Hi Shan!

Your approach is just wrong. You should NEVER start with defining qualitative areas. This is not rigorous thinking, but just random. It reflects a very immature and junior way of looking at things. You ALWAYS should first disaggregate your focus metric (here: revenue) into its NUMERICAL drivers (e.g., revenue per segment, then price and quantity, then digging deeper into quantity via, e.g., #of purchases tims average quantity per purchase, and so on). Only after having done this, you can start developing ideas how you can influence each numerical drivers by qualitative measures. THIS is how you think and work as a partner at MBB. Unfortunatley this is not reflected in the case books that are flying around.

Cheers, Sidi

Couldn't agree more with Sidi here, simply phenomenal!

Just one more thing I'd like to emphasize regarding growth strategy questions: it is essential that revenue segmentation is clearly embedded in your structure in order to understand what the biggest levers of revenue as well as their growth trends are and therefore prioritize your actions, that's why most of the clarifying questions in such cases should be to identify any type of revenue segmentation (revenue streams, geography, product, distribution channel, customer etc.).

Then, you can walk the interviewer through your disaggregation of the revenues level-by-level and briefly explain how revenues could be improved within each level. For example, you first segment the revenues by stream, here you can either add new streams, either organically or through acquiring another company, or improve the revenues within the existing streams... then you disaggregate within each stream by geography, again here we can either add new geographical regions, meaning geographical expansion, or improve revenues within existing geographies... then by distribution channel within each georgraphical area, sell through new ones or improve revenue within existing ones... then by product, develop new products or improve existing ones etc... until you come to a point in disaggregating into #units sold and price within each product category, where now you're looking at qualitative KPIs such as quality, marketing/sales, price elasticity etc., how important each one to your customers is and if any competitor/substitute is performing better amongst them than your client.

As you can see, I just included most (if not all) of the possible ways of revenue growth in a bullet-proof and structured way, practically forcing the interviewer to give me the data in any possible format.

Hi,

There are multiple problems with your answer:

1. First you have not asked the right clarifying questions. So you have not clarified the objective at all
2. Secondly you started with looking for a solution (you structure is basically a solutions structure), but in most of the cases there is some problem. The correct approach is to identify the root cause of the problem and then start providing the solutions. Asking the right clarifying questions could help you identify the problem.
3. Thirdly, your structure is not tied to the objective / context of the case

Here is the set of questions you should ask at the begining:

1) Clarify the business model. Ask how the company actually makes the money. For several reasons:

1. Even if you think you understand the business model, you need to make sure that you understand it correctly.
2. Some cases have pitfalls related to a business model (re profitability cases with several revenue streams
3. You need to understand the revenue streams to make a proper structure. E.g. if the case is about oil&gas company which revenues are declining, ask if it is Up / mid / down-stream problem. In this case, defining a revenue stream is critical to setting up the right structure. (At the end of the day it may be the decline of snack sales at the gas stations:). In case of telecom company it may be the problem of the core business (wireless) or non-core (landlines, internet)

2) Clarify the objective. Here make sure that your goal is:

• Measurable
• Has a time-framed
• Has / has no limitations

e.g. Should I invest 100k in this business for 1 year if I want to get 15% return?

3) Ask the questions that will help you build a relevant structure and remove ambiguity.

E.g. in the market entry case ask whether we are entering the country organically or non-organically

!!! do the recap after asking the clarifying questions. Although most of the case books suggest to do it immediately at the beginning of the interview, it makes much more sense to clarify the situation first and then to make sure that you understand everything correctly.

Finally, after presenting your structure you can always ask the interviewer: “Is that structure good to move forward with? Should I add or prioritize anything?”

Best