How to develop business insights and knowledge "in local context"?

The consulting firms will not require you to know the specifics of a local industry. 

What you need to know is the key demographics and economics data on the country (GDP, Growth rate, Salaries, Population, Ages, Income Distribution, main cities, population distribution).

Have a look at the the CIA's “The World Factbook”. Focus on sections on geography, people and society, and economics. It has everything you need to know.

P.S. you should also know which are the neighbouring countries and their population.

Hi,

preparing the case interview through traditional Business Schools casebooks is completely fine as they are going to show a general approach and structure that can be applied to different problems, countries and industries.

I would strongly recommend for you to get a high level knoweldge of the local market as it may be tested during the case. Examples of pieces of information that you may want to gather for the country you are applying to are:

• number of people living in the country (and potentially in the capital / main cities): this will be required for example if you need to assess the potential market for a product
• age distribution: no need to have precise data, just be aware that if you are talking about Nigeria the average age is lower than that of European countries
• main local industries

On top of that, you may be required to either know or be able to extrapolate some market specific evidences. For example, developing markets tend to have a less vehicles per capita but the same number of mobile phones per capita compared to USA / EU. In general it's hard to gather all of these information beforehand so if you're requested to explore topics as the ones I mentioned I recommend you explicitly state (and eventually validate) your assumptions with your interviewer also explaining your reasoning.

Hope this helped.

Best regards,

marco

Hi! A great way to get a flavour of what your target office is working on is to go to their website and read their publications. In McKinsey, for instance, every country has their own website (in some cases every office location has one). There they post recent studies / research that they've conducted. These usually reflect the sort of projects the office has been working on, as well as their reach and relevance efforts in the local market. Additionally, you could connect over LinkedIn with the Partners in your target office and read the sort of articles they regularly post.

Secondarily, I would on online on website such as the World Bank to get overall metrics e.g., know which industry is dominant, population, financial trends, etc. 

At the end of the day, MBB first do tend to be very internationalized so I doubt that you'd be rejected on the basis of not being intimate with the local market. Knowing about it though would surely help. 

Hey there,

For local data points look into

• the main industry the local MBB office serves (e.g., via researching the partners of the office on Linkedin)
• the publications on these industries and regions by each MBB firm
• Wikipedia articles on the region, esp the public sector, and economy
• local business newspapers, preferably in English. If not available, translate via Google Chrome to have an idea of what the current hot topics are in this geography

Still, the bulk of MBB work is still global or in a global context  + you are not expected to have detailed market or industry expertise, so I would not worry about it too much.

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

First of all, I would reconsider applying to this country.

If you don't have work experience there, have never lived/studied there, don't have citizenship there, then your odds of getting through screening are pretty low.

Think about this: In a pile of applications, would you hire you?

In terms of building up your knowledge: read a bunch! Read the Economist, BCG/McKinsey Insights, etc. Read their local news. Google is your friend here :)

• You should know the basic statistics of the country (GDP, GDP per capita, population, key industries (major contributors to GDP), etc.) 
• Similarly, you should know the stats of other countries in the same region (but not necessarily in the detail of the main country)
• You don't need to know detailed industry specific info. At least not at entry level or for generalist role. However, if you're applying for a specific industry/ practice, then you will need to have some knowledge about it of course