GreenLife Bank expands into Asia (McKinsey 2nd round)
Our client is Green Life, a digital challenger bank based in Europe. The bank operates solely online and offers its clients a variety of current accounts, insurance, and financial products. Green Life currently operates in 10 different EU countries and employs approximately 500 people.
Due to its impressive regional growth, which amounted to €200m in profits last year, the company has recently considered expanding into Asia and introducing a new customer service training programme. This programme will be offered to new customer service representatives in the Asian division of the bank, but will also be expanded to Europe to upskill and retrain our existing staff.
The client has requested your assistance in implementing this project. The senior project manager will be your primary point of contact throughout the engagement.
Question 1: What are some of the questions that you would like to ask the project manager of the bank to ensure that the training programme is successful?
Question 2: How many employees would we need to train for the virtual platform to be more cost-effective than the in-person training?
We now want to decide between training candidates virtually or in person. We know the following:
Virtual program costs:
- Costs to develop a digital platform: €125k
- Total cost per employee trained: €250
In-person program costs:
- Costs to train the first 250 employees: €300
- Costs per employee after first 250: €400
How many employees would we need to train for the virtual platform to be more cost-effective than the in-person training?
Question 3: What sort of risks should we be prepared for when implementing this project, and how can we mitigate them?
We decided that the programme will be delivered virtually. What sort of risks should we be prepared for when implementing this project, and how can we mitigate them?
Question 4: Assuming that assessments must all take place on the same date, how many additional senior HR professionals do we need to hire to reach full compliance?
Now that we have considered risks, one of the risks we’re most concerned with is ensuring compliance with the training. The project manager was considering a system whereby we could do quizzes and a simulation of the customer interaction to test employee knowledge. We know the following:
- Employees will be grouped into teams of 4
- We have 4 internal HR professionals capable of supervising 6 teams each
- We can hire additional senior HR professionals capable of supervising 10 teams each
- All employees of the bank need to take this test and we are only concerned with the 500 we currently have
Assuming that assessments must all take place on the same date, how many additional senior HR professionals do we need to hire to reach full compliance?
This case is based on a second-round McKinsey interview from a European office. The case has been sanitized and adjusted for confidentiality, but the topic, type of questions and target solutions reflect those in the interview.
Especially over the past year, interviews in top consulting firms have moved away from standard topics such as market entry, new products, etc. More and more cases try to engage candidates with new issues they are also likely to face as consultants - one of the most popular ones being around the digital trends that consulting clients have to adjust to. This case aims to give candidates access to one such case.
The case also includes detailed interviewer notes of what is assessed during the case.