Hi there,

This is a very good question. In fact, a lot of candidates struggle with the issue of making generic issue trees, some without even realizing it.

Your framework is not great but is fine - you have (pretty much) the correct high-level ideas, but you need to go deeper and tailor it to this specific case. Since there are thousands of ways to make an issue tree, I won't construct a new one here, but I will throw out a few ideas for you to consider.

Let's first take a another look at the prompt. There is a ton of info in the prompt that you can use to customize your framework.

Our client produces and sells leather products, 1) namely leather bags and leather shoes. Our client has a 2) mid-premium positioning and is 3) market leader on this segment. He wants us to help him grow his revenue. Our client is present only in 4) one country (assume USA), sells through 5) his own shops. A typical shop is 6) 200sqm with 80sqm dedicated to bags and 120sqm dedicated to shoes. No target number.

Let's go through each of the points here:

1. So they've been making leather bags and shoes. How are these two product lines doing, revenue and profit wise? Is one of them selling much better than the other? Can the client make other leather products? How about shoes and bags of other materials?
2. How was mid-premium positioning chosen? How does different customer segment look? What is the size and growth of these different segments (namely, premium, mid-premium, mid, value)? Should we go after a different segment?
3. Hmm..market leader. What does this mean? Are we talking about 90% market share already? Or are we taking only 40% of market, but all other competitors are super small? How saturated is the market? What's the room for growth?
4. How about other countries?
5. How are its own shops operated? What's the footprint of its shops? Any revenue and revenue growth difference across its shops (maybe by region)? Ever considered finding a distributor, or selling to retailers?
6. How was shelf-space determined? Is it optimal? (Also, why do you think the case gives you so much information about store space allocation upfront?)

These are just some examples. Of course, this is an unstructured laundry list of some issues that could be related to the problem, but with these ideas, think about two things

1. How can I bring all these things into a structured framework? You actually have covered many points, but think about:
   • How can I further expand/extend my framework to include all these little things (while being MECE)
   • Can I restructure my framework so that it is not organic vs. inorganic growth (which is very generic), and make it into something more interesting and special?
2. Which parts of my current framework are not closely relevant to the info I can learn from the prompt, but I nevertheless put into my framework simply because it's in "the framework"?

Hope this helps.

(edited)