases, I had thought my first round case wasn’t great- it was my first case of the day and I couldn’t tell whether she was happy with my recommendations. However, later I heard from others that she was actually happy about it. The second round cases went well- I managed to generate as many options as he wanted, and did not give up. In fact, I went into lot of details on the guesstimate and he stopped me in between to ask for the final answer. Nothing major, I guess. The idea is not to ‘solve’ the case, but to display your structure and your method of thinking and to engage the interviewer throughout. Be calm and enthusiastic throughout. Carry yourself with confidence and smile- that reduces the nervousness too. Prepare your ‘about me’ well because that feeds into the discussion that follows. Also, the questions on ‘why


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consulting’ and ‘why McKinsey’ are common. Further, it’s very important to structure your HR answers too. Interview Experience 20

Name:

Mashantha Viswanathan

Company:

McKinsey


Mr. Anil Sikka – Senior Specialist Ms. Gunjan Soni – Partner/Senior Partner Ms. Aayushi – Engagement Manager Ms. Aayushi - first Mr. Anil Sikka – second Ms. Gunjan Soni - third


B.Com (Professional); St. Francis College for Women, Hyderabad, Analyst at Ernst and Young Hyderabad for 11 months in the Advisory service line Round 1: HR – Tell me about yourself, one wild/fun thing I had done. Guesstimate – If I needed to increase the prevalence (usage) of contraceptives in India by 20%, what sort of a number would I be looking at? Round 2: HR - Tell me about yourself, Working individually vis-à-vis working with teams, how have I dealt with people taking credit for work that I do. Guesstimate – As head of a publishing house, I was asked to estimate the readership for a book that I wanted to publish

Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible) What do you think went right in this interview?

Round 3: HR - Tell me about yourself. A retail chain wanting to enter India; how would I go about it? Variables and KPIs that I would look at. Followed a value-chain centric approach; was asked specific questions at each stage such as the kind of metrics I would look at. 1) Was confident and comfortable; felt more like a conversation rather than an interview (especially the second and third rounds) 2) After a point, we were discussing the solution for the case together (happened in the first round)


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1) Was initially nervous and I guess it showed in my first round 2) Could have been more targeted with my questions 1) Don’t get flustered; keeping your cool is very important 2) Try to approach it like you’re going to meet a new person rather than you’re going to face the most important interview in your life; it helps in being yourself => More confidence => Best performance




Pratik Goyal McKinsey & Co. Suhail (Associate Partner) Naftez (Partner) Vikash (Partner) Total 3 Rounds Interviewers names in order St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata Chartered Accountancy Inter Fresher

Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Interview questions Round 1: 3 structural approaches to solve the problem “ India (With indicative answers should win 5 gold medals in 2020 olympics” if you choose to share them) Round 2: About yourself not in the CV? Why consulting? An estimate of the total number of glucometers sold in India in a year. Round 3: A cinema hall whose profits are falling - Problem finding and Recommendations. An approach to estimate the revenue of the cinema hall and the cost was also asked. My leadership roles and why no POR in IIML? My entrepreneurial venture and the business logic behind it? Why not Finance as a career choice? Narration of the case interview (Please be as descriptive as possible) The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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The HR part went very well The idea generation was very important and the initial two levels in the structuring which should have incorporated a MECE. The ability to communicate what I was thinking was very important in the cases. The nervousness was very high and so required a little time in idea generation in the first round but kept talking to the interviewer so that dint leave much gap and made up for the nervousness. Generally the interviews are targeted to test the idea generation ability, comfort level with numbers and the problem solving ability which form the main work of consultants. In the softer aspects the HR answers are very very important. Knowing the CV is very important and should be a reason for why u did what u have, and it will generally be a part of all interview rounds.


Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.)

Shreya Sachdev McKinsey and Co. R1- Shivanshu (Partner) R2- Vikas (Partner) R3- Gunjan (Partner) R4- Navtez (Partner) Round 2

B.A. (Hons) English- Lady Shri Ram College for WomenFresher


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All three interviews revolved around my educational background (I’m the rare breed of Literature students that occasionally crop up here) and how that fit in with IIM Lucknow and Consulting. I was also asked about my internship with a Fashion House and my motivation behind taking it up. Finally I got asked about my expectations from a Consulting job. The interviews ended with me asking each of the partners questions. Shivanshu was working on a data- heavy project so I asked him about how he dealt with the more mundane aspects of Consulting. I had a prior interaction with Vikas at the McKinsey dinner and I continued with the same discussion regarding Entrepreneurship opportunities at McKinsey. Gunjan and me spoke about opportunities for women at McKinsey and the initiative she had started regarding the same. Navtez was working on a case in the same sector that my father works in, so we discussed the current challenges faced by that sector.


“My friend runs a standalone theatre in the heart of Mumbai, but has recently been witnessing declining profits.” I initially structured it into a regular profit and loss case, but after the first 4-5 minutes (possibly because he gathered that I had no problem structuring the case) he jumped directly to recommendations. The rest of my case focused solely on me shooting options as to how he could possibly increase his profits. The suggestions included the obvious ones such as price of tickets, show timings, staff requirements etc, and then we went on to other areas such as the Food and Beverages counter, Parking and so on. At that point, after we had exhausted all avenues he asked me to come up with out-of-the-box solutions, and we spent the rest of the interview solely on idea generation.


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I was smiling and confident throughout the interview even though I was convinced that I had quite possibly tanked the case interview before this. I could bring myself to look outside my structure and give him solutions over and above the ones


I didn’t ask for numbers, possibly because numbers were where I had messed up in the last case. If I had gotten over the phobia in time the case solutions I presented would have had more of an impact.

Any tips for future batches Reading the cues and expressions of the interviewer always on the basis of your help. experience Apart from that don’t make the mistake of getting trapped by your structures because McKinsey partners usually tend towards unorthodox case interviews.

Summer Internship Experiences 2012 Boston Consulting Group Interview Experience 1 Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation

Mohit Agarwal Boston Consulting Group Navneet Vashisht, Partner

Round

3 Rounds

Brief Profile

Chartered Accountant, Graduate from SRCC; Prior work experience -22 months as Associate in BMR (tax consultant) and Ernst & Young (Transaction Advisory Services)


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Interview questions

Round 1: Some basic questions like Why consulting and why BCG. Case on acquisition strategy of a large Indian conglomerate looking for diversifying into IT services. I took a complete background check with regard to the motivation behind diversifying into IT sector. Also, what kind of IT businesses it wanted to diversify. The interviewer suggested that they want to achieve revenue of USD 5Bn from current USD 4Bn. Also, they want a margin of 12-15% from this new business. Also, the major consumer of IT services are Europe and US. So, I divided the problem into two parts – 1. Whether IT business would serve them the purpose for achieving desired revenue. 2. If yes, then what would be the strategy for entering into IT services? I started off with the projected revenue estimates for all types of IT services. However, the interviewer changed the problem statement (due to paucity of time I suppose). He asked what would be the basis for selecting companies from an acquisition standpoint from an initial pool of companies across the globe. I came up with two matrix table wherein I stated what the Indian conglomerate wants from the acquisition (ie Need) and what it can offer to the target company (ie want of target) and tried to match it. The interviewer informed that the Indian conglomerate was cash rich company, stands on its values and has strong client relationship with manufacturing sectors / vendors. So I started linking all of them –  funding – requirement for cash strapped companies  Reputation – It can offer brand value to companies not well known


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 Client relation to leverage – Companies not present in manufacturing IT services. Also, during discussion, I linked the problem practically to how Mahindra went on to acquire Satyam and what factors it looked before bidding. I think the interviewer was impressed with the linking to case to practical situation. However, I think the interview did not go so well. However, I knew I would be given another chance to perform. The interview ended on brief chat with Hindi literature on poetry and short stories. Round 2: The interview was taken by Principal in BCG. Problem Statement – An Indian Cement market share is declining. MA: Define market share? Interviewer: Market share is defined by quantity and sales value. MA: There could be 3 possible scenarios: Market stagnant, we are losing out to competitors; Market growing but we are not growing as fast as market; market shrinking but we are losing more than our competitors. Interviewer: Second scenario MA: Major customers Interviewer: Real estate companies After a brief background question, I started off with the problem analysis. I broke the problem into Demand and Supply side. Under demand side, I mapped the consumer behaviour analysis of buyer and brought out several points. However, the interviewer was interested in delving into supply side. Anyways, he told me to analyze demand side. Based on our discussion, we realized that pricing and timely delivery was an issue. Pricing is based on cost plus pricing. Cost includes transportation cost which was significantly The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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higher than industry standards. High transportation cost stems from the fact that the factory was located far away from the market. Also, acquisition of lime stone has been a challenge for the company. I think the interviewer was impressed from the fact that the problem was solved from the demand side. Also, I quickly suggested 2 solutions to the problem:  Short term – Reduce prices and take a hit on profit to regain market share  Medium term – Follow hub and spoke model to reduce delay in delivery time  Long term – Acquire a source (may be mine or long term supplier) for lime stone The interview ended with HR questions as to – why MBA after CA, why consulting, why BCG and why not industry after CA. Round 3: The third round was a very brief round. The problem statement was – Whether Uninor bid for the next spectrum auction? I took background questions regarding in which circle it operates and its vision in India. I suggested that I would do a Net Present Value analysis and would bench mark against return expected by Norway Head Office. We went into revenue stream like voice and data. Cost included operating, spectrum, license fee etc. He seemed to be satisfied with the response. Also, he asked me why AT&T is not bidding for the spectrum. I explained that Uninor has invested time, effort in understanding Indian market which AT&T has not. I drew learning curve of both Uninor and AT&T. He seemed impressed. Narration of the case interview

At this stage, the Partner made an offer and I accepted it. Explained above


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I think structured approach to the problem and able to articulate it well went right in the interview. Also, I linked the problem to practical situation which helped me in cracking the case.


I was nervous in my first interview; hence initially I went in haywire manner. However, I was told that one needs to perform in 2 out of 3 interviews to get through. I did well in my second interview and hence moved to third round. So in case, you do not do well in one of the interview, it should not matter. It’s important to think clearly and structurally.


1. Be calm and composed. Even if one interview does not go well, one would have another chance to perform 2. Take good background questions to understand the problem. Dissect the problem and then approach 3. Structured thinking is very important. Also, explain briefly the broad bucket in the structure. 4. All suggestions should have some basis based on the inputs taken during t he interview. 5. Thorough CV and HR preparation are hygiene factors. 6. Always smile!

Interview Experience 2 Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation

Shraddha Gupta Boston Consulting Group Rahul Jain, Partner ( First Round) Seema (Second Round)

Brief Profile

Economics Honours, St. Stephen’s College No Work Ex Round 1: What drives you to do well at academics?

Interview questions

A truck company has just entered India. They want you to design a financing strategy for them. Basically they want to ensure that people who want to buy their trucks will have access to financing. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Round 2: The government wants to redesign the way it supplies vaccines to rural areas. What parts of the supply chain will you outsource? Round 3: NA Narration of the case interview


The partner started off by asking me about academics (I had a really high CGPA that time) and I asked him a bit about how he was also one of the top rankers in his time at Lucknow (he’d mentioned this at the BCG dinner earlier). He then gave me the case question. I started by focussing on the different factors that were important for a person to get loans from banks (like creditworthiness, availability etc.) He said the structure was fine but he wanted me to focus more on the link between financing and the truck purchase. So I figured out that I needed to understand their target customers better. We discussed that for a while. It turned out that there were two kinds of customers (forming 50% of the total each) One was large fleet owners who bought lots of trucks together and had no trouble with financing. The others were smaller ‘players’. They took a loan from a local moneylender and used the purchased truck as collateral. So I suggested we focus on the smaller guys (because they did not have access to traditional financing) and try to get the moneylenders to promote our trucks. He then drew a couple of graphs and asked me to figure out what kind of monetary compensation we could offer the moneylender. The case was really different from the ones I had done earlier so I really enjoyed it. It didn’t really feel like a case interview at all, felt more like a discussion. I was able to pick up the clues well.


Can’t think of anything.


Try to have fun. Don’t fret too much about how many cases you have practiced.

Interview Experience 3 The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Wamika Mimani Boston Consulting Group Navneet (Partner)

Round

First

Brief Profile

St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata; B.Com Honours, CA Inter, Fresher He asked me for a quick introduction. We spoke briefly about IIM Lucknow and then he straight off headed to tell me about the interview pattern. He told me that we’d do a case and then move on to discuss any questions I had about the company.

Interview questions



The case was about an Indian conglomerate entering the IT space. I was asked to prepare a detailed market entry strategy at the start. When I outlined that he could opt for a JV, an acquisition or an own set-up, he asked me to probe further into the JV idea. From there on, the case was about identifying specific metrics to ascertain the best JV route. It was a very spontaneous case discussion, and we covered a variety of opportunities, problems and solutions in and around the original problem statement. I kept my cool. At one point, I realised that he was not getting the specific reply he wanted. Instead of panicking, I asked for a minute, took a step back and reworked the problem successfully. What worked most was the level of engagement with the interviewer. Post the case, we had an excellent dialogue about the sector in which he was working on a case.


I rushed to give a particular answer in the case, which was absolutely unnecessary. It was crucial that I didn’t get nervous after that.


Keep high energy through the interview. Feel confident and remember that, at the end of the day, an interview should most importantly be a good conversation.

Round Name of interviewer and designation

Second Vikram (Principal)


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Interview questions

He asked me to talk about the past 8-10 years of my life briefly. He told me that he’ll administer a case, and that he didn’t expect me to solve the case. He clearly told me that he was testing me on my approach and the questions I asked.


The case was about a cement company losing market share. It has set up new plants too. There was some amount of data to play with and a lot of technical jargon (which I suspect was to just throw me off track!)


I structured the problem in a very detailed manner. I asked relevant questions and took my time. I also got lucky that intuitively I managed to find the root cause of the problem, though it wasn’t expected out of the case. The rapport with the interviewer was good during and after the case.


Nothing really, I was quite happy with how the interview went.


Look happy, it rubs off on to the interviewer as well! It’s important to practice ample cases so that you’re confident with your problem solving.

McKinsey & Co Interview Experience 4 Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation

ANURADHA TYAGI McKinsey & Co Round 1: Pradeep (Principal) Round 2: Navtez (Partner) Round 3: Mandar (Partner)

Brief Profile

Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University, Economics (Hons), Analyst in the Advisory Practice at Ernst & Young


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Interview questions

Round 1: Apply Econometrics and other Economics concepts to define the distribution of ticket price between Lufthansa & United Airways if a passenger pays INR 50,000 to fly the route Delhi-Frankfurt-New York. (Lufthansa takes the passenger till Frankfurt and United Airways from Frankfurt till NY) Ans : Bargaining power, occupancy ratios, original ticket costs for standalone routes-Range for Lufthansa is INR (15,000-30,000) & Range for United Airways is INR (35,000-45,000) Round 2: Presentation to the industry about projections of supply & demand of Oil & Natural Gas in India by 2025. Explain all parameters involved in the projections Ans: No clear-cut answer in this case. Was tested on general understanding and ability to tap as many levers as possible Round 3: You seem to be inclined towards Theatre. Let us try and understand the functioning of Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon-its profitability and possible recommendations if any


Ans: Again, case involved numbers and exploring several factors. I don’t remember the exact answer but the revenues came to approximately 5 crores annually, not too sure. All three cases stemmed from casual conversations with the respective people. The first one started with talk about my favourite subjects within Economics, the second was after I was asked about my background (my father works with RIL) & the third was when my interest in theatre was questioned. Hence, the point I am trying to make is that please be clear about what you speak because your case can be an off-shoot of the conversation. CASE 1: My questions resulted in me getting details about the occupancy ratios of the two airlines, competitor airlines, routes travelled by both the airlines, preference of passengers etc. The right questions and numbers helped me clarify relevant points & discuss some economics concepts which the interviewer wanted to see.


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CASE 2: I was not given any data or prior information and hence had to make assumptions and clarify my logic at each stage. Started with 3 scenarios-worst, expected & good. Went on to explain why demand in this industry would always grow & hence supply should be the focus. Delved into India’s dependence on imports, bureaucracy issues, treaties with other nations-India-Afghanistan pipeline, political scenario of OPEC countries & other oil rich nations like Iran, geologists & their ability to tap the right oil fields, Risk Analysis-Probability & Severity of finding oil in India (this point fetched me great review) & of course, not to forget the regulatory environment in India & Publicprivate players in the Industry. Some substantial arguments were discussed and I came up with some other parameters & a conclusion. CASE 3: In order to understand the case, I questioned about the revenue levers and what I think was the business model-different shows-main v/s others, footfall, income through business besides shows, peak season etc. Discussed cost levers & made a couple of recommendations based on the parameters. What do you think went right in this interview?

Structured cases, exhaustive option generation, relaxed & confident personality and ability to build a connect with each administrator in all rounds


Nothing really. I maintained my cool and came across as relaxed and composed for all three rounds. My feedback from the firm while they made the offer was that I managed to keep myself very calm and my cases structured even though at times it seemed difficult. -Do not give up at any point in time during any case. Sometimes the case may not be your comfort area but you need to drive yourself till the end & that matters -When numbers are thrown at you, keep your cool and work it out without being under any pressure. It’s better to get the right answer than mess up simple math -Practice cases and be clear about HR answers. Nothing should precede the other, give equal importance to both



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Interview Experience 5 Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation Brief Profile Interview questions

Harshita Kesarwani McKinsey & Co R1 - Sambit (EM)/ R2 - Pradeep (Partner)/ R3 - Palash (Partner) Economics (H), SRCC, 2010 Nomura – 2 years, Fixed Income, Global Markets Round 1: About me and some related questions followed by case. Round 2: About me and HR answers around extracurriculars, teamwork, initiatives and leadership


Round 3: Case on a healthcare product launch with a guess estimate. The twist was that I had to do everything without using pen and paper. This was an interesting new challenge. Round 1: Case was based on a telecom firm’s tower construction costs which were higher than peers’. This was a stress interview and the guy kept insisting on structure. I think the important part was to keep calm and not to lose patience. Round 2: No case


Round 3: Case was on a joint replacement product. As mentioned, it was without pen and paper so focus was all the more important. Round 1: I think what really worked was patience and smiling through the 40-45 minutes. The feedback I received was that I never stopped myself from thinking through every option which helped in covering every possible bucket. Round 2: I don’t think all HR answers can be prepared and the ones I answered here were some that I had never heard before. What really helped was that I had listed a few situations before Summers week that described key qualities that I would like to talk about in a specific answer. Round 3: Not being familiar with healthcare at all, I think what worked was taking time to understand the product and the market. Also, the case became more like a conversation which helped me solve the case well.


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The guesstimate was tricky to do only in the head but in the end he was looking only for the approach and not the actual market size figure.


HR answers are supremely important – run answers through people and work on the feedback. Be prepared for any kind of interviewer. Each has their own unique style – keeping calm is the best way to crack the interview.


Karabi Mitra McKinsey and Company Can’t recall

Brief Profile

I graduated in Economics honours from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, and worked for one year in Google Hyderabad, as an Account Strategist. Round 1: Case based interview ( have narrated below)

Interview questions

Round 2: HR based: was asked the following: 1.) Tell me about yourself, in the course of this question, asked me about my family as well. 2.) Why consulting 3.) 2 instances of leadership 4.) Asked about music as it was in my CV that I had taught the piano. 5.) Also, asked about my work experience. Narration of the case interview

Round 3: Case based interview ( have narrated below) The first case was about a pharmaceutical company which had come out with a new eyedrop which cures myopia, and I had to price the product. Here we had to look at alternatives, such as cost of wearing glasses all your life, and


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What do you think went wrong in this interview Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

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. What worked in all the interviews is that I was quite calm, and the interview was more of a discussion, rather than a question answer interaction. I think it’s best to be frank and just treat the interviewer as someone who is actually interested in hearing about your experiences. As for the case interviews, it is very important to ask questions if you have any queries, and to always let him know why you are making whichever choices and assumptions in the course of the case. I don’t think anything went wrong.

Practicing 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.


Swati Sengar McKinsey & Co. Deepak, Partner


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Brief Profile

B.Com (Hons) from Shri Ram College of Commerce 23 months work experience with KPMG

Interview questions

Since it was Deepak’s first interview of the day, he didn’t want to do a case. It was a 20-30 minutes HR interview. The broad questions were: - About work experience ( I focussed on achievements and initiatives) - About dance (my spike as per my CV: I focussed on leadership skills, handling failures and motivation skills adopted) - Biggest failure in life - Conflict management techniques used in teams - Academic performance at IIML (he was referring to my CGP of term 1) - Life at IIML ( I focussed on my learnings, positive and negative aspects) No case

Narration of the case interview What do you think went right in this interview?

Since it was my first interview of the day, I was quite enthusiastic and had a big smile on my face (appearance is very important). I was relieved when Deepak told me that he didn’t want to do a case. I tried to answer in a storytelling format (its important that the interviewer understands the flow of the answer). I believe my energy level was good and I was quite confident while conversing with Deepak (important to note that its a conversation and not a question-answer session). Before entering the room, a senior had told me that Deepak was in Australia for 2 years so I brought it up in the conversation.


Also, Deepak was among the first batch of students who were recruited by McKinsey. I asked him about his experience and he seemed quite emotional about it. For a few questions like biggest failure in life, I first gave an answer which he thought was an achievement and not a failure. Later, I substantiated the answer with another instance which seemed to satisfy him.


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I was using my hands a little too much and I think Deepak was getting distracted by the movement.


- Its very important to keep energy level high - Engage the interviewer in a conversation and don’t stop yourself from saying something by virtue of being the interviewee. Give yourself importance and talk proudly about your past experiences - Pick up hints thrown by the interviewer - A firm handshake always works and exudes confidence - Don’t freak out and have fun

A T Kearney Interview Experience 8 Name: Company: Name of interviewer and designation

Nidhi Mehta A.T Kearney 1st Round : Sidharth Jain , 2nd round : Praveen (Principal), 3rd round Manish(Partner)

Round

3 rounds

Brief Profile

Shri Ram College of Commerce ( Eco Hons), 13 months work-ex with Tata Capital Ltd. (Senior Credit Officer) Round 1:Tell me about yourself ; post the case I was asked to give my view on the recent reduction in CRR rates

Interview questions

Round 2: Why Consulting ? Round 3: No HR questions were asked. However,The partner asked me if I had any question for him.


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Case 1: FICCI is planning to launch a new electric car, It has been proposed that this will lead to a reduction in pollution. Should the new car be launched? Approach : This was a case involving a guesstimate. I first looked at all the stakeholders that could be affected by this proposal including the current car manufacturers. The interviewer however guided me that it is assumed that all car makers will start manufacturing this car. The question then came down to the emissions produced by a regular car and an electric car. I further sub-divided the cars into small, medium sized (hatch backs and sedans) and SUV’s. I also talked about the emission levels being different for diesel and petrol cars. Emission levels depended on the mileage and data was given for the cars and CO2 emission levels. Case 2: I am a steel manufacturer. My profits are decreasing. Help me out. Approach: This was a simple profitability case. I started out by asking him about his business: the no of factories, locations and if profit had been reducing in all of them. I then looked at the revenue and cost heads. I asked him if he wanted me to look at a particular head and he said I could start with revenues. Within revenues I looked at the price and volume. Prices were constant so I began analysing the factors affecting the volumes. I looked at both supply and demand sided factors. Through this analysis I came to know that the competitors had an integrated procurement whereas the client’s cost of raw materials was higher. Also some of the machinery was obsolete. Branding of the steel and delivery time were also issues of concern.I gave some recommendations such as improving the quality of the steel ,having a branding strategy, giving cash discounts and attractive margins to dealers , looking for alternate suppliers. Working on a backward integration was suggested as a long term strategy. Case 3: Estimate the number of car servicing that take place in India Approach : The partner didn’t want me to get into calculations. He specifically told me to give me the just the approach. I started with estimating the number of car


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owners .We could divide Indian household into different income categories and estimate car owners. Some percentage of this would be old cars and others would be new. The new ones would probably be under free servicing schemes. The old ones could chose to go to the service centre or chose a local mechanic. The owners of expensive car owners would chose the servicing. Based on this we could estimate average number of breakdowns in a year for different car ownersand the corresponding requirement of servicing. Next we need to estimate the number of accidents as servicing will have to be done in this case as well. Case 1 : The catch in the case was that the emission levels were higher for the electric car. I could identify that this was because electricity was being generated by thermal energy. I also took into account transmission losses that would happen in electricity generation. I guess what went right was that I took into account all aspects of the case instead of following a narrow approach. Case 2: The interviewer didn’t have a specific problem in mind. He was just looking at the approach and how many areas of concern I could identify. I was comfortable with profitability cases and I guess I structured the case well. Case 3: The case lasted for just 5 mins and it was important to communicate a proper structure. Case 1 : It was not a typical case so in hindsight I could have structured it in a better way. Case 2 and 3 : Nothing went wrong as such It is important to stay calm during the case interviews The interviewer will be ready to help you out so it is important to clarify your doubts. Take some time to understand the case question and confirm with the interviewer before proceeding further.

Accenture Business Consulting


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Interview Experience 10 Name Company Name of interviewer and designation

Deep Banerjee Accenture Management Consulting Vishwesh Prabhakar, Partner

Brief Profile

Chemical Engineering from Bangalore, 1 yr Work Ex at Tesco Retail, 3.5 yrs at Indian Oil Corporation as Assistant Manager handling Supply Chain and Operations

Interview questions

Round 1: Work related, Industry related, Latest Trends in Supply Chain, CV related, Case analysis, Related to current energy problems in India Round 2: My apprehensions about Accenture


Round 3: HR Questions “I’m a chemical manufacturer. Help me optimize my outbound logistics”


- Work experience matched with their requirement - Industry knowledge - Information about the company


In the case interview, I mistook “optimize” as “cost reduction” only. Should have taken other factors into consideration.


- Be energetic and enthusiastic - I firmly believe that the first 2 minutes in an interview decide the outcome to a great extent - In the case interview, even if you go wrong at some place, do not fluster and keep trying

Interview Experience 11 Name

Ipsa Kalra


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Company Name of interviewer and designation

Accenture Management Consulting Round 1- Anurag Johri, Strategy Head Round 2- HR Round 3-Saurabh Bhatnagar-Partner

Round

Case in first round only

Brief Profile

Graduation in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata. Fresher. Round 1: Started with some questions on leadership as I stated it as strength. Followed by 2 cases on projected soap and 4 wheeler market in 2020.

Interview questions

Round 2: Basic HR questions on weaknesses and anyone apart from me who should make it to AMC.


Round 3: Questions on academics (PGDM), ranging from MANAC to economics and MS Excel. Keynesian Vs Classical Types of Costing Lookup in excel Branding General questions on the current education system in India I was asked to choose an industry of my choice. I chose FMCG sector. I was first asked to give the market size of the soap market in the year 2020. The interviewer was not looking at numbers but at multiple approaches. I gave the income segmentation approach, rural-urban divide approach. He suggested the extrapolation of GDP approach. I also made a point that in the urban market soaps are soon being replaced by shower gels etc.


The interview started on a good note and they liked the way I spoke and conducted myself.


They expected me to suggest the GDP approach myself.


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Consulting interviews require you to be able to give a holistic picture of the case presented. Keep the interviewer involved at every step.


Meghana Katiki Accenture Management Consulting Vivek Mishra, Ridhima (HR) and one more Senior partner

Brief Profile

IIT Kharagpur, Biotechnology, Deloitte Consulting -23 Months Round 1: Case and CV  Explain me one of the projects you took up at Deloitte  Why consulting  Which subjects did you like in term 1 Based on my answer he said link Marketing and Economics.  Explain one initiative you took

Interview questions

Round 2: HR  What do you like about Accenture  What do you remember from Accenture’s PPT  Did you attend the session by our senior partner, Give one positive and one negative feedback I handled the negative part very tactfully: starting with slight negativity but ending on a very positive note. Would like to join IB or GTIN. Understand the difference properly. Round 3: CV  Walk me through your academic background.  Why did you leave something as promising as Biotechnology for something as mundane as Management consulting.  Tell me one challenging task that you did I gave the example of a project at Deloitte. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Well a guesstimate was given to me but I never realised it was one. I told about how demand is actually estimated in Apple and how they produce less than the estimation to keep the hype.


I knew from beforehand what they were looking for. I could project all those qualities in some or the other answer. My HR answers were well prepared and reviewed before I entered the interview. I kept a smiling face though one of the interviewers’ kept a shrewd expression on his face. I steered the interview in my way by giving answers of all HR questions based on experiences and stories and talking about things I knew very well so that I could handle the drilling questions. I took Economics’ name as one of my favourite subjects and couldn’t answer some questions properly.


Any company, any interview, HR answers are extremely important. More so to tailor the answers to the company. It is also important to understand the values and culture of the company and portray a fit in the interview. Accenture’s PPT is very important to them. If you are serious about that company make sure you attend the ppt.

Interview Experience 13 Name Company Name of interviewer and designation

Preethi Viswanathan Accenture Management Consulting Senior Manager

Round

Had three rounds of interviews

Brief Profile

Electrical Engineering from Anna University; Prior work experience - 11 months as Graduate Engineer Trainee in Larsen & Toubro Ltd, ECC division


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Interview questions

Round 1:  Some basic questions like tell me about yourself, other interviews for the day  Why did you choose consulting?  Questions on POR's mentioned in the CV and which I consider the most important among them  Why Accenture and how do I feel it is different from the other consulting firms?  I was also asked about my role models  Questions regarding power sector – what are the problems in the sector at present Case on a pure-play thermal power generator with installed capacity of 2,000 MW in India. The company is making losses in the recent years I went ahead with a lot of questioning regarding the company, type of clients current financial position, current risk exposure in terms of fuel, market etc and the related businesses that the company is already into. I came up with a framework to analyses the profitability using the basic structure of costs and revenues. I first analysed on the cost side considering various parameters like fuel, distribution, overheads etc. I was then told to focus only on the revenue side. After further probing about the pricing and the sales volume (in MW) , the interviewer indicated that the power was sold only to the government. It was found that the company generated power which exceeded the government's requirement as per the contract with the company. I recommended that the excess power generated could be sold to private players to minimize losses


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Round 2: HR round Questions on primary skills required for a person in consulting Was asked about which of the skills I have and which I still need to develop Question was again asked about why consulting and why Accenture? Round 3: The Partner asked me about my educational background, my interest in music, my favourite course in Term I. After I told it was marketing, I was questioned on some basics and was asked to explain my marketing project. I was also questioned on some challenges I faced here at IIM L. Questions on work experience were asked maily relating to the role I had at L&T. After that he urged me to ask questions as he felt I have been asked enough. I questioned him about some news which was mentioned in the RG doc about AMC opening an Innovation centre. I further questioned him about the roles offered and the functions of IB and GTIN and sector preference for projects. He explained the answers in a detailed fashion.


I was asked to wait for a while, the offer was made and I accepted it. Explained above


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I prepared well for HR answers and was able to answer the questions on consulting well. Thorough knowledge about everything that I wrote on the CV A firm answer about why I wanted to join AMC as it was asked in all rounds of my interview


Nothing that I can specifically point out.

• For AMC, it pays well to know well about what work the company does and some recent happenings that the company was involved in. • Frame good questions for asking at the end of the interview as my third round was primarily based on that • Generate a plethora of options when analysing a case. It shows that you can think in multiple directions. In summers, most companies look only for people with ideas rather than skills. Hence, this is the most important phase of a case interview as far as summers are concerned. • Thorough CV and HR preparation are of prime importance


Salonee Gupta Accenture Management Consulting HR Head, Saurav

Round

I had 3 rounds of interviews

Brief Profile

Civil Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, with 23 months experience in Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd.


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Interview questions

Round 1: Some ice breakers like about yourself, walk me through your CV and why consulting, details about other interests and especially work experience related questions, followed by an elaborate guesstimate, and if you want to ask us anything in the end Round 2: Some ice breakers like about yourself, walk me through your CV and why consulting, details about other interests, followed by if you are comfortable working anywhere and want to ask us anything in the end Round 3: Some ice breakers like about yourself, walk me through your CV and why consulting, details about work experience, followed by some course related questions from FRA and QAM, and if you want to ask us anything in the end



Guesstimate in the 1st interview: Estimation of Baby Diaper market in India Followed by questions like, what was a major assumption in your estimate, what could have been a better approach for estimation, etc. My ability to think of different ways to approach this problem, and being able to point out a flaw in my estimate and a solution to that Could have been a little more structured 1. Take 2 mins to structure your thoughts before starting the estimation. These 2 mins are very critical. 2. Try to think of out of box solutions and recommendations once the problem has been identified. 3. Maintain your calm during the interviews as they check your confidence level.

Interview Experience 15 Name:

Shivani Rastogi


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Company: Name of interviewer and designation

Accenture Management Consulting 2 senior partners and 1 HR

Round

3 rounds

Brief Profile

Jadavpur University, IT Consultant in PricewaterhouseCoopers for 2 years

Interview questions

Round 1: Tell me something about yourself. Had a long discussion on ABG scholarship. Asked a case and a guesstimate. Do you have any questions for me?(this was a long discussion as well) Round 2: Why AMC? Why not go back to PWC? Would you like to work for ops or strategy? Why? Which sector did you like working for in your last job? Some work-ex specific questions. Do you have any questions for me? Round 3: It was not an interview really. Just asked me if I had any questions for her. They asked me a case they had recently worked on. A Japanese pressure boiler manufacturer wants to enter the Indian market. They make high pressure resistant boilers. Advice them on how they should enter the market. Approach-They expected me to list the various options like set up a plants in India, export from Japan, enter a JV with a local player etc. Then he asked me to compare the various options based on some criteria I thought best. I chose ROI. So then he asked me to compare for the options in a tabular format, without any numbers, just using High and Low. Guesstimate-No of eBook readers in India Approach-I started with the income level division. Then I went on to percentage of target age (12-40ish). Then with the penetration of laptop and desktop among them (considering they would have at least one of them before purchasing and eBook reader) and he asked me to stop at this. I think my structured approach to the problems was what worked for me. Also I showed my interest in taking up operations and supply chain courses. This was also appreciated by one of the partners.




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I think the interview went quite well for me except when asked about which sector of my work experience I liked working for the most. I tried to show positives in each of the 4 sectors I had worked on and he seemed unconvinced .


Lay out the structure well. They seemed to be more interested in covering the breadth of options rather than drilling down on them. Also they didn’t seem to bother much about numbers and percentages in the case and guesstimate.

Interview Experience 16 Name: Company: Round

Sruthi Nooka Accenture Management Consulting 3 Rounds

Brief Profile

Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad; Prior work experience - 35 months as Business Technology Analyst in Deloitte Consulting

Interview questions

Round 1: Questions regarding my prior work experience, nature of responsibilities, reasons for shifting from technology consulting to business consulting Questions regarding my areas of interest(operations in my case) – I was asked to compare the supply chains of apple and dell, HUL and P&G Case on Market expansion for HUL product(Dove) into one of the north eastern states Round 2: What skills do you think a consultant needs? Which one of those skills do you lack in? Learning from prior work experience, significant achievements


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I was asked if I attended the pre-placement talk and what I liked the most about it Round 3: Questions regarding work experience – I worked on SAP implementation, so the interviewer asked me to give three reasons why companies go for ERP implementation – a hidden form of cost-benefit analysis case


Questions on subjects of Term – I and Term – II: Regarding Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, Prisoner’s Dilemma, a small case on how a business operating in oligopoly can stay profitable, applications of QAM in all areas such as marketing, finance, operations, economics etc. Problem Statement: What factors should HUL consider if it’s wants to launch one of its products in one of the north Indian states? The interviewer was looking for the approach only and not extensive detailing. Firstly, I clarified on why the expansion is made – for profitability or expanding the customer base I analysed the scenario in three parts – Customers, Company’s capabilities and Competition By analysing the available customer segments and targeting the required segment the demand can be estimated and thus the profitability based on factors such as size, affordability and growth rate of the chosen segment In terms of company’s capabilities its financial and operational capabilities should be considered. Factors such as investment cost, company’s financial position, investment cost as a proportion of the company’s overall cost base should be analysed under financial capabilities. Operational capabilities include resources, availability of channel partners in the new market etc. Competition analysis determines entry barriers and possible threat from competitors


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I have answered questions regarding my prior work experience well and I could explain the reasons for transition from technology consulting to business consulting convincingly. My case analysis went pretty well. In the third round, I have answered all the questions asked about academic subjects with practical applications.


I had to give some impromptu answers for certain questions regarding my previous question. Even though I justified my answers well finally, I could have organised my answers better.


7. Know about the company thoroughly. In case you have not attended the ppt, find out the same from your friends who have attended it and try to get as much information as possible from seniors. 8. Lot of students have been questioned about academic subjects. So it’s good to brush up on basics before attending the interview. 9. In case of students with prior experience, prepare well in advance about your nature of work, roles and responsibilities, nature of projects handled. Be ready with some examples through which you can explain your problem solving skills and leadership skills.



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Ashok Patsamatla Accenture Management Consulting Senior Manager

Round

2 Rounds

Brief Profile

Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras; Prior work experience - 24 months as Analyst in KPMG Management Consulting

Interview questions

Round 1: Some basic questions like tell me about yourself, other interviews appearing for on that day. What is your view on team work in consulting? Do you think it is always important? Questions regarding my prior work experience, nature of responsibilities and reasons for continuing in consulting industry Questions regarding power sector – what are the problems in the sector at present, recent interventions by the government (SEB bailout package) and my views on the same, Case on diversification strategy for a pure-play thermal power generator with installed capacity of 2,000 MW in India. I went ahead with a lot of questioning regarding the objective for diversification, current financial position, current risk exposure in terms of fuel, market etc and the related businesses that the company is already into. Interviewer indicated that the company wishes to leverage on its current strengths and to hedge current risks through diversification. Financial position of the company is not a constraint. I came up with a framework to cover the entire value chain of the power sector and a basic fish-bone analysis of options at each stage of the value chain. I believe that this stage


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(option generation) is very crucial and needs to exhaustive. I came up with close to 20 options for diversification during this stage which impressed the interviewer. I was then told to focus only on the immediate upstream and immediate downstream options with just a macro overview of each option. I did a basic investment horizon to benefits analysis for each of the options and finally suggested the following recommendations: 1. Acquisition of a coal mine in Australia/Indonesia since exposure to imported coal was found to be high. Also it can hedge exchange risk (relevant in the current macroeconomic condition) 2. JV with a port developer to save on transportation charges and to benefit from increasing imported coal demand in India 3. Power trading to better leverage the excess thermal generation capacity due to seasonal demand fluctuations 4. EPC player – offer EPC solutions to huge upcoming capacity in India The interviewer was very much satisfied with this and indicated that there might be a role suited for me for summers. Round 2: HR round was skipped and was directly taken to Partner round. Round 3: The Partner (Vishwesh) asked me about my educational background, CGPA drop during graduation period, current academic performance at IIM Lucknow in Term I. I justified these aspects to which there was no other additional questioning. Then he asked me about the kind of culture that was prevalent at KPMG and what I did not like about it. He explained in fair detail about the kind of culture at AMC and what made him stick to the firm for the past 15 years.


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He asked me if I wanted to work on any sector in particular and I expressed interest in working on some academic oriented projects that AMC takes up from time to time on pro-bono or in conjunction with World Bank etc. The partner then told me that he headed a new practice at AMC – the sustainability practice – that deals in such projects. At this stage, the Partner made an offer and I accepted it. Explained above

Narration of the case interview What do you think went right in this interview?

My sector knowledge in power helped in fair detail at the option generation stage and I was lucky to have gotten a case in that sector itself. I prepared well for HR answers and was able to answer the question about team work in consulting well. Thorough knowledge about everything that I wrote on the CV


Nothing that I can specifically point out.


10. For AMC, it pays well to know well about what work the company does and some recent happenings that the company was involved in. 11. Frame good questions for asking at the end of the interview 12. Generate a plethora of options when analysing a case. It shows that you can think in multiple directions. In summers, most companies look only for people with ideas rather than skills. Hence, this is the most important phase of a case interview as far as summers are concerned. 13. Thorough CV and HR preparation are hygiene factors. 14. Always smile!

Interview Experience 18 Name: Company:

Siddharth Raghuvanshi Accenture Management Consulting


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Name of interviewer and designation Round

1. cant recall 2. HR Head 3. Saurav – Partner 4. Alumnus 4 Rounds

Brief Profile :

I have done my dual degree (B.Tech+ M.Tech.) in Computer Science & Engineering from IIT Kharagpur. After that I have worked in FICO as a software engineer for 1 year.


Round 1: It was more of a chit chat round. First, the interviewer asked me – Tell me something about yourself. In my answer, I mentioned about founding and heading 70 member team of Student Welfare Group at IIT Kharagpur & co-founding a start-up named estumart.com at IIT Kharagpur. The interviewer became more interested in my work at Student Welfare Group & he asked me in detail about my work. Then he asked few questions on my start-up like whether it is still working or not, what was the motivation for the start-up & having such a good engineering profile, why didn’t I opt for an MS degree. In the last, he asked me whether I have any questions. I asked about the difference between GTIN & IB profile. First he I told him, what I knew about both the profiles, then there was some discussion regarding why I want to choose IB over GTIN. Round 2: It was with HR. She too started with tell me something about yourself. Then she asked why we should take you. Then she asked why “how do you think you are better than others who are being interviewed now”. Answered all these questions. Then she asked me if I have attended AMC Pre Placement Talk or not. I told her that I have attended it. Then she cross questioned me by asking about the stipend details. Told her. Then she asked “why Consulting”. Then “why Accenture”. Then “what are the core values of Accenture”. Globed the last answer, as I felt core values of most of the consulting firm are similar. Later I found that 4 out of 6 core values, which I answered, were correct.  Round 3: This was the round with the partner. He seemed like a cool person, which gave me an opportunity to ask him the most important question – ‘Tell me something about yourself’. I found that he was working in GTIN. So that gave me opportunity to further ask him some questions like what


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he thinks is good about GTIN. Do people in GTIN get to work with Indian clients or not. On site opportunity & so on. After that, the partner asked about my favourite course in the Term 1. I told him QAM. Then he asked me the reason. After that he asked some questions on Anova, I had to tell him that it still has not been taught. Then he asked my next favourite course. I told him marketing management. Then he asked the reason. Told him. Then he asked me some questions on definition of brands. Gave him the answer with some examples. Then he asked me some questions on Micro economics like on demand & supply, how micro economics is different from macroeconomics, definition of GDP, GNP, prisoners’ dilemma & its implication in the industry.


Round 4: It was with alumnus. He was the founder of The Consulting & Strategy Club. So he asked me in detail about our work & how do we pitch to a client, etc. It was more of a discussion rather than an interview round. No cases or guesstimates were asked to me.


I had interest in the consulting. So I have gathered a lot of information about Accenture, their different profiles. The discussions with the interviewers showed them that I had genuine interest in consult work.


My 2nd interview was not that good according to me. I had to globe sometime like in question on core values of Accenture.


The most important thing is that you should be confident enough. Consult interviews are more of a discussion rather than interviews. So take it in that way only. If you have any genuine doubt, you can also ask questions to them. It will be appreciated.

Deloitte Interview Experience 19


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Divya Chandra Deloitte S & O Senior Manager

Round

3 Rounds

Brief Profile

Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani; Prior work experience - 10 months in BHEL, New Delhi

Interview questions

Round 1: HR round: Interviewer started with his introduction first. Then some basic questions like tell me about you, hobbies. Which all places have you travelled till date? Is travelling an issue? Questions regarding my hobbies and interests. Why consultancy? Round 2: Case Study Round: A case study on Health industry was given. It was related to Hospitals and Clinics in USA. A lot of number crunching was required. Also emphasize on all key points looking at numbers with lots of option generation. Round 3: The Partner asked me about my educational background. Why not finance? Current academic performance at IIM Lucknow in Term I. Why consulting? Scrutinized CV well. After this round, the Partner made an offer and I accepted it.


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Case emphasized on a lot of number crunching. A chain of clinics and hospitals were owned by a company based in the USA and were generating losses. A whole set of data sheet was given to analyse. It needed identification of the various problems leading to losses in hospital revenue. Then options to cut down on costs were to be given based on the expenses given in the sheet.


Quick calculations and analysis of data sheet was a plus point. I was able to answer the question why consulting well. Thorough knowledge about everything that I wrote on the CV. A smile throughout the interview helped.


None.


1. Prepare why consulting question well 2. Be quick in calculations and generate as many options as you can when analysing a case. Think of out of box solutions to the problems in the case. 3. Thorough CV based preparation is required.

Summer Internship Experiences 2011 Accenture Business Consulting Interview Experience 1 Company Name: Round Brief Profile : Personal interview questions

Accenture Business Consulting Shalabh Malhotra 2 Rounds IIT Guwahati, Mechanical Engg., 10 months in NTPC Ltd. 1st Round


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1. Tell me about yourself. Examples from life to justify for whatever points you had mentioned. 2. Guesstimation Case 3. Do you like travelling? Which all places have you been to? (A consulting job requires a lot of travelling. Make sure you justify that you love travelling) 4. What do you know about Accenture and ABC? Which vertical in ABC interests you the most? 2nd Round


This round is based on your work-ex. Know your company well and have a good hold on your sector. 1. Tell me about your experience in NTPC Ltd. 2. Why NTPC Ltd. after engineering and why MBA now? 3. Present Power Scenario in India. Difficulties faced by thermal power plants at present. 4. Future of Nuclear Power Plants. Pros and Cons. 5. Hydro-electric plants and their pros and cons. Problem statement: You are a private company who has got the contract to install street lights in Lucknow. Guesstimate the number of street lights that will be required and the expected profit you think you can earn. Structure: 1. I assumed Lucknow’s area to be 20km by 20km. 2. I, then, divided the city into a matrix assuming it to be criss-crossed by #60 20 km roads running horizontally and vertically each. 3. Then estimated an approximate of 30% area to be under forest cover. 4. Divided the roads in the remaining 70% area into roads present in residential and non-residential (commercial + highways) areas. Took an estimate


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5.

6. 7.

8. What do you think went wrong in this interview?

on number of street lights present per km in both these areas. Finally came to a number on the number of street lights taking into account that some places will have 2 lamps on a single post while others will have just 1. After that estimated the product + set-up cost for each street light. Estimated the running charges (maintenance and electricity). Electricity charges would depend on the number of operation hours and watt-rating of the lamp. Maintenance charges and profit margin was estimated. In the end a total estimate of profits was calculated.

Though I was called for the 2nd interview, I think I didn’t do well in the Guesstimation case (1st round) itself. The 2nd interview was good but I guess they were calling people for the 3rd interview based on both the interviews combined. Prepare for cases and Guesstimation well.

Interview Experience 2 Company


Name:

Binay Jaiswal


4 rounds were held. I don’t remember the specific names of all the people. The first round was taken by Gautam and third round was taken by one of the alum.


1st and 2nd round were case interviews. Third was a work experience specific interview and last was the HR round.

Brief Profile : ( Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc. )

B.Tech in IT from NIT Durgapur 45 months of work experience: 37 months in IBM and 8 months in TCS as SAP ABAP Technical Consultant.


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Personal interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

Round 1: The first questioned asked was the number of shortlist on day 0 and the interviewer jumped straight into a slide in his laptop. Basically the slide had plenty of line diagrams. I had no clue what it was about. As we started interacting, I figured out the line diagrams showed number of units sold in a span of 8-9 months. I was asked to analyse the line diagrams. On further interaction and based on my answers, I came to know the diagrams had the data about the number of units sold by various companies and total number of units sold in each month. The figures didn’t show any consistent pattern and I was asked to figure out why was it so. Basically only thing I could figure out was the sales showed cyclical nature and the number showed a positive trend just before Oct-Nov and a dropping trend in Jan-Mar. There was a clear market leader but the sales were decreasing in latest months while there was a fierce competition for the second and the third slot. A detailed discussion took place about who can take the second place and why. Then he asked some FRA question related to the graphs. The discussion boiled down to FIFO/LIFO method and he gave some data for a particular company and I was asked to show the impact of LIFO or FIFO on Profit, COGS, Taxes, and retained earnings. After that he asked a short case on airline industry and it didn’t revolved around rising oil prices (Aberration of current Market condition). According to the case, one courier company increased the freight charges though there was a decrease in oil prices. My answers revolved around higher interest rates and depreciation which decreased the operating profit of the courier company. But he was looking for something else and the case was supposed to be analysed from demand-supply side (Microeconomics!!!!). With his input we concluded that the business model of freight industry was changing. Companies who used to transport by rail/road now started using Air Freight which increased the demand suddenly and hence the price. Further because of


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capacity constraint, the Air Freight company bought few new aircrafts and hence wanted to break even early to make the most of current market. Note: The interview went Ok types. Interviewer expectation was much more and I think I could not handle the Airline case upto his expectation. He wished me good luck for the next round. Round 2: I came to know that they have scheduled my first round again as they were expecting more. The interview started with “How did the first round went”? I said “It was decent but I should have done better”. He asked “would have or should have”? I said “Should have”. “What went wrong” was his instant question. I gave my analysis and he looked satisfied by my analysis (He displayed like that). I was told that this round will have 2 parts: (i) Case (discussed below) and (ii) some general questions As he was very satisfied with the case analysis, the second part of interview was not much of pain. It was more of a general discussion. As I had work ex in IT industry, I was asked how will I handle management consulting as its very different from IT consulting and required very competent skills. I was also asked about the highest level of client interaction and how I managed them. He specifically asked for one of the CV point which was about interacting with the program director of the US based client and how I managed to convinced him to increase the scope of the development, issues faced and what it took to convince him to approve the increase in man hours effort from 400 to 950. Few questions about my strengths and how I will handle the clients specifically when I am interacting with CXO level people followed. I was also asked why consulting and whether I would be comfortable travelling after marriage. Overall I had a very good interview.


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Round 3 This round was taken by one of our alums. I was asked if I am nervous or excited. I said both and was asked to explain why so. (Good Ice Breaking 5 minutes). I was again asked the number of process I am running for (Other Shortlists!!!). A casual discussion followed like it must be tough running for different process in different parts of the campus. He was constantly picking up points from my CV and it was more or less work experience related interview. Questions like my greatest failure in life so far and my learning from it, why Accenture business consulting, strengths of Accenture etc. I was asked to compare between Accenture and (i) IBM (ii) Deloitte (iii) McKinsey and few other consulting companies. Why consulting figured again and my fit as a consultant was asked. I was also asked about my CGPA and relative position amongst PGP1 students. Questions like do you face difficulty studying after 45 months of work ex and how I adjusted, how I manage pressure here etc. followed. I asked three questions to him and a detailed discussion took place. Round 4 It was HR round which lasted for around 10 minutes. Questions like Why ABC, Consulting, my strengths, best and worst feedback received in my previous work ex were asked. I was asked about my expectation from ABC. Brief discussion about my POR and CGPA followed. Narration of the case Problem statement: interview (Please be The case was about decreasing sales of Nano in Kolkata as descriptive as and adjoining areas. possible) Case analysis: Initially we discussed if it was a normal trend in other parts of India or not. If there was any price increased by Nano or any changes with the design which might not have gone well with the consumers. We also spoke The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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about impact of negative publicity like engine failure and instances of fire breaking out in Nano. Marketing strategies of handling negative publicity was also discussed. But the maximum discussion happened around 2 points: 1) As Nano was mainly for people with 2 wheelers, I wanted to understand where the real issue was. Whether consumers are moving to 2.5-3 lakhs priced car like Alto and Zen (few others also) or people with 2 wheelers were not able to buy Nano. I asked about any trend whether any data regarding people willingness to buy Nano (Through Test Drives taken, visits to showrooms etc.) but not actually buying was there or not. After few minute of discussion, I was told that the main issue was people with 2 wheelers are not buying Nano. So the main issue was affordability. I recommended zero % interest rate for EMI for first 2 years of purchase and very minimal ROI after that. We also discussed about the bank Nano should partner with and then he filtered the question to 1 bank only. I opted for SBI as it has branches in adjoining remote areas of Kolkata and people there have higher trust in Govt. banks. 2) We also spoke about the Demand-Supply constraint. If there was any channel conflict. Brief interaction revealed that Nano had only 7 distributors in that part of region and this was a major problem and it should increase by 3-4. What do you think went right in this interview?

My case performance in the second round went pretty well. The interviewer complimented me about the analysis (though it may not look that impressive above). The structure and thorough conversation helped me sail through and I was told that I kept the interviewer interested and hooked throughout the case solving phase. After my third round I was also appreciated about my prior work experience and I was told “You had a quality


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work experience and I appreciate your practical approach of business understanding”. What do you think went wrong in this interview?


My first round didn’t go that well particularly the Airline question. I should have interacted more to understand various perspectives rather than being biased with current market situation (Like higher oil price and interest rates which was not applicable here) 1) Stay Cool because it will help you to interact freely and focus on various perspectives which is very important in the case 2) Display a lot of enthusiasm and don’t shy away from talking. Remember Consultant need to do a lot of talking. Just ensure you talk sense on that day. 3) Practise some cases before interviews. 4) Never think that you are out of race. Don’t judge yourself in the interview. Interviewer might give you chance to bounce back. 5) Higher Work Ex people particularly IT background can’ t get day zero shortlist is a myth



Name:

Mahesh

Name of interviewer and designation Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc. ) Personal interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them)

NA First (of 3 rounds) Bpharm Work experience of 2 years 1. Tell me something about yourself? 2. Asked me about my role at previous workplace? 3. Why consulting?


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4. How did you know Accenture? HR related questions were asked in the subsequent rounds Narration of the case Problem statement: interview (Please be as A multination firm in oil and gas segment is looking at descriptive as possible) setting up a green field plant by collaborating with ONGC India. You being one of the directors chosen to work for this partnership what are the most important factors you would look at? Case analysis: I divided the decisions into HR , operations , finance and marketing related decisions. Since the venture was a new one I focussed on the organizational chart development and the role of director in selecting the right people for higher and middle management roles. I also talked about getting policies with regard to skill set of workers, policy on unions being in place. Talked about setting up a township and hiring a contractor for it as the location is likely to be in a remote area. Also focussed on retaining and hiring of talent. Marketing function decisions included pricing of product (based on cost estimates of sales force) and sales force for carrying out B2B activities. Discussion on operations was the most important one in this case. I talked about the role of director in hiring a contractor and overlooking the subcontractors used. I also talked about the timelines of the project and suggested a milestone based approach with penalties to ensure that the work gets done. In addition to contract related equipment i focused on the equipment specification to match to the capacity expectations. Aggregate planning with scaling up was also suggested to make the factory operational and to sort out initial issues. I focused on the supply chain related issues to transport the end product to customers.(Suggested pipeline) Talked about the role of cost accountant in determining the price of the end product and also focussed on selecting an external auditor to oversee the accounting standards. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Structure: Divided the case as per verticals in an organization

A guestimate on the number of streetlights in Lucknow was asked (He asked me to be very short in description and wanted me to use numbers at every step) I approached this by assuming Lucknow to be close to a rectangle in shape the dimensions being 20 x 15 Km. Then i assumed the main streets to be passing though lines joining the mid points. I assumed that these roads to be two laned and had the highest density of lights. The next part was about the streets branching out of these streets and i assumed lower density of lights here. Thus i got a series and added them up to get the number of lights.

Other questions Guesstimate the number of travellers to Antartica Guesstimate the number of cab drivers in Dehli


Got the structure. I was able to use the ques from the interviewer and could this helped in approaching the case better. After the discussion gave 3 points on which a director needs to focus


Should have organized the points in each vertical in order of their importance. Ask for clarifications to the interview if needed. Practice a lot of cases with your peers. Be clear about ‘Why ABC’?


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Boston Consulting Group Interview Experience 4 Company

The Boston Consulting Group

Name:

Abhir Bhomavat


Principal

Round

First

Brief Profile :

BITS-Pilani Goa Campus (8.73 – Electronics and Instrumentation, Fresher with an internship at J.P. Morgan Investment Banking) Was a convener on the council during my under graduation. Institute rank 2nd at IIM-L in the first term with a GPA of 9.4

Personal interview questions


1. Are you clear about your decision between IB and Consulting? 2. Why consulting 3. Why BCG? I had a well prepared answer for all these questions Problem statement: The client is a company that manufactures an interactive educational tool. It is basically something as big as a blackboard fitted in the classroom and has touch screen interactivity. What do you think is the scope of this product and what are the other things that the company can do in the field of education to increase its revenues (to 1000 Cr)? Case analysis:


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I first tried to understand the product properly. Q. Does the company make any other products? Ans: No Q. What is this particular product used for majorly? To teach what? Ans: English language I was trying to build a structure at this point when he interrupted me by asking me if I had understood the question. I felt he was trying to put a bit of stress. He then asked me to explore what all are the options that an educational tech company in India could explore. Q. Are we looking at only classroom services or online as well? Ans: Upto you what you want to look at I built a structure which split into Classroom learning and online learning. Then further split classroom learning into providing education material and products (like the one the client makes). In online I split it into videos and material. He was happy with this basic structure. He then asked me that the client was focusing on language needs of people. So he asked me to estimate the demand of the English language learners. He then asked me to estimate how many such are those who already have a source to learn and how many are wanting to but do not have a source and what should I target? I started with the metro population in India. Roughly 14mX4 = 56m. Then divided it by the age group. I dint plug in any figures. I just made the initial tree. I told him that I would plug in the figures later. Age group of 16 and less who are going to schools. He then asked me why I have not considered adults who want to learn English. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Then I considered that as well. He then asked me why I have not taken into consideration those who do not know that they want to learn English. I didn’t understand what he meant, so I asked him to explain. He told me that a domestic maid is latent demand because she doesn’t know that she want to learn English (got kind of philosophical at this point) So he asked me to factor that in as well. He asked me how we can make them use an online medium when they do not have basic education in the first place. Summary: He helped me a lot with the case. Infact he gave me the 2 most important points of adult demand and latent demand. Overall I found the case to be very tough and ambiguous. He kept on asking me if I understood the question which made me lose confidence many times. What do you think went right in this interview?

I was passionate about the education industry like I had mentioned. I also was not put down by his comments of “have you understood my question”. He didn’t give me much time to think, but I still managed to build a structure with all the ambiguity in the problem. I feel he was judging the different ways in which I could think since it was a pretty open ended and highly unstructured case to start with.


At first I didn’t understand why he was focusing on the demand of English language. I should have taken into consideration of adults as well. I was looking at only school children. I was very nervous since it was my first interview of the day and was also the very first for BCG in the morning. The interview was shorter than I anticipated.


Please make sure of what you say in the initial HR questions. I had mentioned that I liked teaching. That was the reason why picked out this case for me. So please make sure you can show the passion for a particular interest that you have mentioned.


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Be calm during the case. He will help you out for sure. It is important to be persistent and keep going at the problem. Round Personal interview questions


Second 1. Are you convinced about consulting vs. IB? 2. Why do you want to do consulting and not IB? 3. Tell me something different/interesting about yourself. 4. Have you worked on live projects? If so tell me one in which you used a completely different approach. Ans: I spoke about a project that I had done during an intern at a CSIR lab after my 2nd year of engg. It was highly technical and involved FEM in the field of Biophysics. He asked me what I did differently. I explained it to him in layman terms. He was very impressed with my answer. Problem statement: A financial services company (NBFC) that has entered India few years ago wants to know whether it should continue in India or not? Case analysis: Q. I asked him the relative position of the business viz-aviz its peers. Ans: It is not very high. Somewhere around 6th. Q. What are the different businesses? Ans: Mutual funds – debt and equity, Asset management, etc. Equity fund is not performing as well as its competitors. Debt is on par Q. What is its target market? Ans: HNIs with income of INR 5Cr + I had made a brief structure earlier in which I had said that I would like to explore 3 things. The historical


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performance of the fund, Its competition, and the third thing was future growth in India. He gave me some details on the historic performance and all. He also told me about the competition. I was then asked to make a decision of whether to continue in India. I told him based on the future growth story they should remain in India. He wanted me to ask the growth rate of HNIs in India. He then gave me those figures. Q: He then asked me what all problems they could face. Ans: Very volatile equity markets, major source of HNI money is black so we can’t capture the entire growth in HNI. Competition could outdo us. If interest rates fall, investors would want to invest abroad. I gave a few more options that I can’t recall right now. Summary: The case was very straight forward. Basic questions needed to be asked. I had expressed an interest in finance so I was given this case. What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience Round

He was very impressed with my HR questions. That gave me major confidence. The case was simple and need a proper structure initially which I provided. He was impressed with the option generation as well. I forgot to ask him the growth rate of our target market (HNIs). Prepare HR answers really well. My case was something which anybody would have cracked but the differentiating part was the HR answers. Third


1. Tell me about yourself 2. Why does consulting excite you? Was well prepared for these.


I had 2 cases in this interview. 1st case:


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Problem Statement: A taxi driver (black and yellow taxi) asked me if he should move to a radio cab in Delhi. Analysis: I was a simple case of cost-benefit. Split into revenues and cost. Cost split into fixed (maintenance and insurance) and variable (fuel) I asked him the km each car run in a day, the mileage, the cost per liter of diesel. Charge/km. Made the comparison and gave him the answer. He asked me what else I should consider. I told him that the taxi driver had more freedom owning his own cab. But in the radio cab he won’t have to worry about depreciation of the vehicle. I also told him that owning his taxi may be a matter of prestige for the driver. 2nd Case: Should a PE fund buyout Infosys? Case analysis: Q. I asked him what the private equity fund was looking at : Stake purchase or complete buyout? Ans. Complete buyout He asked me how a PE can gain out of buying Infosys. I told him that the PE would have board members and would provide guidance and expertise along with the funding support. Q. How long is the PE looking to invest in Infy? Ans. 5 years Q. what is rate of return that infy will give in 5 years Ans: 20% The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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At this point he asked me will the PE be able to increase the profits of infy? I told him that we could better management and expertise from the PE end. He said that the PE would not be able to manage Infosys better that what it already was. Q. Will the PE be able to bring in new outside business? Ans: no Q. Will the PE be able to generate more than the expected 20% revenue for Infy? Ans. No At this point he told me think of it from an IB perspective. He told me that if infy can be bought for say Rs 100 and would be worth Rs 120 after 5 years, it’s not a big deal. The PE would not be interested in something like this. So why would a PE look to invest? I luckily had some prior knowledge of Infy (0 debt on its balance sheet and a hell lot of cash) So I told him that the entire source of funds was only equity. So the PE could buy the equity and then pay off dividends to it (since INFY was cash rich) or else raise debt for leverage. Q. Will the growth remain 20% even if I raise debt? Ans: yes So I told him that if INFY raises debt of Rs 100, Firm value would be roughly Rs 200 and growth would be 20% -> Rs 240. Therefore the PE would make 40 on its initial Rs 100 -> 40%. He was looking for a solution like: Buy it for Rs 100. Replace Rs 50 of equity by raising debt. And then sell it for Rs120 5 years later. So effective gain would be Rs 20 on Rs 50 which is still 40% Q. What is this mechanism called? Ans. Leveraging He spoke a bit about LBOs then. What do you think went right in this interview?

The extra information I had on Infosys was something he was very impressed with. He liked the fact that I was persistent in the PE case. I was thinking of different options. He led me to a solution.


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I didn’t get the hint of him leading me to an LBO based solution even though I knew what an LBO was. Be confident and be persistent. Keep on going at the case even if you are stuck

Interview Experience 5 Company Name: Name of interviewer and designation Round Brief Profile : Personal interview questions


The Boston Consulting Group Arjun Bhaduri Arvind Pandey, Partner and Director First B.Sc (Economics Honors) from St. Xavier’s College No work experience 1. Why should BCG select you? This was a pressure question because everything I said seemed to displease him. I just tried to match my personality with BCG and that seemed to work for me. Problem statement: A cement manufacturer based out of East India has been seeing his prices in east India dip heavily in the past few months. Despite being the market leader, he seems to be unable to arrest the fall in prices. The aim as a consultant lies to raise the prices by 10% and find a strategy to make sure the prices do not fall so easily again. Case analysis: This was a very complex case with multiple problems and solutions with each having a different set of pros and cons. He wanted me to see the case from a simple demand and supply point of view. Structure: The supply was overshooting demand in the market as a result of the actions of competitors. So the issue was also


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to do with the distributors in the middle and how brand consciousness would come into the scene. The structure could be simplified to a 2*2 matrix with price elasticity of demand and brand consciousness on the axes. The issue could be then simplified on the basis of the quadrant in focus. Summary: Overall, the issue was embedded in being able to use game theory with the distributor and play prices up and down at regular intervals. Another strategy was to enter into forward contracts. What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Round Personal interview questions Narration of the case interview

Calmness and common sense was the key. Was a little nervous at the beginning of the interviewing as a result of the complexity of the case. Second 1. General conversation for about 5 minutes? The interviewer was very calm and reassuring and that helped me build the conversation. Problem statement: A local taxi driver in Delhi wants to explore the possibility of signing a contract with a radio taxi service. Help him with his dilemma Case analysis: This was a case that really tested your ability to think far and wide because the math was simple but the underlying logic could have been missed very easily Structure: Used a simple revenue-cost structure for the pre and post radio taxi phase. Then tried to see if any of the key


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variables could be modified to come up with a different result. Summary: The case had two parts- one was the initial decision and the decision after changing a key variable. What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Round Personal interview questions


Thought simple and picked up the cues very well. Failed to see the obvious solution the first time and needed a little pushing in the right direction. Third 1. Asked my questions about my tastes in food? 2. General discussion on football and tennis and we spoke about our favorite stars from each of them. More than anything else, this was an amazing conversation where I could speak without any fears and inhibitions.

Problem statement: A life insurance company in Sri Lanka is losing out on market share. Where does the problem lie? Case analysis: The case was a test of structure to see if you could create one with all the levers enlisted. Structure: The market share could be seen as a function of number of policies sold and the revenue per policy. The discussion would then carry on the aspect of number of policies. The number of policies itself would be a function of a number of factors, out of which one of them was creating an issue. Summary:


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The toxic area was something to do with the insurance policy salesman and the entire structure had to be panned out so as to get to that What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

Was highly energetic and logical in my approach. I rushed through the case in parts. Be calm, logical and energetic. That is all you need to impress the interviewer.

Interview Experience 6 Company Name: Name of interviewer and designation Round Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc. ) Personal interview questions (With indicative answers if you choose to share them) Narration of the case interview

The Boston Consulting Group Aman Bhatnagar Pranay Mehrotra, Partner & Director First IIT Delhi Electrical Engineering (B. Tech) Entrepreneur, 17 months 1. Started with discussion about Tintin, Herge, literary quizzing, went on to about yourself, gave his introduction and a chocolate, clarified on why it took so long to get to see me 2. Interested with Manchester United, talked about playing vs. watching football vs. gaming for a bit Problem statement: Client is a life insurance agency in Sri Lanka facing declining market share Case analysis: Market leader, no.2 and no. 3 growing in dominance, Market growing, they didn’t release a particular policy, don’t give enough incentives to their agents which other firms are capitalizing on,


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Structure: Broke it down into their business structure, understood how they operate, tried to find loopholes in each step Summary:

What do you think went right in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience Round Name of interviewer and designation Personal interview questions Narration of the case interview

Was asked to stop after explaining the approach and asking two or three questions, BCG vs McKinsey took over, spirited discussion regarding pros, cons and discussion I had with Gautam Kumra at McK, after debates and stressing the people point, we called it a day. Confidence, at ease, conversational tone and mode Relating with the interviewer, leading the interview Take hints, explain approach. Second Arvind Pandey, Partner Talked about himself, food, asked about experience till now, outlined that we’ll start with a case and then move on to any doubts I have about BCG Problem statement: Leading cement manufacturer is facing declining profits; prices have halved in the last few months and facing decreasing prices further as well. Suggest emergency measures for next few weeks. Case analysis: Spoke about the business, market, the competition and how everyone else was coping. Talked about how the business worked; distribution and sales network, retailers and incentives and breakup in terms of branded, unbranded cement. Twist in the case, BCG says increase prices; profits fall by 12% more and take a hit. Now what? Structure:


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Value chain + market scenario, focused on issues like rising costs, raw material sourcing, manufacturing difficulties, expansion possibilities but were discounted. Went on to retailers and distribution and his eyes lit up, literally. Focused on region wise distribution, why there were discrepancies in individual dealers selling different quantities given same consumption patterns, focused on price prediction patterns and inventory holding practices by different retailers. Summary: Was stopped after this, talked about BCG, consulting as a career and how the partner found his calling, how BCG contributes in making real change in the world What do you think went right in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

Confidence, at ease, conversational tone and mode Relating with the interviewer, leading the interview I was informed later it was a stress interview. Since I got offers from both firms, seems best to be clear, calm and logical on the day and not let anything bog you down, least of all, the pressure and reputation.


The Boston Consulting Group Mustafa Rangwala All interviewers were with partners First Did B.Tech in Electronics Engineering from VJTI. Worked in JP Morgan for 21 months Asked me why I wanted to join Consulting and not stay in finance as my CV was fin-oriented. Also asked I whether I would join McKinsey or BCG (Be ready with the answer to the last question as it is going to be asked).

Narration of the case Problem statement: interview The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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The client is a financial services company. It has started a wealth management business five years earlier. The business is not performing nicely. Should the company keep on making on investments in this or exit. Structure: First asked about the industry. The industry was growing but the company was losing share. This meant that the problem was with the company. Structured to find about the revenue and cost structures of the industry and the firm in particular. Tried to gather as much background information on this as possible. Talked about training the employees, any new adverse regulations, competitor offerings, etc. In short covered a lot of different angles. Finally he asked me to give 10 recommendations to solve the problem. This was difficult as we had barely discussed the case for 10 minutes. Took 5 minutes to write down my suggestions. Structured my answer in three areas: Customers, employees and business improvement. Gave 3-4 suggestions in each bucket. What do you think went right in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

I was able to give 10 recommendations which required a lot of idea generation Idea generation requires a lot of practice. Make sure you do abstract cases which involve idea generation. Also have questions for the interviewer ready for at least 3 rounds of the process.


The Boston Consulting Group

Name:

Vinay Doshi

Round

First

Brief Profile :

UG : Shri Ram College Of Commerce (2011)


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Stream: Economics Work-ex: 0 months Personal interview questions

Just a little chat about where you’re from, what you like doing and stuff. Of course, it began with the quintessential -“Why don't you tell me something about yourself?” Well, the simple approach I took to answering this question each time was to link the major points on my cv and answer “Why you for BCG?” I do not think speaking about only one particular instance or event is a very good idea, unless of course, the interviewer himself/herself probes the area


Problem statement: About a potato chip manufacturing company


Well I didn’t really end up “cracking the case” as well i could have. That was really a big negative I thought. But i hindsight, the fact that i got an offer only affirm that there is no such thing as “cracking the case”- they only judge your approach to problem solving, and as you very well know there is no one correct solution


I really made a connect with the interviewer I felt. Let him do more of the talking bit as i sat listening. It really helps, because in the end, the interviewer will inevitably end up dropping those crucial hints that shall help you reach a conclusion.

Any tips for future You really need to be calm and only then will the analytical batches on the basis of skills and creativity really show. But do not worry - the interviewer shall go out of his/her way to make you feel so. your experience Just be you and try to establish connecting with the interviewer. A smiling face comes in handy too. Also, there is a lot of buildup on campus to the start of day zero- just remain calm during that time. It’s easy to feel


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over pressurized, especially with all the short-lists coming in, but just relax. It’s going to be fine. Round Personal interview questions


Second 1. Although the partner did not ask me any questions specifically, I started talking to him about his day, job and used this as an opportunity to highlight the points in my work experience which I wanted to share (remember they will not always ask you everything and do ensure that you connect it wherever possible)

Problem statement: The client is a large cement company with the highest market share. The second close player is cutting prices. To match the prices the client has also reduced its prices and is facing declining profits. The client has given us 3 weeks to solve the problem. Structure: I asked him about the dynamics of the industry. He explained that there is not much difference between the products as well as the cost structures of the company. This meant that even the competitor is losing money by the price war. I suggested 2 alternatives to solve this: first involved analysing the cost structure and trying to reduce costs. But the interviewer told me that the client has used all the cost efficiencies possible (this indicates that the interviewer does not want me to go deeper). Second option that I suggested involved was the Game Theory approach. This involves indicating to the competitor that we will not reduce our prices even if he does so. This I suggested could be done by issuing some


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way of communication to the competitor. But he said that the competitor is not willing to talk. I could not think of what could be done so he suggested that the client should increase the prices. This will show to the competitor that the client is serious. Then the interviewer said that after one week, the sales of the client had declined drastically and the competitor had not reduced its prices. This created a problem of inventory. To solve this data was collected geographically and analyzed. It was found that some dealers had reduced the stocks of the clients cement. The clients did this as they expected the price increase to be temporary and thus wanted to postpone the purchase. I suggested increasing the prices again. This will signal to the dealers that the price increase is not temporary. Finally he asked me to give some suggestions about the same. I suggested that the dealers should be given discounts based on the average volumes they generate every week and month. This will help in inventory planning. Secondly whenever the price is increased they should be increased all at once and any decrease should be spread over a larger period. This will not allow competitors and dealers to pre-empt the client. What do you think went right in this interview?

I was able to get the fact that the problem related to Game Theory.


The case had only one solution but I could not exactly pinpoint that

Any tips for future Even though the ideas might sound outlandish, get them batches on the basis of across, they will give you the benefit of thinking out of the box. Try to involve the interviewer in the case as much as your experience


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possible, if he is interested he will point you out more and more in the right direction. Round

Third


Started directly with the case. At the end of the case asked me about LBO (Leveraged buyout) and asked me to give an example in the Indian markets


Problem statement: I was travelling in a taxi when the driver asked me about switching his car and joining the radio cab service such as Meru. What is your advice? Structure: I said that we will compare the profits of the two methods and make our decisions based on that. I asked about the revenue and costs of the two and calculated the profit. I proved that joining the radio cab was better. But the interviewer told me that was the wrong answer. He asked me to go back. I took the current taxi and approached the different line items one by one. I suggested that if the driver installed an AC he will be able to charge more. But the interviewer asked me to suggest something else. If the engine of the cab (which was currently diesel) could be replaced by CNG (the radio cab used CNG) the fuel cost reduced drastically making the current cab more profitable. I showed him the calculations.


I was able to get to the required answer.


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He expected me to get to the answer much quicker.

Any tips for future Try to be receptive to the hints given by the interviewer in batches on the basis of the process. They are extremely important to get to the solution quickly. your experience

KPMG Interview Experience 9 Company Name: Round Brief Profile :

KPMG Abhishek Mani Tripathi 3 rounds of case interviews NIT Trichy, ECE, 2years Analog Devices

Personal interview 1. Why Consulting? questions 2. Why KPMG? What are your expectations from the internship programme? 3. What would you do for conflict resolution 4. Questions for the interviewer Narration of the case interview

Problem statement: Round 1: A company which has a market share of 60% saw reduction in its revenue for last 3 years due to intense price competition. Competitors are reducing prices and the company is not able to compete since cost of production is higher than prices quoted by competitors. Machinery employed for production is old and labor costs have been rising over years. Customers have been very loyal to the product. Round 2: A multinational insurance company wants to enter into


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Indian market. They offer life insurance, general insurance and fire and damage insurance. Company has been offering insurance in its parent country through online mode. Round 3: A company wants to set up an automobile manufacturing unit in India. Do a cost-benefit analysis for the company. I was not allowed to ask questions in this round. I tried to analyse this case taking into account factors like location, government regulations, market size, availability of labour, transportation etc. ( Time limit : 3 minutes ) Case analysis: First case : I proposed that since machinery has not been replaced since years, quality of products has degraded. Secondly, competitors have reduced their prices by outsourcing it to countries like China. Second case :


Analyse it by separating life insurance, general insurance and fire and damage insurance. Give inputs on mode of delivery (online mode is not very feasible in Indian scenario). Also, take into account role of brokers and agents in case of fire and damage insurance. I was able to provide solutions to first 2 cases and the interviewers looked satisfied but couldn’t do well in third case Was not able to provide a good solution to third case First of all read complete case carefully. Ask questions and try to get as much information as possible. Communicate your answers to interviewers and keep them involved.



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Company Name: Round Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc. ) Personal interview questions


KPMG Rashik Gupta There were 4 rounds and each round followed a similar pattern – HR questions followed by a case BITS-Pilani, Chemical Engineering, 8 months at ZS Associates 1. Tell me about yourself 2. Do you know about the work that KPMG does 3. Experience at IIM Lucknow 4. Describe the project that you did at ZS Associates – This question was followed by many questions about my project 5. Short-term and long-term goals 6. Personal goals in life The only thing they were looking was how you structure your analysis and your line of thinking. They were not looking for any detailed analysis and in all the cases I was stopped after I had discussed my overall approach. Case 1: Problem statement: Samsung has come up to you with a business proposition i.e. they want to start an insurance company for electronic goods. How will you help them? Case Analysis: The only thing they were looking was how you structure your analysis and your line of thinking. I started with asking questions about the new business model to extract some information like target customers,, how is the value proposition different from a warranty, how much can Samsung expect to charge its customers for insurance. My first step was to analyze the business model and establish the financial feasibility. This was followed by target customers – who are the target customers and are they sufficient to justify investment and why will they be interested in our product. Third step was to deal with operational issues of providing this product.


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Case 2: Problem statement: A foreign bank wants to open its branch in India. They have hired you as a consultant. How will you approach this? Case Analysis: My first step was to inquire about the bank. So I asked them about their current scale of operations, countries where they are operating, their market share and reputation among clients. I then explored what are the different areas of banking where the bank can start its operations and based on the answers to above questions, narrowed down on 1 area. Next step was to deal with operational issues, how they will start operations. I focused on 2 questions in this: 1. Who will be the customers immediately after starting? 2. How will be getting those customers and build trustworthy relationship with them? After an approach was finalized to start operations, I also briefly discussed how they will proceed in short term to expand their business in India. Case 3: Problem statement: You want to open a petrol pump. Proceed. Case Analysis: In this case, my questions were not answered and I was told that it is your business, make necessary assumptions. So I took up 3-4 options like highways, a busy market in a city and similar other options. Then I followed a guesstimate approach for calculating the demand in these locations. Comparison of demand or revenues with investment gave me the best possible option for the petrol pump. Case 4: The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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Here they followed a slightly different approach. Before the case, I was told that no questions will be allowed. I have to make necessary assumptions by myself and I have 5 minutes to present my ideas and they won’t allow me to complete if I am not done in 5 minutes. Problem statement: A US car manufacturer wants to setup a plant in India. You are hired as a consultant. Help them. Case Analysis: I started with stating my assumptions to make sure that all of us are working in the same framework. My assumptions were: 1. They already export their cars to India: This helped me to simplify my case as now I am aware of my target customers and what is my position in the market. Also I know how my product is viewed in Indian market. 2. It is amongst the biggest car manufacturers of US: This simplified the problem of establishing trust among customers as the company was a big brand name and enjoyed a good position in the market. So I started with the reasons of investing in India. Possible reason can be increase in demand and lost sales because imports are not able to meet demand or increase in competition and therefore for reducing costs, I have to operate in India rather than import my cars. I stated all the possible reasons and assumed one reason to be the valid one for further analysis. Let’s say the reason is increase in competition. So we have decided that the motive of investing in India is to reduce costs. Now next step was to decide on a location that will help me in this regard. So I looked at 2 possibilities for this. 1. My customers are uniformly spread throughout India. In this case, my only concern about the location will be investment costs i.e. cost of land, cost of setting up a plant etc. and the tax rebate that I will get from state government. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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2. I have most of my customers located in a particular area. In this case, I must strike a balance between above mentioned investment costs and my logistics costs i.e. plant must be located close to my biggest market. Since the reason for investing in India is increased competition, my last step was to analyze how I will use my cost savings to deal with competition. I analyzed pros and cons of different options mentioned below: 1. Increase my marketing budget to attract customers 2. Decrease prices by passing on the savings in manufacturing to customers 3. A mix of both the strategies Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

Case analysis is very important. Make sure that you prepare a structure and show them the structure of analysis before starting.


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Mckinsey & Co. Interview Experience 11 Company Name: Name of interviewer and designation Round Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Personal interview questions

Narration of the case interview What do you think went right in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience Round Name of interviewer and designation Personal interview questions

McKinsey & Co. Aman Bhatnagar Rajat Dhawan, Partner First IIT Delhi Electrical Engineering (B. Tech) Entrepreneur, 17 months 1. About yourself – one of my interests is TED talks, talked about the model of TED, how it works, qualities I talked about resonated with consulting, led the interview from there on, asked about mood on campus, preferred recruiter, dream jobs 2. Consulting fits, where do you see yourself in McKinsey, your career goals, 10-15 years down the line? 3. Talking about the AIR 147 in IIT-JEE, coaching institutes, and then questions to him Problem statement: NA – No case Confidence, at ease, conversational tone and mode Relating with the interviewer, leading the interview Relax. Be yourself. Talk like you would to a senior colleague at a swanky restaurant when it’s his treat. Second Gautam Kumra, Senior Partner 1. About yourself – about TED talks, structure of TED, about my venture, how it started up, how it evolved, current state, future plans 2. Told him about a question Rajat asked, discussed about that for a bit, and then he asked about other offers, shortlists, interest in finance etc.


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3. Questions about BCG vs McKinsey, detailed discussion on Collaborative team spirit, Evaluation patterns, presence in almost all sectors where other firms are next to absent e.g. Healthcare, Impact in terms of setting up organizations like the ISB, PHFI, dealing in a scale which others could never hope to achieve, always being the innovators, the trailblazers as well as facts about compensation. Narration of the case interview What do you think went right in this interview?

Problem statement: NA – No case Confidence, at ease, conversational tone and mode Relating with the interviewer, leading the interview



Mckinsey & Co Tejas Choudhari Mr. Sikka, Associate Partner 1st Round BTech(IT) from VJTI, Mumbai Fresher 1. Tell me about yourself. I had practiced this answer many times so was able to say it fluently and perfectly 2. Asked questions about my entrepreneurial venture and what was my role in it. Current situation of the venture and future prospects. General questions, nothing specific 3. Some questions on my cricket career during school and college Problem statement: As he was talking to me about cricket, he started talking about how we could estimate cricket ball sales in the country for one year. Basically, I was given a guesstimate first up. Case analysis:


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First, I confirmed whether he was talking about leather cricket ball. Thereafter, I started talking about where a cricket ball will be used and who will buy a cricket ball. At each juncture, I kept on checking with Mr. Sikka so as I’m not deviating from the solution. Then I told him that I would estimate sales of cricket balls for Mumbai and then extrapolate it to the whole country. I calculated number of matches played in one day by estimating number of grounds in Mumbai (having played on most of the grounds, it was easy for me). Then I separated one day matches and 20-20 matches as one day match requires 2 balls and 20-20 requires 4 balls(As two 20-20 matches are possible on a single pitch in one day). Also, considering that each ground hosts practice session 2 times a day and this will also contribute towards the sales. Then he stopped me and said fine. He did not go into depth of the guesstimate as it could have got complicated with other parts of the country to be considered for contribution towards the sales of cricket balls. I was able to connect with the interviewer. I asked him questions on which we spoke for 15 minutes and he seemed interested. No idea as such. I guess he needed something more from the guesstimate. More number crunching could have helped. Please practice your cases as well as guesstimates. Also, know your CV in and out. Always connect with the interviewer.

Interview Experience 13 Company Name: Name of interviewer and designation Round

McKinsey & Co. Amit Deshpande Rajat Bhargava


We started the interview by talking about the video conferencing facilities in IIM L, since there was a VC

First


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What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience Round

setup in the interview room. We talked about it for a while and then we started the interview. He asked the most standard question: tell me something about yourself. I gave him a long and descriptive answer since he wasn’t engaging me much. We ended up talking about badminton since both of us were badminton players. Since I am passionate about badminton, he asked me to estimate the no. of badminton courts in India. I started off by dividing India into rural and urban areas, and confirmed with him that I can ignore the rural areas for this guesstimation. I divided the urban areas further into tier 1 and tier 2 cities, and started with Mumbai as an average for tier 1 cities. The rest of the case was pretty straightforward, since I took an average number of people per badminton court and multiplied it by the population. I took a percentage of the number in case of tier 2 cities to arrive at the total number. Structure was good. I clarified key assumptions with the interviewer before proceeding. I overestimated the total number the first time, but corrected the number after a reality check. Draw out an MECE structure before starting analysis of the case. Reality checks are essential. Second

Name of interviewer and designation Personal interview questions

Amit Kheda


The case was about a fertilizer manufacturing company based out of the US which was receiving complaints regarding its poor customer service. I started by asking details about the company, its operations, its customers, the competitors and the

The interviewer was extremely informal. He was talking how weird the interview process is these days, as compared to the process in his days. We talked about how big the interview room was and how difficult it is to focus while sitting in a comfy couch! He didn’t ask me any personal questions since he said he had already been through my CV a million times.


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market in general (barriers, trends etc.). After the initial questions, I realized that the problem was in the supply of fertilizers to the customers (which were 5 major distributors across the US). So, I broke down the case into the supply value chain, i.e., raw materials (procurement and transportation), manufacturing process and inventory handling. This led me to the problem which was their inventory handling methods. Specifically, the demand estimation was way off; they estimated demand on an annual basis and it was a wordof-mouth contract with the customers. Besides, despite geographical variations within the US, the demand was estimated by one sales team centrally. This was the key issue and I got to it pretty quickly. The pace of the interview was very fast and the interviewer did not let me talk for long periods of time; basically he was testing me on my speed of option generation. I thought I did pretty well and suggested seasonal demand estimation based on geography and that the contracts with customers should be on paper. What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Round

Good case overall. I got the structure right which helped me arrive at the solution fast.

Name of interviewer and designation Personal interview questions

Gautam Kumra


Nothing really. However, I really had to think on my toes because the interviewer was constantly interrupting me and trying to disturb my thought process. Third

Very serious interview. He was completely straight-faced right from the word goes. Immediately asked me to tell him something about myself. After hearing me out, he asked me to tell him something about my work experience at the Bain Capability Centre. This part went pretty well. He didn’t really give me a case. He asked me which sector I followed in India, to which I replied the retail sector. We then entered into a discussion into the retail sector in India. I had very little sector knowledge and retail was my best bet. SO after giving him some facts that I had read, he asked me what a retail company think should about while entering the Indian market, i.e., the


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key success factors. I told him that we should consider the target customer segment, the product offerings, the retail format and the locations. The interview was pretty OK till this point. However, then he started getting into details. He asked me what a company should do to compete with the huge unorganized sector, and wasn’t convinced with my answer. I knew that I’d blown it. Finally he ended the case and asked me if I had any other shortlists before I left. What do you think went right in this interview? What do you think went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future batches on the basis of your experience

HR answers. Everything else. Sector knowledge let me down. Please prepare one sector thoroughly, not just facts, but to have a business opinion about it.


McKinsey & Co

Name:

Srinath Nagarajan

Name of interviewer and designation Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc. )

Gautam Kumra, Partner


First Chartered Accountant, BCom(Hons) from SRCC, Delhi University. Prior work ex as a Tax Consultant with Ernst & Young, a Visiting Faculty at St Josephs Colleger, Bangalore and then as a Ratings Analyst with CRISIL Ratings 1. Tell me about yourself – Had a 1 minute intro prepared highlighting specific aspects about myself that I wanted to bring to his notice 2. Tell me what you did in CRISIL –


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I explained that I was engaged in assigning Credit Ratings to Corporates under Basel II Regulations 3. How would you go about Rating a Company, lets say Bharti Airtel Because it was Bharti Airtel I had to give an answer tailored to what the approach would be for a Telecom company would be. While answering I was conscious of 2 things – One, that I have a clear structure to my answers and Two, tried to keep it as simple and jargon free as possible. 3.1 (An Offshoot from something I had mentioned in the earlier answer) What are the ratios that you would look at? Here I mentioned the financial ratios that I would look at stating specifically why I would look at each ratio. He probed me on a few ratios here and there. The intention appeared to be more to check my articulation of a financial concept. Eg: What is a Current Ratio? I explained the formula. However I did not stop there. I went on to explain that it was used to assess the liquidity position of the company. Then I went on to explain to the logic behind the usage of the ratio – Simply put, it tells us if there is likely to be sufficient inflows of funds over the next one year to meet the maturing payment obligations. So a current ratio of less than one means the company has more to pay than what is coming in, a liquidity problem (Based on the approving nods that I was getting, I felt he liked those portions of my answer where I endeavored to de-jargonize or simplify complex concepts) 4. So Tell me, how would you increase the revenues of Bharti Airtel That was my case, it had begun. However, at that point I thought it was just an extension of my previous discussion and I started rambling. One sentence in, I realized that this was my case to solve and I wasn’t doing any of the things had rehearsed - probing questions/ 2 minute time out The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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etc. In fact I did not even pick up the pen and the paper. I will discuss the case in the next session, but what I learnt is that the case can come at you un announced just be alert enough to grab it and not ramble on


Problem statement: How do you increase the revenues of Bharti Airtel Case analysis: Preliminary questions - We all know Bharti Airtel and the services it offered quite well – So there was no need to ask preliminary questions. Also, since I wasn’t aware that I was doing a case I did not have the opportunity to ask preliminary questions. Structure: The Structure that I used was fairly simple – Increase in Revenues can in Existing markets or through expansion in new markets. I explored the existing markets first. Here increase in revenues could occur through increased market penetration, increased usage of basic services among current users or increased usage of Value added services among existing customers. He asked me a couple of questions on how these things can be done and I gave him some off the cuff answers. For the New markets, I suggested that the company could look at inorganic expansion through acquisitions or through establishment of Greenfield operations in new markets with high market potential. The entire case was more like an informal chat. There were a few follow up questions on some of the options I had generated. The case did not last very long – about 10 minutes at the max.


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I thought the pre-case portion of my interview went of really well. I was on top of all the points I had mentioned in the CV, so any discussion on my past experiences especially work ex went well. The thing I felt worked for me the most was my ability to describe the entire rating process without using complex financial jargons and my ability to explain things from a layman’s perspective


I did not do the case analysis particularly well. I did not use the pen and paper. This meant that I was generating options thinking on my feet rather than providing carefully considered alternatives. This to a very large extent inhibited my creativity and did not give me enough opportunity to demonstrate my structuring skills.

Any tips for future Know your Resume well. At no point in the interview batches on the basis of should you ramble on. All answers must be natural (ie, your experience must not appear rehearsed), brief, structured and to the point. Retaining composure through the interview is critical. Mistakes may happen during the interview, but it is important to pick you up and keep at it. People rarely have perfect interviews where everything has gone right and interviewers don’t expect it either. Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Personal interview questions

Second Chartered Accountant, BCom(Hons) from SRCC, Delhi University. Prior work ex as a Tax Consultant with Ernst & Young, a Visiting Faculty at St Josephs Colleger, Bangalore and then as a Ratings Analyst with CRISIL Ratings 5. Tell me about yourself – Had a 1 minute intro prepared highlighting specific aspects about myself that I wanted to bring to his notice 6. You have mentioned that you sing on a Band in Bangalore, what do you do here exactly?– I explained the kind of music that we played and where we performed. I also explained the future plans that we have. I think he liked the fact that it


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was not something of the past and that I had a vision for the band in future also 7. How do you manage singing on the band, now that you are in IIM Lucknow I mentioned how we exchange tracks over the internet and how we perform and do studio recordings when I visit during the breaks 8. All right Srinath, let’s start with a case shall we? I nodded and we moved on to the case Narration of the case interview

Problem statement: I am the manufacturer of Tata Nano. While setting up the plant I expected to have sales of around 5 lac Nanos per annum, but now the number is way below that. Can you help me find out why Case analysis: Preliminary questions – Since it was Tata Nano, lot of the background questions were not required. I clarified whether the problem was a lack of bookings that they received. He agreed. Structure: The Structure that I used was not the best but it did get me to the problem. I started off by saying the lack of bookings could be on account of 3 reasons – One, a lack of awareness of the product among the target customers (Marketing problem), Two, Being aware of the product but not being able to place a booking (Distribution problem) or a Three, being aware of the product yet not interested in the product (I called this the product problem). He asked me to ignore the first 2 (he did not seem highly impressed) and explore the 3rd the product problem. Here I again broke it up in to 2 further branches – Problems that the Car has by itself (Internal factors) and problems in the external environment mainly competition, etc. I deep delved in to the Internal factors. Of the internal problems I mentioned, he agreed that the negative publicity from the steering wheel catching fire was an issue and comfort factor was another issue. As and when he acknowledged a problem, I made a


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separate note of it. Eventually when he asked me to explore the external factors, I used these points to do a quick summary of the key takeaways up to that point In the external problem, I divided it into competition from other cars and two wheelers. I asked a few questions here trying to pick up a clue or 2 of how to proceed from there but he just refused to shell out any information. At this point he also took out his Blackberry and acted uncooperative. I went on to analyze for myself that given that the price of the next cheapest car was over a lakh higher than this car the issue lay more with the 2 wheelers. I went on to list factors why people would prefer 2 wheelers to a Tata Nano. Of the factors I listed, he acknowledged that the high running costs and availability of easy financing options seemed like the distinguishing factors. He said I seemed to have arrived at the problem, He now asked me to tell me how he could provide financing options for the Nano. This I felt was like a guess estimate problem. I said I would work backward to solve the problem. This is how I solved it – I said the average Nano target customer would earn Rs 10000 per month (he had given me that number in an earlier discussion, he liked the fact that I had noted it down and was using it again) I said, given the average savings rate of the country is at 35%-40% (this is from the RBI website I think). That meant a saving of about Rs 4,000 per month. No one would be comfortable giving up their entire saving, so if we considered 50% of this, the customer will be willing to pay an EMI of 2000 per month. The company would want to complete the financing within a period of 4 years cause after that the car may be worthless in case of repossession. So this meant roughly a down payment of 20,000 followed by 4 years of EMI of 2000 pm approximately (I took his approval on all of the numbers I used, so he was comfortable with this number). Summary: I began to summarize all my recommendations to that point but he stopped me saying that I didn’t have to absolutely nail the case. The Consulting & Strategy Club, IIM Lucknow

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My explanation of the stuff related to music on my CV really worked for me. I tend to get a little excited when I speak of my music and that must have come across as genuine to him. This I know because when I met him at the end of the day, he remembered my band’s name which showed that I had piqued his interest on that topic.


In my attempt to keep the structure exhaustive I dwelled in to a lot of aspects that may not have been required. He seemed unimpressed by my suggestions of it being a marketing/ distribution problem. Then again that may have been a put on reaction merely to unsettle me.

Any tips for future The most important thing to nail a consult interview is batches on the basis of composure and confidence. With this in place, half the your experience job is done. In all HR answers it is important to show genuineness. No answer must come across as fabricated.


Mc Kinsey

Name:

Nirjhar Varshney

Name of interviewer and designation Round (First/Second/third) Brief Profile : (Graduation College, stream, Work ex details, etc.) Personal interview questions

Anuj Agarwal , Engagement Manager First BTech, IIT delhi Fresher 1. Tell me something about yourself?


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2. Sharing same IITD and IIML background he asked my observations about similarities and differences among 2 institutes? Narration of the case interview

Problem statement: A company bidding for contracts of Metro construction is stagnating in a industry with growth rate of 15%? Figure out a way for them to double their revenue in next 3 years? Case analysis: Got the working model of the firm. The bidding model. Eventually came to revelation that they are not winning bids in last 2 years. Structure: Analyzed bidding structure ( COST + MARGIN). Broke into typical cost analysis and identified different cost heads. Required to provide innovative solutions for decreasing cost.


Got the initial structure of industry right. Asked information about an unknown industry before starting to solve it.

What do you think Unable to provide innovative ideas in end. went wrong in this interview? Any tips for future Practice a lot of cases with diverse people to open your batches on the basis of analytical approach. your experience


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IIML Casebook 2014-15

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