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Finance concepts in case interview

business concepts Case Case Interview consulting Finance prep preparation
Edited on Aug 09, 2018
3 Answers
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Anonymous B asked on Aug 09, 2018

Hi,

i am a statistics major and I want to apply to consulting firms. I would like to know what are the most important financial concepts that I need to know. Thanks!

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Benjamin
Expert
replied on Aug 09, 2018
ex-Manager - Natural and challenging teacher - Taylor case solving, no framework

Hi,

Remember, we are assessing you business skills here, not looking for advanced finance guy. However you will require some basic financial skills that will mostly be used in profitability analysis. No need for advanced financial skills.
The skills that is mostly required is to be able to establish a P&L, and ROI

- Calculate Revenue & Costs

- Integrate investiments in the calculation, using depreciation

Hope this helps

Best
Benjamin

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Vlad
Expert
replied on Aug 09, 2018
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

I would recommend learning the basic accounting before you start the job, but you will not need that for the interview preparation. Also, the case is a very simplified business situation and the accounting concepts are very often neglected. Here is a list of things you will need to know (and you can google them one by one since it is really short):

  • Profitability calculations (Operating profit, net profit, cost structure, etc)
  • Profit / breakeven formula
  • Interest rates calculations
  • Compound margin
  • NPV using the Rule of 72, Perpetuity
  • CAGR using the Rule of 72

Best!

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Originally answered question:

List of necessary business/finance concepts

Anonymous C replied on Feb 16, 2017

Let me just throw some key words of financial terms at you which you should very familiar with: revenues, cost, profit, ROI, payback period, COGS, CAGR, NPV, balance sheet, income statement. Important frameworks/concepts are: profitability, 4 Ps, 3 Cs, Porter 5 forces, Breakeven, SWOT, PLC. I think you can find most important information on the bootcamp part here. What I did is go through that and if I had trouble with one particular thing I googled it and there are many free sources that are really helpful. I haven’t studied with a book, so I can’t recommend you one, sorry. Hope this still helps!

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