Value Chain Cases for Orphoz McKinsey

Hey there,

I believe we already had contact via email.

1. In general, the same principles apply as for every other McKinsey case structure (since Orphoz is part of McKinsey).

The framework derived for McKinsey vs. a framework created for other consulting firms is usually quite different.

At the core, McKinsey wants to see creative ideas communicated in a structured manner, the more exhaustive the better.

Your goal should be to come up with a tailored and creative answer that fits the question. The framework should - broadly speaking - follow these three characteristics:

• broad
• deep
• insightful / creative

At the lowest level of your structure, you need to showcase concrete ideas, qualify your answer with practical examples and more details.

While for BCG, Bain, etc. you need to present your framework relatively swiftly within 1-3 minutes, to then dive deeper into the buckets where you think the solution of the case is buried, for McKinsey, there is no single solution (as discussed above).

In a McKinsey interview, you can take up to 5-8 minutes to present your structure, your qualification, and hypotheses. This is due to the interviewer-led format that McKinsey employs. The interviewer will only ask 'what else' if you

• haven't gone broad or deep enough
• did not explain your ideas well enough for them to stand out (again, you have time here)

The firm wants to see exhaustive and creative approaches to specific problems, which more often than not do not fit into the classic case interview frameworks (that includes value chain frameworks) that were en vogue 10 years ago...

Again, this only applies if everything you say

• adds value to the problem analysis
• is MECE
• is well qualified
• includes a detailed discussion of your hypotheses at the end

There are two things in your case that I would pay special attention to:

• Have a look at the different industries' value chains to get a feel for the key drivers and components. That should sort out the top level and breadth
• When deriving a good structure, make sure to go deep with very concrete ideas (this should help with the lower levels and depth)

2. I believe I sent you all the case material I have regarding value chain cases. 

Other than that, you could try creating your own structure problems by taking a random industry and then linking it to a case question. To give you an example

• Industry: Aircraft manufacturing
• Problem: Costs have increased
• Question: What drivers in the value chain could be responsible for that?

Using that approach you can create basically an unlimited amount of cases for yourself to practice on your own.

All the best,

Florian

Hi there,

I was an EM in McKinsey Implementation and interviewed many MI candidates. With the caveat that things might have changed in the last couple of years a little, here are the answers to your questions:

• Interviewers choose their own cases from the internal list. Since MI deals mostly with Ops, most interviewers are from MI, and interviewers are much more likely to choose something they're very knowledgeable in, you should expect to see Ops cases.
• The cases not very different from other McKinsey cases in terms of the skills necessary. So definitely valuable to practice "generalist" cases, too, like market entry, corporate strategy, M&A, etc., especially since you may receive these anyway.
• Spend some time reading ops cases even without practicing them so that you can refresh your memory as to some of the common issues encountered in these types of client problems. Don't memorize, just familiarize.

Happy to help more, please drop me an email and I'll get back to you over the weekend.

Best,

Allen

Hi there,

This is tricky because value chain analysis can occur across a number of case types!

In a profitability you may want to look across the value chain to see where to cut costs or where you add more value (increase revenues).

For Growth you may look to grow vertically (along the value chain) or horizontally.

For Market Entry or M&A, you might be entering or buying a company that is along the value chain (and you'll need to understand the considerations). You may need to integrate across it.

Finally, pricing can come into play by considering where you are in the chain and what value you add. I've seen a few cases where the question is “what do we charge ourselves” when the company is integrated across the value chain.

In general, Operations cases will be more likely to have value chain themes. 

Here are a few more Q&As on value chain:

Cost Cutting: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/cost-reduction-across-oil-gas-value-chain-10280

M&A: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/client-is-og-company-looking-to-integrate-across-the-value-chain-8585

Operations: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/operation-case-divide-in-value-chain-6115

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/value-chainsegment-9600

Hi, I can confirm the business cases will be similar to the generalist path with a bigger chance to cover ops topics

Best,
Antonello

Hi there,

Your preparation should base on the standard cases + make sure to take a closer look at the operations/implementation practice and cases.

GB

I would prepare both ops and non-ops cases as per your recruiters guidance. The details of what is being teseted during the case are the same, namely structuring, conceputal thinking and quants. There is always a chance you will get a non-Ops/MI interviewer, especially since interviewers can change last minute due to availability.

Good luck!

Hello,

Case interviews for McKinsey implementation are not very different from the standard ones. They are usually about Operations cases but the truth is that HR do not know the case used by the itnerviewer, that could be also a standard market sizing not related to ops.
I would suggest to prepare for general case interviews with a special focus on ops cases. Applying as experienced hire they will expect you to know terminology and standard strategy of this practice but I wouldn't worry about that since they will not deep dive too much.

Feel free to text me if you want talk about a preparation plan for your interviews.

Luca