I have some questions about this case: office vending services (p.6).
https://www.taodocs.com/p-60809693.html
Would really appreciate some advice:
[Case background]
Client profitability dropped consecutively 3 years, due to volume drop.
At the same time, competitors volume is increasing.
In a customer survey, we know that end users care about price and delivery reliability,
but our client is having a disadvantage in these two areas while competitors are strong in these two areas.
Q1. After learning that client is having a disadvantage in these two areas while competitors are strong in these two areas,
I tried to explore more details about the delivery reliability, to understand what has caused this issue.
My thought was there might be some specific issues causing the delivery reliability, so I started asking about the delivery process (where I was stuck).
In the case, the relevant information is actually about the cost structure, as we can see the delivery fee was dropping and the client was doing cost-cutting.
However, I find it hard to come up with the idea of asking for "cost structure".
What would be some good question to ask (or data to seek) as a next step?
Should I try to find a root cause causing the bad delivery quality, or I should start brainstorming ways to improve the delivery quality?
Q2.In the case books' answer, it assumed that "client is facing a volume drop because the price is not competitive and delivery reliability is not good".
However, I don't think this result is solid enough,
since the volume has been dropping for 3 years consecutively, but the customer survey shows only the latest result.
I feel that even if price/delivery reliability is client's weakness, it is not "sufficient" enough to prove this led to volume decrease for 3 years.
I tried to ask for extra data such as 3-year change in price and 3 year data of customer's perception change of clients delivery reliability. But there is no extra information.
Is it actually sufficient to make the assumption mentioned above (delivery quality/price caused a volume drop for 3 years) ?
What would be some good questions to clarify with the interviewer on whether its okay to make this assumption?