Market Sizing in Non-Market Sizing Focused Case

Hello!

Indeed, you are right. Usually you find market-sizing exercises inside of other big exercises (e.g., profitability, etc.) 

It´s very rare that you find a market sizing case just by itself, without other content, in MBB interviews. 

The way to prep this particular piece, if it´s the one making you struggle and consuming all the time, is to do as many as possible:

1. In this Q&A, you can filter dozens of them by typing market sizing, commented by experts
2. There are tons in Google, with solutions
3. PM if you want some MBB-like, since I have 3 self-contained exercises precisely for a coachee of mine who used to struggle with this part too

Hope it helps!

Cheers, 

Clara

Hi,
usually, these types of sub-cases should be solved in 5-8 minutes, since they are considered only a part of a bigger business case. I recommend presenting the whole structure and making top-down assumptions to quickly arrive at its resolution. The experience will help you in understanding what you are supposed to estimate and what to assume, but I recommend always to ask permission to the interviewer before strong assumptions, my mentioning that you are working for a quick estimation. As next steps try to show all the detailed approach you could have used if you have had more time.

Best,
Antonello

Hi there,

First, in regards to "Is there a technique to handle market sizing questions in non-market sizing cases?"....get this out of your head! They're the same! Just focus on handling market sizing questions period!

Some tips:

1. Just like in a case, make sure you understand the question - what are you really being asked to calculate
2. Decide whether a top-down or bottom-up approach is best
3. Figure out what you know you know, and what you know you don't know, but could estimate
   1. This helps you determine how to split out buckets
4. Stay flexible - you can start with a "high-level" market sizing, but gauge your interviewers reaction....if it looks like they want you to do more...then go along level deeper in terms of your splits

In general, for a market sizing, you really shouldn't spend more than 5 minutes

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,

Given that it is part of a wider profitability or strategy case the expectation is that you can size the market in around 5 minutes. My guess would be that you are making the market sizing too complex but doing a complex segmentation or trying to capture many complex drivers when a top-down approach will be accurate enough for the purpose of the case. 

Maybe you can share some examples and your approach to make the discussion more tangible?

-A

Hello,

That's an issue really common among candidates. There isn't a general rule, but you should try every time to understand the importance of the market sizing in the case, dedicating it the right time (considering that you have 30-40 minutes foir the entire case). You are usually asked to solve the market sizing part in around 10 minutes.
You can address this issue in 2 ways:

1. Practice a lot with market sizing, this will make you able to design an approach for the mkt sizing in no more than 3 minutes
2. Ask the interviewer the permission to do some assumptions instead of calculating everything.If your market sizing has to require no more than 10 minutes, the interviewer will provide you with some data/information that will simplify the case

Best,
Luca

Hi Anonymous,

There is no universally valid answer to how much time you should spend. The correct way to approach the situation is to clarify the expectations of this chunk of the case with your interviewer.

Needless to say, a decent performance of solving market-sizing questions is a prerequisite.

Hope this helps - if so, please be so kind and give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button!

Robert

Hello, 

It depends on the cases. Sometimes, interviewer is expecting to spend a lot of time on the market sizing and keep just a few minutes on other dimensions to investigate. Sometimes, the market sizing should last only 5-7 minutes ... Please PM if you want to test yourself in one or the other option.

Best

Hi,

You can indeed find market-sizing questions in non-market sizing focused cases. I ran a specific course on market sizing and would be happy to help.

You should first focus on you segmentation skills:

B2C:
- Demographics (Age, education, income, family size, race, gender, occupation, nationality)
- Behavioral (Purchasing behavior, customer journey stage, occasion & timing,
customer loyalty & interest, risk tolerance, user status) 
- Psychographic (Lifestyle, personality traits, values, opinions, interests of consumers) 
- Geographic (Geographical boundaries)

B2B:
- Company characteristics (Industry, company size, number of employees)
- Geography (Geographical boundaries)
- Purchasing Approach (Occasion & timing, customer capabilities, nature of existing relationship) 
- Personal Characteristics (Loyalty, risk attitude, user status)

B2G:
- Demographics  (Type of agency, size of budget, the amount of autonomy) 
- Geographic (Geographical boundaries) 
- Government Tier (Federal , State, Local, Quasi-governmental, International)
- Bid type (Closed, Open)

But sometimes you don’t need to segmentation. Here is an example of case that could be solved with high level top down approach - estimate the size of credit card market in the US:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-should-i-approach-the-following-question-estimate-the-market-size-of-credit-cards-in-the-us-6695

Best,

Anton