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Covid-19 vaccination case

I recently stumbled upon this problem and tried to solve it. Could you please give feedback and suggestions to be MECE and what would be your proposed approach? 

Your client is a government of an Asian country who is battling a problem of lack of interest in Covid-19 vaccination among its people across the whole country. 

How would you approach the case? How to increase interests in the vaccination? 

My attempt would be: 

Understand the status quo

  • What has been done and what's the plan
  • Compare with neighboring countries and global situation
  • Understand government's capacity to implement the vaccination

Understand why there is lack of interest

  • Analyse the Political, Socio-economic, Technology and Education trends 

Propose ways to improve

  • Explore possibilities to partner with private institutions
  • Based on the PEST analysis, suggest ways to overcome the problems
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Top answer
Florian
Coach
on Jul 01, 2021
1400 5-star reviews across platforms | 600+ offers | Highest-rated case book on Amazon | Uni lecturer in US, Asia, EU

Hey there,

Without going too deep into a structure here, be careful what question you are trying to solve. It is a common issue I see with many candidates and as the question is asked here I would clarify with the interviewer to make sure to answer it in the right way. There are 2 ways on how to approach this

1. How would you approach it? This is similar to your answer (1. Propose some analyses to understand the situation, 2. find the root causes, 3. take measures to alleviate, etc)

2. What concrete ideas could you implement that would increase vaccination? (potential ideas on the top level: 1. monetary incentives, 2. non-monetary incentives, 3. campaigning. From those three, you can go very deep with 5 sub-points each)

Cheers,

Florian

Deleted user
edited on Jul 01, 2021

I agree with Florian and Ken that your framework is too unspecific. To help you make it better, here my thoughts:

  • The core of your framework is a very superficial, generic analysis (Political, Socio-economic, Technology, Education). This should be adjusted to dissect the problem, develop a working hypothesis and help you answer the actual question, e.g. like this:
  • Hypothesis: In order for somebody to have interest in the vaccine, 3 conditions need to be met. If anyone of these is not met, people will not bother with the vaccine:
    • COVID is a problem: COVID is either a perceived risk or imposes an actual restriction on personal freedom, earning opportunities, etc.
    • The vaccine can alleviate the problem: The vaccine can reduce the risk of getting sick and once everybody's vaccinated, society will open up
    • It doesn't come with unreasonable risks: The risk is safe to use and does not impose any other risk or negative side effects

With this structure, you can then assess the situation, buy listing specific questions (the sub-bullets to the three parts of your framework):

  • Problem
    • Was there a COVID outbreak and how severe was is?
    • Are media talking about the fatalities and risks associated with COVID?
    • Are people aware what's happening in other countries?
    • Did the government impose any measures?
  • Alleviation
    • Which vaccine is available and do people trust the efficacy numbers?
    • Do people have sufficient access to information to know about it and how it will reduce risk of infection?
  • Risks
    • How do media and the public think about the risks?
    • Do people trust science/government/pharma to be truthful about risks and side effects?
    • Do people have easy access to the vaccine? 

Once you went through these points, you'll be able to pinpoint the root cause of the lack of interest and develop measures to react. Florian's framework on monetary/non-monetary/information campaigns might be helpful for this.

4
Ken
Coach
on Jul 01, 2021
Ex-McKinsey final round interviewer | Executive Coach

Agree with Florian. There's a tendency for candidates to be more "process" driven in their structuring than "issue" driven. If the question you are trying to solve is increasing the adoption/interest in vaccination, then focusing your structure on the "issues (or hypotheses" why the interest today is low and how that can be mitigated is a more relevant approach.

Ian
Coach
on Jul 01, 2021
Top US BCG / MBB Coach - 5,000 sessions |Tech, Platinion, Big 4 | 9/9 personal interviews passed | 95% candidate success

Hi there,

A framework is never "let me first look at the issues, then let me think of solutions, then let me prioritize and implement them".

Every single project/framework inherently contains this, but it's not a framework!

Rather, you need to think through how to increase vaccination interest. To do so, we need a framework that understands the key drivers. Any of the following framework structures work:

  1. Ethos, Pathos, Logos (employ these 3 persuasion techniques to get people interested in vaccination)
  2. Social, Political, Economic (employ these 3 levers to get vaccinations)
  3. Financial, Personal (can you incentivize people or do you need to change their actual minds)
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