Should Products and Dividend be taken into consideration?

Question

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for designing the interesting case - the framework you provided is also very to-the-point.

I have a question about the framework though: In my framework, products ("If our products can be appealing to the target group") and dividends (a profitability analysis to calculate the dividend…) are included, which I find relatively important to consider. Yet, in your framework, you rather highlighted marketing, and do not have a financials part for the dividend.

I am interested in your rationale while you were structuring the framework. (My own assumption on the dividend part: Is it because our client does not specify on a financial goal + the cases seems very strategic?)

Cheers,

Tian

Answer 1

Hi Tian,

I'll let Daniel answer this in full, but, just remember that there are multiple strong frameworks for any given prompt! It's ok to have a different framework, as long as you are objective-driven + MECE.

Now, I'm not saying different is inherently fine/good. I'm just saying it's not inherently wrong!

Answer 2

Hi Tian,

Great job on identifying additional parts of a framework that are important when considering business strategy. I'm familiar with this case as well – like many cases you will come across, not everything that can be possibly addressed will be included in its sample answer.

The provided framework is a straightforward, organized, and logical approach to the case. However, if you believe that there are financial pieces that can make your response stronger, it is not “wrong” to include them. In fact, it can make you appear like a stronger candidate if you come up with pieces in the framework that are less common but still important.

I would keep two thoughts in mind when reviewing cases and deciding if additional parts/changes to the suggested framework are helpful:

1. What's important is structure and logic. If you're able to concisely show your interviewer why and how the financial parts are critical to developing direction in the case, then you will be seen as an outstanding candidate. However, if your answer is a bit all over the place and unstructured, this may hurt you and make you appear like you are “pulling things from thin air”/rambling.

2. Frameworks are meant to set up direction for the case, so allow the interviewer to guide you. If you include the financials in your framework and notice the interviewer say they don't have much information on the questions you proceed to ask, then take it as a sign that you should focus on other parts of the case. You don't want to be barking up the wrong tree!

Answer 3

Make take on this:

1. What you mention as “products” is being covered in the Consumer preferences. Basically they already know they have a distinctive offering (described in “innovative vegan menu”), and the suggested framework wants to make sure that the consumer preferences are geared towards that offering. So basically same thing, different wording.

2. Dividends in the structure? Not really.

Dividends are a decision on how much of the profit you will payout to investors. There are two reasons why I say this wouldn't belong to the structure.

The first is that this is a pure financial decision, i.e., it comes AFTER the “economic performance” of the company (i.e. how much of the profit you distribute), so probably is out of scope. In other words, dividends are a consequence of economic performance, and not a driver of economic performance.

But even if it is not… it still doesn't belong here. I could write a whole chapter on this, but to keep it very simple let's say that it is indifferent to investors whether the profit is distributed (they get dividends) or not (they get capital gains). While a lot of discussion could be had about this, it applies to publicly traded companies, not companies owned by PE firms. To a PE firm, it is indeed indiferent.

It may be the case that you ment “profit” instead of “dividends”. But in that case, you have a “kind of” circular reference, i.e., you are using “profit” as a driver of “economic performance”… so unless you have a structure where the first level is “profit” + “capital needs” (and then additional categories at the second level), you will be using profit as a synonim of “economic performance”, therefore the “circular reference”…