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Brainstorming practice areas

What would be some good non-financial topics to have brainstorming ideas for? For eg attracting talent, customer retention etc..

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Profile picture of Antonello
on Oct 16, 2021
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

Hi!

  • Reduce time to market
  • Increase product awareness
  • Improve productivity
  • Etc.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Anto

Deleted user
on Oct 16, 2021

By “non-financial” you mean any area other than profit/revenue/cost/investment?!

The list can be a mile long to be honest. What specifically are you looking for? Here's a starter list:

  • Environmental
  • Organisation culture
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Employee lifecycle management (hiring, onboarding, retention etc)
  • Process efficiency
  • Data monetisation
  • Digital Transformation
  • Automation

Even for the above I have listed, you can see there will be a financial angle:

  • Investment/cost required to change something/launch something/improve something
  • Cost savings due to efficiency improvements
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Profile picture of Ian
Ian
Coach
on Oct 17, 2021
Top US BCG / MBB Coach - 5,000 sessions |Tech, Platinion, Big 4 | 9/9 personal interviews passed | 95% candidate success

First of all, please never have a “financial” and “non-financial” bucket! This is essentially “cheating” (when someone asks what do you want to eat, do you say “meat” and “non-meat"?).

Now, in terms of non-financial, there are a ton! People, processes, tools, organization, culture, social, political, economic, environmental, etc. etc.

It's all contextual to the case, industry, and company!

Profile picture of Cristian
on Oct 31, 2023
Most Awarded Coach on the platform | Ex-McKinsey | 88% verified success rate

These are a good start.

For candidates looking into this topic, these days you can do a lot of good practice on brainstorming with ChatGPT and you can ask it to create alternative structure types of you get a better understanding of how you could break down the same type of problem. 

Adding here also a resource on different brainstorming techniques:

Best,
Cristian

Profile picture of Deleted
Deleted
Coach
on Oct 16, 2021
Experienced in interviews for Bain, Oliver Wyman, and Simon Kucher

Hi there, good question - I think it depends on what you are applying and what area of expertise you lack. 

Some non-financial topics/horizontal capabilities I can think of are digital, organizational effectiveness, and climate and sustainability. 

Feel free to ask me more. 

Profile picture of Pedro
Pedro
Coach
on Oct 16, 2021
BAIN | EY-P | Most Senior Coach @ Preplounge | Former Principal | FIT & PEI Expert

Just skim through a business journal, it should give you a lot of ideas on things to brainstorm on (and possibly some answers as well)

Profile picture of Marco-Alexander
on Oct 31, 2021
Former BCG | Case author for efellows book | Experience in 6 consultancies (Stern Stewart, Capgemini, KPMG, VW Con., Hor