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MBB - Climate Change Operations
A mid-sized manufacturing company is concerned about the potential impacts of climate change on its operations. The company has a number of factories located in coastal regions that are vulnerable to flooding and other weather-related events, and it is concerned about the potential financial and reputational risks associated with these events. The company's leadership team has asked your consulting firm to help them understand the risks they face and develop a plan to mitigate those risks.Clarifying Info:Our client’s objective is to maintain long-term profitabilityOur client’s factories are located throughout the US===================================================Note: Once you have solved this case, make sure to solve the 2nd version of this case: MBB - Climate Change Operations - Part 2 | PrepLounge.comThis case is designed to show you how a case can evolve/change based on new information. The first half of this case is the same, but diverges once data and #s are provided.To learn more about how to use case leadership to navigate dynamic cases, please read here: Candidate-Led Cases: What to Expect With Example Cases
GlowMobile Goes Digital (McKinsey first-round)
GlowMobile is a leading telecom operator with a strong presence in Southeast Asia. They sell regular products and services that any telecom operator would offer in their retail stores: cell phones, SIM cards, subscriptions, etc.Even though the number of digital customers in the region has grown exponentially, currently GlowMobile does not have an online presence and customers must go in person to retail stores for every interaction with the operator. In the past years, they have been losing a lot of customers due to bad customer experience.GlowMobile has asked our team to improve customer satisfaction through digitization. Specifically, they want us to help improve and digitize their operations and prepare a proof of concept for a digital customer journey for customers.The CEO believes that opening their digital channel would minimize the loss of customers due to bad customer experience and solidify their position as market leader. Right now, a digital journey does not exist.
The Jaywalking Case
The Government of Spain has tasked the City of Barcelona to increase their revenue generated from the City.Thus, in order to generate more revenue, the Local Government of Barcelona has engaged our firm to examine the viability of passing a new law imposing a fine on jaywalking violations.How should we approach this?
Practice Cases with Peers That Are Currently Looking for Interview Partners.
McKinsey 1st Round Case - Party Burger
Our client is Party Burger, a restaurant chain in the US serving premium burgers and salads for lunch. They rely on the quality of their products to attract customers, and they are usually fully booked. However, reviews have pointed out that the service offered could be improved. Our client is concerned this could impact their sustainability long term.
BCG Final Round Case - Sugar to Indonesia
Our client is an Indian sugar producer exporting solely to Indonesia. Indonesia imports 5m tons of raw sugar per year.To make raw sugar, our client processes sugarcane at a cost of $25 per ton and they have a capacity of 1.5m tons per year. The only competitor that has lower production costs is from Thailand, and it delivers 1.7m tons per year at a cost of $20 per ton.Our client recently found out that the Thai producer will expand its production to 2m tons, and as a consequence the market price for sugar in Indonesia may drop.They contacted us to assess this situation.
Bain/BCG - Hunger Warriors
Our client is Hunger Warriors, a non-profit with ambitions to solve world hunger. While approximately one tenth of the human population goes to bed hungry, Hunger Warriors aims to bring this number to zero. One of their primary initiatives is to reduce food waste, which represents $1.5 Trillion in lost value per year. They have tasked us with identifying the major sources of food waste and determining the best course of action to reduce this. Clarifying questions:You can think of them as similar to the WHO or the UN in their scope and reachAll options are on the table to reduce food wasteWe do not have a set budget = this is dependent on the donations and funding we are able to get
Zero Carbon Mine (McKinsey 1st & 2nd round)
Client goalOur client is an international mining company Global Mining Corp (GMC) that focuses on copper mining and is interested in the possibility of producing and selling “green copper”, which is the same product as normal copper but with a certified zero carbon footprint for its entire life cycle until sale. The client engaged your team to help determine the prospects for achieving net zero for their Chilean and Australian copper mines in the next 10 years and decide whether they should pursue this path.Description of situationThe client operates open pit copper mines mostly in remote areas of Chile and Australia. In most cases, the copper ore is blasted with explosives and turned into rubble, which is then collected by heavy bulldozers in big piles, loaded by power shovels onto haul trucks, which transport the material over several kilometers to the processing site. Mobile equipment is diesel operated and very heavy, up to 400 tons for a fully loaded haul truck. During processing, a series of mechanical operations take place to break down the rubble further before chemical processes like acidic leaching are used to produce the final product: copper cathodes. This material is then transported by trucks and rail to the nearest port where it can be shipped to its final destination, depending on the customer.
Poliglot Language App Needs Users
Let’s assume our client is Poliglot, a popular language app. Poliglot is five years old, originally from the US, but available worldwide. The app currently offers the possibility of learning over twenty languages for free, with extra benefits (e.g., no ads, additional exercises) available to premium members.Historically, the app has been very successful and has seen significant growth over the past few years. However, over the past year, the app noticed a stagnating usage and app adoption. Considering that the market is very competitive, the client expects a decline in the customer base unless the root causes are identified and addressed. As a consequence, the CEO of the company that owns the app asked us to support them in figuring out the reasons for the decline and laying out a plan for growth.
Market entry: Disrupting the New York - Boston railway industry
Currently, there is only one train company operating the Boston – New York route: AMTRAK. The option of traveling by train between the two metropolis is gaining traffic, particularly in winter times, during which it´s the best way to avoid weather-related delays. Furthermore, it´s the most environmentally friendly of all available options. Your client is a powerful investor who is assessing business options in the US (with investment sizes averaging 100M$), and has approached you for advice on starting a new train operation company to compete against AMTRAK.In particular, she wants to start by opening a new service between New York and Boston. Should the investor go ahead and launch the business?
Swiss Coffins – The Death Business
Your client is the CEO of a coffin manufacturing company based in Geneva, Switzerland (Europe). The company has existed with little changes to the business model for three generations, manufacturing high-quality, hand-crafted coffins, with a highly skilled and specialized labor force. The industry has been recently disrupted by new technologies that no longer need human manufacturing: machines can manufacture faster and cheaper. Your client needs your help in deciding whether to invest in this technology and transform his business, or remain in the hand-manufactured business for coffins*Note: On top of this initial question that focuses on the strategy and should be tackled by the candidate with an issue tree, the case includes more questions that can be found in the "Detailed solutions" and "Difficult questions" boxes below, with the correspondent proposed answers.
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Merger of two beer manufacturers
Our clients are two beer manufacturers from a well-developed country who just decided to merge. We can call them Company A and Company B. The decision about the merger has already been taken and our clients are certain it will soon be approved by regulators.What is expected from you is to help them with two objectives: Firstly, they would like you to help them decrease the costs of their post-merger operations. Secondly, they would like you to help them develop a new marketing strategy.How would you like to go about helping our clients?
MBB Case: COVID-19 Vaccine
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions of people worldwide and led to devastating economic impact. A vaccine is one of the biggest hopes for stopping the pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) is working with multiple stakeholders to ensure groups at higher risk of becoming infected and dying (e.g. elderly people and healthcare workers) receive a safe an effective COVID-19 vaccine in the next six months.The WHO’s Director-General asked your help to build a plan to achieve this goal. What should be included in this plan?
Changes in cookies market
Your client is a US-based manufacturer of branded cookies, Gumbread Inc. The client realized that their sales have declined in recent years. The client wants to know what they should do to do drive sales again.
MBB Case – Consulting a Government
Our client is the government of an imaginary country which is suffering from strong protests and riots by its own population. The client would like to understand the reason for these protests. In a second step, the client wants you to make suggestions for improvement to end these protests. In answering those two questions, what factors would you consider in making your potential recommendation?
Car rental market entry strategy
The client is CarRentalCo, a global car rental company present on the European and North American markets. In Europe, it is present in most EU countries but has not yet entered the Baltic countries. CarRentalCo has asked us to determine whether or not they should enter the Baltic (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania being here considered as one market) and, if so, what should their entry strategy be.
COVID-19 impact on Heathrow Airport
Your client is the CEO of Heathrow airport (London), the busiest airport in Europe in terms of commercial traffic.Due to COVID-19, the airport's operations and hence, revenue streams, have been severely affected.The CEO asks for your help with the preparation of the upcoming Steerco, focused on:“How to secure Heathrow's revenue streams during April-June 2020, mitigating the effects of COVID-19”.
Espresso, Whatelse?
Espresso Whatelse is an Italian company that produces coffee and espresso machines since 1908. It is the Italian market leader and has a strong presence overall in Europe. In 2019, Espresso Whatelse has increased its revenues but it has seen declining profit margin.Your client wants to understand the root causes of this 2019 trend and how to increase its profit margin again.
Double trouble
Our client is RedBus, one of several operators of iconic double-decker public transport buses in London. Over the past three years RedBus have experienced declining profitability, as a result of reduced demand for buses due to growth in affordable taxi services, such as Uber.The client is looking to understand the root cause of the issue and discuss ways to improve profitability.
BCG Case Style - Online Groceries [NEW]
Our client is a supermarket chain that is considering whether they should enter the emerging online grocery delivery business where consumers order their groceries online and have them delivered to their homes. Currently, two competitors have entered the online market in the client's area in San Francisco. Both competitors are quickly gaining market share. Our client hired you to determine if they should enter the online market.
Inverto Case: FashionForward’s Sourcing Shake-up
FashionForward is a mid-sized, private-label fashion retailer headquartered in Europe with €600 million in annual revenue. Its product portfolio includes fast-fashion collections for men and women, sold in 220 stores across six countries, and online.The company currently sources approximately 85% of its total production volume from Bangladesh, heavily relying on just three key suppliers for over 70% of that volume. Their procurement strategy is highly cost-driven, and supplier relationships are transactional. FashionForward has now asked Inverto to develop a new sourcing strategy.Over the last 18 months, FashionForward has faced increasing procurement challenges:A drop in demand for trend-sensitive fashion categoriesLong lead times (up to 40 days), limiting reactivity to seasonal trendsRepeated shipping delays and FX volatility from BangladesOverstocking in basics and stockouts of fashion-forward itemsESG non-compliance flagged in two factories during an auditGrowing pressure from the board to increase agility and reduce dependency on Bangladesh
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