Resources for Understanding Industry-Specific Trends and Drivers in Consulting Cases

Hi there,

I think this is an interesting question that may be relevant for many people. I would be happy to share my thoughts on it:

• First of all, please keep in mind that business knowledge is not assessed unless you are an industry expert. While I would highly advise you to gather a basic understanding of the dominating industries for strategy consulting companies in order to showcase solid business judgement, this will probably just help you with understanding the overall business context of a case study.
• When it comes to resources, I would highly advise you to have a look at the business school case books of Duke, Ross, and Wharton. Even if they are far from perfect, they will serve their purpose to provide an overview of the most relevant industries.
• Moreover, many consulting companies and industry research organizations publish reports and whitepapers that provide in-depth analysis of industry trends, drivers, and disruptors, in case you want to dive deeper into a specific industry.
• Lastly, while there is certainly a lot more material available, please keep in mind to be efficient in your case study preparation.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to address your specific situation, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Hi,

Sharing a couple of thoughts:

1. Many MBA case books have some sort of summarized ‘Industry Overviews’. Depending on your timeline, it may be useful to use those as a baseline and continue to build on it and/or dive deep into the points there that you aren't as familiar with.
2. In addition to FT, do of course consider other reputable publications (e.g. Economist, WSJ, Bloomberg)
   • While you likely already are familiar with these, I mention this because depending on your timeline, even covering several of these can be very time consuming, especially when taking into account the rest of your prep
3. While it is intuitive to go to ‘business’ related publications, I do think it is helpful to expand your reading and also cover ‘non business’ types of publications (e.g. NYT) - sometimes the overlap between ‘business’ and ‘non-business’ is fairly blurred
   • e.g. a NYT article about say, fake influencers or influencers may not necessarily be about ‘business’ but it could allow you to think critically about the drivers and models to a low barriers to entry, content focused industry
   • e.g. Economist has “The World Ahead” section - which talks about key trends in the world, some may be industry and business specific, but others may be more general/societal but yet still interesting to think critically about

Hi there,

Some advice/tips:

• I have 20+ industry deeps dives that I have created (comes for free with coaching)
• Several casebooks have industry deep-dives
• Leverage your university online library
• Investopedia
• Google
• Youtube (typing in the industry)
• Robinhood snacks
• Money Talks
• The Economist
• BCG Insights
• McK insights

Hi there,

I have recently created an industry primer covering 27 industries with 

• typical PnL
• Players
• Trends and future outlook
• Revenue streams
• etc.

Reach out for more information.

Cheers,

Florian

Hello,

I would suggest accessing case books from top business schools - many of these have industry deep dives with revenue and cost drivers.

Additionally, you could also look at some publications from consulting firms.

Hope this helps!

Rushabh