In one of the mock interviews I encountered the following situation: the question is how to help the client to increase revenue. I proposed a framework to acquire more customers, increase price, and develop new products. But the case was actually about fixing internal (efficiency, marketing strategy) and external (competition, shrinking market) factors that limited the company's revenue growth. Therefore it became difficult for the interviewer and myelf to navigate back to the right track.
Can this problem be avoided by asking clarifying questions? I think that may help a little bit but a problem can always be divided by all kinds of MECE structures so I assume there must be times that one's framework is different from what's expected.
So what should I do if that happens? Should I check with the interviewer upfront, before diving into details of the framework, that if I'm on the right track? But I'm worried that may make the interviewer think I'm not confident enough or do not have an in-depth structure.
If I only learned that the case is expecting a different framework from mine after presenting my own framework, should I adapt my framework, and how? In the case mentioned above, some ideas under the expected framework (marketing & competition) are vaguely related to my original framework (acquring customers & developing new products), but others are much less relevant if I continue to use my own framework.
Overall I'm wondering whether I should be worried about finding the "right" framework for the case? I heard a lot of people saying no worries and encouraging people to develop their own framework, but if that framework doesn't match the direction of the case, what should we do then?
Any advices are highly appreciated! Thank you!
Hi Sidi, thanks for this answer and I'll now try to structure all my answers this way. But one question I have is -- is it always possible to know the numerical drivers? For example, in this case that the candidate pointed out - the true answer was in analyzing internal and external things like marketing strategy and competitors. So if I had made a framework where I said to the interviewer: "The revenue can be driven by the revenue coming in from each segment (which are dependent on things like price and quantity), but also by internal and external factors like the firm's marketing strategy and competitors", wouldn't that be a more MECE approach? I'm wondering if by listing these things, I'm being too qualitative at the beginning? Please let me know what you think.
(edited)