All questions tagged IT - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi Anonymous,

in general, it is not necessary to have specific industry knowledge for consulting cases, although it could help with brainstorming. Which are the questions of the client in the case? If you can provide them, it could be easier to suggest an approach.

Best,

Francesco

Hi Ankit!

Simple rule: you should not assume anything! Just state that wages can be both fixed or variable, or a combination - depending on the contracts and labor laws. Just quickly clarify with the interviewer which situation prevails, and that's it.

In the long run, all costs are variable anyway.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi Nazli!

There aren't many resources out there yet for this, but I have an extensive background in IT (working as an IT consultant, and now working on many of the IT/Tech-based projects in Australia).

Please let me know if you'd like to practice some of the cases I have!

Also, I recommend asking McKinsey Digital if they'd be willing to assign you a case buddy for a practice case.

Hi! To perform above average in this step, you need first to understand the principles of scoring and why this is different from a regular case study interview.

1. First difference guidance vs data availability. While you still have to match information to develop sensible recommendation, in this exercise you have no guidance in the process, including the filtering of the relevant information. Plus you will be likely to receive even more information vs normal interview (usually tables and charts). This means in the final presentation an outstanding candidate don’t just explains why he/she selected what is IN, but ideally you also have to explain the why and what is OUT. To fine tune this skills ,while you practise presenting conclusions, make sure you do include in/out rational for your solutions.
2. Second key difference is the number and depth of assumption you are allowed to build your conclusion on. While in a regular case interview the focus is normally to ‘validating’ your assumptions ‘as you go’ and then build recommendation on the refined info accordingly, here the focus is on the opposite process. You are entitled to more hypothesis and a broader scenario building – which you have to lock down to 1 in your final discussion. To make this practical in your training, use the ‘BA - Binary Approach’ to hyphotesis building a set of solutions (2+) on each.
3. Client-facing communication. Heavier focus is put here on that. Make sure you are ready to defend challenge / manage fictious ‘harsh beaviors’ of the interviews.
4. On-sell. Make sure you concude the interview with an agreement (on next steps or on the solution)

Feel free to reach for more tips on how to crack this step or to set your peformance apart from others in the process,

Best
Riccardo

Hi,

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, virtual machines, containerization, uptime % SLAs, load balancing, etc)
• 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)

There will be a mix of regular and IT cases. 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)

Good luck!

Hi there!

This could be the best place to look at first:

http://www.vault.com/company-rankings/consulting/best-firms-in-each-practice-area/?sRankID=396

Hi Gaurav,

Your ask is complex. One simple way to start is by considering what your department is doing now and what they have trouble doing (or are unable to do but want), especially as it relates to supporting realization of the company's goals.

An understanding of the department's current capabilities at a high-evel and gaps that exist will enable you to priortize departmental needs for execution today and what may need to happen in order to support growth. From there, identifying players that can fulfill those respective needs will help give you a starting point on a list potential partners.

Clearly, it is much more complicated than the explanation I provided above when you begin explore strategic, financial, and operational fit and when thoughts move toward building for the future as opposed to a current need.

Hope that helps.