Cases, also known as case studies, are business problems that a candidate is presented with during a case interview at a management consultancy. The challenge is to solve it under pressure and in a structured way.
Practice With Cases on Various Topics
Spirits distribution
Our client, Ooze, is one of the market leaders in the US spirits market (strong alcohol products).
They are thinking of restructuring their distribution strategy and want to know whether they should invest in 1 or 5 distribution centers.
What would you recommend?
Supermarket turnaround
Our client is a supermarket chain in Britain called Sparx. They have been the market leader for more than 30 years. However 5 years ago they have seen growth stall and 2 years later revenues started shrinking, keeping so until today. The profitability of the chain has followed the revenue downturn trend, but dropped in percentage much more than the revenues.
They now hold only 25% market share, with the second player getting dangerously closer with 23%.
What’s wrong and how can you help them turn this situation around?
Shaving & Co
Our client is an international CPG (consumer packaged goods) firm called Bryan, with multiple business units
(toothpaste, batteries, skin & body care, among others).
They are the global market leader in every market they play in except for the hair removal market. They came to us asking how they can also become number one in this market.
How can you help them out?
Practice Cases with Peers That Are Currently Looking for Interview Partners.
Disguise distribution
Your client is a German manufacturer of disguises for events and parties called KostümCo. They segment their products in two lines: round-the-year and seasonal products.
Round-the-year products serve customers that celebrate birthdays and common parties during the whole year.
Seasonal products aim at special occasions like the carnival or the beer festival in Munich and are only sold for some time before these events.
KostümCo makes the design, manufacturing and resells the disguises to retailers in 5 different German cities.
Recently, though, the largest retail customer complained that KostümCo’s prices are too high. After some internal analyses, the client found this to be due mainly to distribution costs. You have been asked to figure out how we can reduce distribution costs.
Perpetual motion
After a congress about general science in which you took part out of personal interest, a renowned scientist comes to talk to you. He swears he invented the world’s first perpetual motion apparatus. It requires no energy source and keeps running forever. It can even turn a small fan with its motion.
The scientist asks you in which markets he can monetize the invention and how much money he could make in Europe in the first year.
FibOp fibers
The new CEO of an optical fiber manufacturer, called FibOp, has come to you complaining that their revenues went down by 40% this year compared to last year.
He wants you to help him figure out what they need to do in order to achieve the previous year’s revenues again.
Pharma R&D
Your client is a pharmaceutical company which is worried about the portfolio optimization of their R&D projects.
They hired us to investigate it and help them make the most return of their R&D investments in the short and mid-term (without totally forgetting the long-term horizon).
How would you go about it and what would you recommend the client to do?
Retirement homes
Your client is a 5-year-old company that operates retirement homes (where elderly people can receive appropriate care) in Germany.
A few months ago, they opened a new home in Munich. They are concerned about its profitability. How would you help the client?
Argentinian toy manufacturer
An Argentinian toy manufacturer has 50% market share in Argentina and is the market leader in South America. However, its international market share is only 5%.
Their CEO wants you to brainstorm and structure potential ideas to increase the company’s profit margins and market share. The CEO also wants you to think about exploiting new revenue sources.
Chewing gum
Your client is a chewing gum manufacturer.
The CEO of the manufacturing company wants you to find out why his company is experiencing a declining profit margin. He then wants you to suggest ways to improve his company’s profit margin.
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Rally racing
Your client is the owner of UBS #42, a rally racing team. There are 36 races in a season. At the end of the season, the driver who has earned the most number of points will win the championship.
Jeff Tarin, a well-known driver, races for UBS #42. He began racing in this tournament six years ago and is currently ranked fifth in a field of 40 drivers.
The director of marketing at Jazz Sweets recently contacted your client to ask whether your client would like to start a second racing team that Jazz Sweets could sponsor. The director realizes that rally racing is the fastest-growing race sport segment among males aged 18-45.
He has already asked a successful driver from a regional conventional racing circuit to be the new team’s first driver. Your client wants to know whether he should go ahead with this opportunity.
Fashion mail order
Your client is a direct mail clothing retailer. They primarily sell clothes through their product catalog. Next year, postage costs will increase to 40 cents per catalog. Your client wants to know whether his current business model is still profitable.
New magazine
Your client is the CEO of a publishing company that publishes an educational magazine and a women's magazine.
Although both businesses are profitable, they are not growing fast enough. Thus, the CEO is thinking about starting a third monthly magazine that is targeted towards 30 to 60-year-old men in the US. He wants to know whether he can reach his first-year goal of $15 million in revenue.
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.
zeb case: Quo vadis, customer?
The bank "His Earlship Charles", a domestic retail and private bank is in a difficult situation. Profits have been declining over the past years due to the ongoing low interest rates set by the central bank. Additionally, the bank is suffering from a decreasing number of customers. The board of directors is worried about digitalization and wondering, whether the bank is adequately prepared for it.
Please analyze the situation of the client and develop means to sustainably increase profits. Consider the worries expressed by the board of directors.
Retail Banking Profitability
RetailBankingCo is a regional, US-based retail bank that is looking to increase its revenues. As a result, the client is considering introducing a commission-based incentive program for its sales force.
RetailBankingCo wants to determine the conditions under which implementing the incentive program would be economically viable.
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.
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Frequently Asked Questions
We are happy to answer the most frequently asked questions.
Consulting interviews are among the most competitive and difficult job interviews that exist. Interviewers use cases as an indicator to test whether you have what it takes to become a successful consultant. In order to pass, you need to ace the case interview part. And in order to ace the case interview part, you need to be well-prepared. Thus, practicing cases is one of the most important aspects of interview preparation in consulting. During different rounds of interviews you will have to solve cases again and again to prove your structured and analytical thinking as well as your communication skills.
You can practice cases on your own and go through them to get a first feeling for the structure. Afterwards, you should go into a real interview environment and practice cases with other members on the platform. You will find more than 50 mock-interview requests on the Meeting Board every day, which you can easily accept. If there is nothing suitable on the Meeting Board, you can also use the Candidate Listing. Here you can find active members on the platform and send them a direct meeting request. If you want to take your case practice to the next level, we recommend you to schedule coaching sessions with our coaches who have many years of experience in helping candidates receive their dream job offer.
In an interviewer-led case interview, the interviewer leads through the conversation. This means that the interviewer asks specific questions and also controls the time you have to analyze and answer different questions and therefore the depth of your analysis. In contrast, the candidate-led style (which is more common) is about you taking the initiative as a candidate. The initial problem is given to you by your interviewer. Afterwards, you have the freedom to structure the case according to your ideas and to ask questions proactively in order to find a solution to the problem.
Real cases in the PrepLounge Case Library are cases that were submitted by management consultancies and have been treated as such within the company. They were made available from the real interview process. In this way, you can gain deep insights into the requirements of the case interview with the respective top consultancies (e.g. Bain & Company, Roland Berger, Deloitte, Oliver Wyman). We have marked these cases with the corresponding company logo.
Expert cases were created by our PrepLounge coaches and either contain real problems that the experts have already dealt with in their lives as consultants or cases from actual consulting interviews they took part in. They offer you an optimal preparation through the different subjects, levels of difficulty and styles. And the best thing is: If you have questions about the cases, you can ask them directly to the authors.
Video case solutions are cases in which we provide you with a solution that includes a YouTube video. With this we want to help you to understand case solutions even better.
Every member has the possibility to rate a case and leave feedback on the case. This gives you the opportunity to call up a ranking and solve the cases that are particularly popular in the community. It also gives us the opportunity to continuously improve our cases in order to provide you with the best possible practice material.
Which cases are most interesting for you depends on your personal preference and your level of knowledge. If you are just starting with the case interview preparation, beginner cases are probably the most interesting ones for you. You also have the possibility to filter by different categories, such as personal fit, market analysis or brain teaser and many more, in order to address exactly the topics that are most relevant for your application.
Practice Case Interviews - Browse Our Extensive Case Library
Invite other candidates for a meeting to crack the case interactively or solve it on your own. If you like to check your case approach just have a look at the given sample solution.
A Vast Selection of Management Consulting Cases
Our selection of case studies mirror the wide variety in real case interviews. Thus, you can solve challenging problems around market sizing, market-entry, pricing, or operations strategy. Moreover, all provided cases are marked with a level of difficulty and the respective case style. This will allow you to filter for interviewer-led (as used by McKinsey) and candidate-led cases. In addition, some of our corporate partners granted some great original cases that have been used in real interviews. Check them out to get some authentic insights about the real application process of top firms like Bain, Roland Berger, and many more. These cases are clearly indicated by the firm's logo.