Hi,
I strongly recommend learning more about different industries. It will help you to:
- Build better structures
- Demonstrate business judgment
- Answer the questions on creativity
Focus on the most common industries in the following priority (sorted by probability of getting a case): 1-retail and CPG; 2-airlines; 3-Telecom; 4-banking; 5-natural resources; 6-tech and work on building analytical thinking in each of these industries.
There are several sources of info to develop analytical thinking:
1) Cases - you simply solve 50-70 cases and get a broad knowledge of different industries, common pitfalls and questions. The key here - find good partners who already had case interviews with MBB companies
2) Company reports, equity reports, IB roadshow docs - usually have a good overview of company and industries. The most useful sources to understand what's going on with the companies
3) HBS cases - quite useful, but not sure if lot's of them available publically. Probably worth buying
4) Books - one good book about airlines with numbers and industry analysis can give you all needed industry knowledge
5) News, Industry blogs
For each industry, you should understand:
- Revenue streams
- Cost structure
- Margins
- Key performance indicators
- Key revenue drivers
- Industry trends
I strongly recommend practice drawing structures for each industry - profitability, value chain, etc
Also some comments about particular industries:
1) Retail - make sure you understand key retail metrics (P&L lines, same store sales, revenue per square meter and per person, etc) and how distribution works as well as its metrics (share on shelf, etc)
2) Airlines - read about profitability issues, different routing models, cost structure, industry metric s like load factor and make sure you know all possible additional revenue streams
3) Telecom - I would read industry reports and try to understanf how telecom is transforming with internet penetration and tech innovations
4) Banking - you should know the key products in corporate and retail banking and how they earn money (Interest, commision, transactional)
5) PE / M&A - go through available case examples and read about different PE strategies
Then I will switch to getting the functional knowledge and key concepts in:
- Marketing (Brand and trade marketing tools, etc)
- Supply chain (Ops metrics like cycle time and throughput time, distribution and delivery specifics, etc)
- Finance (Basic Accounting and Valuation)
Good Luck
Hi,
I strongly recommend learning more about different industries. It will help you to:
- Build better structures
- Demonstrate business judgment
- Answer the questions on creativity
Focus on the most common industries in the following priority (sorted by probability of getting a case): 1-retail and CPG; 2-airlines; 3-Telecom; 4-banking; 5-natural resources; 6-tech and work on building analytical thinking in each of these industries.
There are several sources of info to develop analytical thinking:
1) Cases - you simply solve 50-70 cases and get a broad knowledge of different industries, common pitfalls and questions. The key here - find good partners who already had case interviews with MBB companies
2) Company reports, equity reports, IB roadshow docs - usually have a good overview of company and industries. The most useful sources to understand what's going on with the companies
3) HBS cases - quite useful, but not sure if lot's of them available publically. Probably worth buying
4) Books - one good book about airlines with numbers and industry analysis can give you all needed industry knowledge
5) News, Industry blogs
For each industry, you should understand:
- Revenue streams
- Cost structure
- Margins
- Key performance indicators
- Key revenue drivers
- Industry trends
I strongly recommend practice drawing structures for each industry - profitability, value chain, etc
Also some comments about particular industries:
1) Retail - make sure you understand key retail metrics (P&L lines, same store sales, revenue per square meter and per person, etc) and how distribution works as well as its metrics (share on shelf, etc)
2) Airlines - read about profitability issues, different routing models, cost structure, industry metric s like load factor and make sure you know all possible additional revenue streams
3) Telecom - I would read industry reports and try to understanf how telecom is transforming with internet penetration and tech innovations
4) Banking - you should know the key products in corporate and retail banking and how they earn money (Interest, commision, transactional)
5) PE / M&A - go through available case examples and read about different PE strategies
Then I will switch to getting the functional knowledge and key concepts in:
- Marketing (Brand and trade marketing tools, etc)
- Supply chain (Ops metrics like cycle time and throughput time, distribution and delivery specifics, etc)
- Finance (Basic Accounting and Valuation)
Good Luck