Round 2 interview by BCG Plationion incl. mini case interview

Question

Dear team,

just got the invitation for the round 2 by the IT consulting arm of BCG ;-)

I was told that the interviewer will run a mini case during the session and case will be very IT management consulting focused, which matches to my background.

Nevertheless I would like to ask around if anyone have already done such session and are there any important best practices, don'ts or dos which may help the success?

The role I applied is manager position with focus on agile topics...

Cheers, Liang

Answer 1

Hi,

There will be a mix of regular and IT topics. For the regular cases on preplounge will be most helpful. For the IT cases, I recommend reading the articles of the consulting companies about these topics on their websites (Hundreds of them if you google by key words "agile", "Digital", at McKinsey, BCG or Accenture)

Feel free to reach out if you need help with digital case prep.

I have not seen any digital cases online. But here is a list of potential topics you need to know. It is a full list and looks scary but they test a lot of these concepts depending on the particular role:

Basics (computational thinking, sorting, data structures) - they never ask directly but understanding will help with the other topics)
Database design (Centralized vs decentralized, sharding, factors influencing the number of replicas - the volume of data, future scale, growth, data structure, desired speed, etc)
Technology stacks (front, back,api, database, etc)
Cloud (cloud vs own servers pro and cons, uptime % SLAs, load balancing, etc)
Server storage - major cost buckets - remember about additional replicas and cooling electricity costs
Security (encryption basics, public keys, password change policy, cloud security and encryption on your computer)
Agile and development (Agile principles, Environments: Developing, testing, production, Native apps / web apps / hybrid apps, etc)
M&A and IT (Will it be one system or two systems? Is it "Adopt and go" approach or we take the best of both systems and create a new one? Integrate now, innovate later? Or Innovate now, when you have time?)
IT strategy and Digital transformation (Similar to M&A)
IoT (Mainly the use of IoT in operations - Process steps completion, measuring temperature, maintenance measurements, other measurements, predicative algorithms, etc)

Good luck!

Answer 2

Hello Liang,

The interview will be anyway a business case, focused in digital/IT. i have a colleague that is in BCG Platinion, feel free to write me for more info.

Best,
Luca

Answer 3

Hi,
it will be important to practice standard business cases (possibly focusing on IT and digital area/industries). Work on frameworks, top-down communication and case structuring will be important and you are on the right platform to work on it :)

Best,
Antonello

Answer 4

Hello Liang!

Honestly, it does not really matter that much the topic of the case. Once you are good at casing, it´s irrelevant, coz it is the structure and communications what gets measured there.

This said, if an IT case matches your background, even better, it will be an advantage.

Hence, don´t sorry and do normal case prepping, it´s the best way!

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara