Dear community,
I am interviewing at Bain and I know that the person who will interview me used a market sizing case regarding the amount of co2 emissions in Germany in 2022. Can someone help me how to break it down? and how can I make estimations based on industries?
Thanks!
Hi there!
First of all, don't assume that you're likely to get the same questinon. That doesn't happen often.
And in case it does, I'd recommend you tell the interviewer that you've heard it before. Otherwise, they might be able to tell based on your reaction that you recognised the question. And if you're honest and upfront you'll win more points this way.
Feel free to provide a couple of suggestion of how to solve the question and then we can provide feedback on them. You'll get more out of the Q&A this way.
Also, play around with market sizing question on ChatGPT. It's actually surprisingly good with market sizing.
Best,
Cristian
Hi there,
If it were me, I would go in expecting that it is not a C02 emissions question.
You'll learn a lot more from this by trying it out yourself first! Why don't you post your approach here and we can provide commentary?
(Hint: Probably don't do industries as you would be completely guessing…rather, maybe try population)
How to approach market sizing
It's very simple: Do the approach the is the easiest for you given the question.
Are they asking you to estimate something where you don't even know where to begin from the top (maybe you have 0 clue as to the market size of the industry, the GDP of that country, etc. etc.)? Then do bottom-up!
Alternatively, does it seem impossible to do a realistic from-the-ground-up estimation of something (perhaps it requires just far too many steps and assumptions)? Then do top-down!
Fundamentally, you need to take the approach that just makes the most sense in that circumstance. Quickly think about the key assumptions / numbers required and whether you 1) Know them or 2) Can reasonably estimate them. If you can, go ahead!
An Example
He's a Q&A for a great market sizing question here asking to estimate # of electric charging stations in a city in 10 years:
This one could be answered top-down (as I did) by estimating population of the city, # of drivers/ cars, etc. etc.
OR, it could be answered bottom-up by estimating # of stations you see per block (or # of gas/petrol tanks), % increase this might be over time (or # of EV stations that would be needed per gas tank given EV stations take 10 times as long), and # of blocks you'd estimate the city to have.
Take a look here for additional practice! https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/brain-teaser/intermediate/taxis-in-manhattan-market-sizing-229
Hi,
I second what Cristian has mentioned. I was an interviewer for 5 years at BCG, and I've seen instances where candidates have definitely been exposed to a ‘leaked’ version of my case. But none of them ended up passing the interview.
Even if you prepare well for the answer, take note that the interviewer has full control over the questions and direction of the case.
So the moral here is don't try and anticipate - it really is often counterproductive.
Hi,
one approach could be to look at the BIP of Germany of a given year (for example 2020). For that year you look at the total CO2 Emissions. Then you calculate the how much CO2 was produced per one unit of BIP. Then you can take a look at projected economic growth till the given year, or for 2022 just the reported BIP and multiply your Emissionintensity with that BIP. You could also break this down for different sectors and add everything up at the end. After that you should maybe consider trends like increasing importance of a net zero economy and adjust for that trends.
