Hi All,
I'm having a written case next week with Bain London. It's a 30-minute exercise with 20 slides and text to analyse and then 30 minutes to present to a partner.
If anyone had already had it, can you please share your experiences? I.e.
-What industries were covered?
-What frameworks did you use?
-What key points should I (and all future candidates ) concentrate on?
Thank you very much in advance.
Hi, I have had a similar case since when I went trough the recruiting process as an experienced consultant and this was the first step.
I will answer below to your 3 questons:
1) banking, business development in new market
2) market analysis, SWOT, and then used a profitability risk matrix to compare with alternatives, finally NPV(discounted cashflows) and break-even analysis to evaluate the investment
3) Start with strategic macro-economic view: regulations, competitors, barriers to enter, socio-political aspects, status of that industry in the market (early-stage vs. mature, etc.). Then continue with market analysis (volume and value estimations) and conclude with evaluation of initial investment, fix/variable costs and potential revenues.
Hope this is useful, good luck!
The actual case is different from office to office and they do not focus on any one specific industry only. The cases also get recycled with new ones coming in frequently and hence there is no point trying to figure out which industry it will be.
The approach to your written case should be the same as any other consulting case. The difference is that you HAVE a LOT of data presented to you. This is a test of seeing how well you synthesize the data, connect the dots to draw logical conclusions. This written case has less to do with a framework with which to analyse the 'case' and more with a framework for how you SUMMARIZE YOUR ANSWER.
The key to summarizing your answer is simply to use a simple issue/decision tree (am sure you can find more details online). This typically goes:
There is a MATH component to the written case as well. Here you should understand What you are trying to calculate, What are the data points you need to calculate it and then find those data points in the slides. For this I would recommend that you develop your 'equation' first and then try to hunt for the data in the slides. If you try to gather all the data first and then try to build out your equation to fit that ... you may get lost in the details (you'll always be given more data than is actually needed to solve the problem; one of the key consulting skills is to FOCUS on most important things and ignore the rest).
Hope this is helpful.
Has anyone heard back for the London office?
The case study is the most important element of the case interview, which you'll have to nail in order to get into strategic consulting. Here you can learn the specific skills and concepts necessary to solve them.
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