How to prepare for first online case study interview - Public Sector Consultant

My approach

Public sector cases are tricky because they feasibly be any case type (Product Launch - new service for citizens; M&A - merging two departments; even Profitability - cost cutting mandate). For any public sector case, I recommend:

1. First identifying the type of case it is.
2. Second, leverage your knowledge of the public sector as constraints/considerations.

Considerations/Constraints

Regards #2, you know that public perception is particularly important to consider in any public sector move. Additionally, you can count on bureacracy/slowness in implementation. You should identify the goal/mission of the organisation as well and keep this top of mind (if it loses money, but achieves it's goal of helping the poor, no problem). Howvever, just because the government sector doesn't have profit as a target, doesn't mean you should ignore the profit tree altogether - governments are still obliged to take into costs (and sometimes revneues) in decisions (example: setting up a public transport initiative). Don't get tricked into thinking you can't consider the economics of the case!

Other items to consider include, but are not limited to:

• Politlcal landscape (i.e. upcoming elections, special interest groups)
• Sustainability
• Private-public partnerships
• International vs governmental vs state vs local partnerships/alignment
• Income = taxes/budgetary landscape
• Digitialization of government

Framework Resource

In terms of resources, the UPenn Wharton 2011 casebook has a framework for public sector. It's split into:

1. Strategic rationale (Mission of organisation and stakeholder reactions)
2. Deal economics (planned investment and returns, if any)
3. Other (Required capabilities and risks)

Practice Cases

If you want some practice cases:

• Tepper 2008's "NGO Effectiveness"
• Colombia 2011's "MadeCasse"

Hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to ask any follow-up/clarifying questions!

Hello!

I always suggest my coachees not to focus on the industry, but type of case (e.g., profitability, M&A, pricing, market entry, etc.)

Hence, if you cannot find more than a couple of PS cases to practice, don´t worry! The way I see it, it´s impossible to have insights about all industries. It´s too time consuming, and that time can have a much better ROI in other parts of the prep.

Hence, if you practice enaugh (and this means +50 cases), you will came across almost all common industries. This will give you the basic insights for the interviews. Precisely not to have to study the intrinsics of every industry, it is key to have an approach to cases that is holistic and ambibalent, to ensure it can work with all of them.

This is precisely the focus of my coaching sessions with my coachees, PM if you want.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,
Clara