Practice With Cases on Various Topics
Military helicopters
Your client is BS Systems, a defence contractor situated in the US.
They have contacted our company to advise them in the selection of the location for a new plant, producing Apache helicopters. Three sites are in consideration: Canada, UK and US.
The profits for each plant location over the next 5 years should be calculated.
Well Being health care
Your client is Well Being (WB), a private healthcare company based in Germany.
Well Being operates 10 hospitals in Germany (in comparison to 1,000 public hospitals). These hospitals are normally half the size of the public ones and are not providing Accident and Emergency (ER).
Revenue comes from patients claiming their own private insurance or paying by cash. In 2012 Well Being had revenues of €100 m (<1% share in the market) and an operating profit of €0.5 m.
Their main competitor is the governmental national health care (NHC). NHC has asked to outsource some of their patients to WB and WB wants our advice on this offer.
Fairway
Your client, Fairway, is a manufacturer and supplier of golf balls.
The company is acting globally in almost every market.
They are now planning to expand to Portugal, but they do not have any information about the market there.
Portugal is a small country in western Europe with a population of 11 million people.
The CEO wants to know if they should enter the market and how they should do it.
Practice Cases with Peers That Are Currently Looking for Interview Partners.
Fysikum
Your client, Fysikum, is an operator of squash centres in Sweden. The squash centres include sauna, spa, pool, gym and of course the squash courts. Due to the extreme success in Sweden the company is considering expanding to other countries of Europe, in particular Germany.
Therefore they asked us to evaluate this possible expansion.
Gravestone Inc.
Your client, Gravestone Inc., is a mason producing gravestones situated in Switzerland. He is producing high-quality, hand-crafted gravestones with very skilled labour-force.
In the recent past a technology was developed that would allow him to produce his gravestones with much less labour.
He is contacting us to make a decision if he should invest in this new technology and if he even should remain in the business itself.
Wall Inc.
Your client, Wall Inc., is a dry wall manufacturer. A new competitor has just entered the market and is charging a lower price. Wall Inc. is considering reducing its own price by 20% in response. The client wants us to evaluate whether this is a good idea.
ChemInt
Your client, ChemInt, is a global chemicals company that manufactures Ponsulene in some locations around the world.
It has several joint ventures (JV) in Asian markets and in total 5 plants in China, Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan, all of which serve the local markets as well as neighboring markets including China.
Due to the strong demand for Ponsulene and profitable margins in China, a number of new Chinese players are entering the market in China as well as in the neighboring countries.
ChemInt has called in your company to estimate the influences on their business by these happenings.
Italian Beauty Company
Your client is Italian Beauty Company (IBC), a high quality beauty products company. It is well established in Italy.
One of their major product lines is high quality home hair-color kits. They manufacture these products in-house and sell it through retail outlets and drugstores.
Recently their market share has declined. Their competitor Cosmetica INT. has also become more popular.
IBC would like your firm’s advice.
Gas station
How many gas stations are there in Paris? Suppose a friend of yours wants to open a gas station in Paris. What aspects should he consider?
In-flight Broadband
Our client is a startup that can deliver broadband internet aboard commercial flights.The company owns a patent on a necessary technology. They want to know whether their current business model is valid.
Would you like to access all our cases?
Sign up now to prepare for your interview with real cases from top firms.
GreenLife Bank expands into Asia (McKinsey 2nd round)
Our client is Green Life, a digital challenger bank based in Europe. The bank operates solely online and offers its clients a variety of current accounts, insurance, and financial products. Green Life currently operates in 10 different EU countries and employs approximately 500 people.
Due to its impressive regional growth, which amounted to €200m in profits last year, the company has recently considered expanding into Asia and introducing a new customer service training programme. This programme will be offered to new customer service representatives in the Asian division of the bank, but will also be expanded to Europe to upskill and retrain our existing staff.
The client has requested your assistance in implementing this project. The senior project manager will be your primary point of contact throughout the engagement.
Digital Lab at LETA Bank (McK/BCG Digital)
Let’s assume our client is LETA Bank, a large Central European bank with around 3M customers and within the top five banks in the mid-sized European country where it is operating. In a recent benchmarking exercise led by the European banking group that owns the bank, LETA Bank appears to be underperforming relative to competitors in terms of its personal loan sales. Our objective is to support LETA Bank in identifying the root cause of its underperformance and to develop a strategy for addressing it.
The bank recently hired a new CTO who is excited about working with us and whose hypothesis is that the bank is currently lagging behind in terms of its digital assets and products, which makes it fall short of customer expectations, thus leading to lower sales across its product groups and especially in its most popular lending product – the personal loans.
Strategic Acquisition Case: Synergies, Valuation and Deal Recommendation
A mid-sized B2B industrial services company is considering the acquisition of a smaller competitor.
The buyer provides technical maintenance, inspection, and operational support services to manufacturing clients across Europe. The target operates in the same market but has a stronger presence in specialized services for automated production lines.
The buyer wants to know whether the acquisition is strategically attractive, whether the valuation is reasonable, and whether the expected synergies justify the purchase price.
Your task is to assess the deal from both a strategic and financial perspective and provide a final recommendation.
Acquiring a vineyard in the Piedmont region (Italy)
Your client, a private equity fund, is considering entry into the wine business through the acquisition of a vineyard called “Piumarolo” in Italy's renowned Piedmont region. Since this marks the fund's initial foray into this specific sector, they have engaged our team to conduct a preliminary market analysis and determine the feasibility of this prospective transaction.
Fast Food Pricing
Our client is a global fast-food restaurant that offers a wide range of breakfast and rest of day products including burgers, salads, fries, and beverages, and offers combo bundles. Over the last ~5 years in the US, our client has seen a relatively flat guest count, but a decline in profitability.
They have launched several
large national advertising campaigns focused on highlighting their "value" products which have not turned around profits the way they had hoped. The head of the US business has asked us to help him understand why gross margin is decreasing, and specifically to take a look at his menu's pricing.
- Is there an issue with the menu pricing structure? If so, what would you recommend to restructure the pricing?
- What is the overall implications to volume and gross margin with a revised pricing structure?
McKinsey Case: Digital & Vegan Restaurant Franchise
Our client is a European venture capital firm. They are potentially interested in investing into a new restaurant franchise player from Austria, called “VegDigi”. VegDigi has just 3 corporate restaurants in Vienna and no franchisees, yet, but their business model is considered innovative for a restaurant industry, and is based on 3 pillars:
- Proprietary IT system – VegDigi’s team has developed their own IT system (which manages all restaurant processes – from cashier desk and employee schedules to inventory management and delivery).
- Innovative vegan menu – VegDigi offers fresh, whole-foods vegan menu, which differentiates itself from the rest of the fast food offering in taste and quality. VegDigi puts a lot of focus on its foods being healthy.
- Transparent business practices and processes – VegDigi prouds itself to be a transparent business, meaning they publish all their data and talk about their success and failures openly online.
Our client has engaged us to help them to determine whether or not to make an investment into the VegDigi.
VISO
Your client is a big bank that issues credit cards with a €100 annual fee. Recently, a supermarket entered the credit card business. The supermarket’s credit cards do NOT have an annual fee. Your client wants to know how they should react to this new competitor.
Travel Destination
Your client is the government of a region in southern Spain. Situated in this region are the country’s main tourist locations, mostly beaches.
The government is not satisfied with the revenues of the tourism sector. They have contacted our company to find a solution for this problem.
Bookl
Your client, Bookl, is a publishing company with stable sales in terms of both volume and price.
Its distribution warehouse is reaching maximum capacity. This has lowered its service quality.
The head of Bookl’s distribution department wants to extend the warehouse. The extension will cost $15 m and will NOT increase the company’s revenues.
The CEO wants your company to determine whether the investment is necessary.
Would You Like To Discover More Cases?
Difficulty Levels
More Topics