IIM Calcutta Casebook PDF

A collection of successful case Interview
experiences of the students of the 51/21

batch of IIM Calcutta with the
consulting firms McKinsey & Co.,
Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co.,
A. T. Kearney, Alvarez and Marsal and
Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
CONSULTING
CASEBOOK
Summers 51/21
IIM CALCUTTA
Published by:
Prabhneet Dhamija & Arijit Kumar Gorai

IIM Calcutta Conculting Club
Consulting Casebook (Summers 51/21)
McKinsey & Co. ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
Damini Goyal ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
Pramod Rathi........................................................................................................................................................ 5
Arjun Dev .............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Ankur Aggarwal .................................................................................................................................................. 10
Abhik Tandon ..................................................................................................................................................... 11
Prabhneet Dhamija ............................................................................................................................................ 13
Natasha Mittal .................................................................................................................................................... 15
BCG ......................................................................................................................................................................... 17
Abhinav Punia..................................................................................................................................................... 17
Pankaj Dokania ................................................................................................................................................... 19
Ruchika Airy ........................................................................................................................................................ 20
Abhishek Debbarman ......................................................................................................................................... 24
Ayush Bohra ....................................................................................................................................................... 26
Anmol Pandey .................................................................................................................................................... 27
Siddhant Sachdeva ............................................................................................................................................. 30
Nithin Mannil...................................................................................................................................................... 31
Nischay Gupta .................................................................................................................................................... 33
Arijit Kumar Gorai............................................................................................................................................... 36
Arindam Mohanta .............................................................................................................................................. 38
Monica Bhaskar .................................................................................................................................................. 41
Sonal Poddar ...................................................................................................................................................... 43
Rahul Shrivastava ............................................................................................................................................... 44
A. T. Kearney .......................................................................................................................................................... 46
Sammyak Jain ..................................................................................................................................................... 46
Harneet Singh ..................................................................................................................................................... 48
Tanya Khera ........................................................................................................................................................ 50
Ayanti Ghosh ...................................................................................................................................................... 53
Bain & Co. ............................................................................................................................................................... 55
Abhishek Kumar ................................................................................................................................................. 55
Akhil Manikanta ................................................................................................................................................. 57
Akhila G P ........................................................................................................................................................... 60
Page |1 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Ankita Lal ............................................................................................................................................................ 62
Achyut Bihani ..................................................................................................................................................... 64
Karan Issar .......................................................................................................................................................... 67
Shreya Pokharna ................................................................................................................................................ 69
Vaibhav Kalani .................................................................................................................................................... 71
Prateek Deo ........................................................................................................................................................ 73
Neeraj Sharda ..................................................................................................................................................... 74
Alvarez & Marsal .................................................................................................................................................... 76
Amitesh Sharma ................................................................................................................................................. 76
Roland Berger ......................................................................................................................................................... 78
Nilabjo Ghosh ..................................................................................................................................................... 78

McKinsey & Co.

Damini Goyal
Internship Company: McKinsey
No. of Rounds: 3
Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

I had three back to back interviews with the firm and all three interviewers were very helpful and
friendly. None of the interviews was a stress interview. All three interviews were case based and the
focus on personals was minimal.
Round 1:
The interviewer started with a few personals based questions to break the ice (he picked up
information from my CV and what I had written in the form submitted earlier.) He then quickly moved
to the case.
Section 2.1: Case statement & your discussion

The case was about Electricity powered vehicles and they were to be compared with Fuel run vehicles.
The interviewer provided me some details and data points and asked me to perform a comparison,
especially about the amount of carbon dioxide released by the two. I performed an analysis about the
sources of carbon dioxide production for each case and also arrived at a numerical value of CO2
produced per Kilometre with the help of the data provided.
Section 3.1: Your reflection on the case

I think I performed satisfactorily on the case. However, in haste, I provided a final answer in terms of
which option is better of the two. This was not asked as I was only required to perform an analysis. I
expressed this to the interviewer as well and he seemed to understand.
Round 2:
The second round had about 2-3 minutes of discussion on personals followed by two cases- one
business case and one guesstimate problem.

The business case featured a client who provided banking facilities in the rural Indian market. I was
asked to suggest measures to increase profits and was also asked to devise a marketing strategy for the
same.
I began the case by asking some general questions about the industry and the market. Then, I moved
on to the Costs and Revenues and analysed both these heads and their respective drivers. I suggested
various measures for both sides. For the marketing strategy I discussed 4-5 measures with the
interviewer. He was nodding throughout and seemed appreciative.
Next, I was asked to guesstimate the number of marriages that take place in an year in india. I solevd it
by estimating the number of eligible males in india by breaking down the population and next dividing
them on the basis of rural-urban population and age groups.

I was calm throughout the case and was able to provide various perspectives and ideas which were
appreciated by the interviewer. However, I should have taken more time to reflect and ponder which
would have improved my answers.

Round 3:
This was a quick guesstimate round where I was asked to estimate the number of airplanes that land
and take off from the Mumbai airport in a single day. Throughout the case, the interviewer kept on
providing hypothetical situations and asked me to then analyse. For example, he told me to assume
that the airport has infinite space for parking airplanes and infinite employees to cater to passengers.

The objective of the case was to test creativity and the ability to think on one’s feet. I was somewhat
nervous but I think I didn’t lose my calm and hence answered satisfactorily. I asked the interviewer for
many clarifications and ensured that the interview was conversational in nature.
After the third interview, soon I was called into a room where all three of my interviewers were
present, who then extended the offer to me.

Pramod Rathi
Internship Company: Mckinsey & Company
No. of Rounds: 3
Round 1

What was the case about? Attracting investments
Anything peculiar about the case? No
What was the tone of the interviewer? Chill
Focus on personals: Yes (first half)
Section 2: Case statement & your discussion (I=Interviewer, C=Candidate)

I: Your client is the mayor of a city named X in USA. He wants to attract FDI to his city and all other
USA cities are its competitor. List down factors which he should focus on to attract FDI.
C: Clarified the question. I broke the factors in 3 buckets; incentives, government regulations and
infrastructure. After making the buckets, took confirmation from the interviewer if it was exhaustive.
After his consent, listed 3-4 factors in each bucket, took his help again to make MECE sets.
I: (Showed me a chart. The chart had FDI investments from 10 different countries to city X). Calculate
how much is the contribution from top 3 countries to the total FDI received by city X in percentage
terms.
Section 3: Your reflection on the case

Personals formed an important part. The last part was mainly to test calculations. My answer was like
72.24%.
Round 2

What was the case about? Pricing
Anything peculiar about the case ? No data given, asked me to logically assume all data
What was the tone of the interviewer? Strict

I: We are launching a high speed train from delhi to indore. How will you price the ticket.
C: Clarified the question. I asked if there is any other objective. I gave 3 techniques of pricing;
competitive pricing, cost based pricing and demand based pricing.
I: Give the details of these approaches.
C: explained him all three.
I: ok good, price it by demand based pricing

C: (was shaken, as it was the most difficult among the three). I took interviewers help. He helped me,
but not too much. I asked about the data.
I: Assume logically.
C: Came with a number. He was kind of fine with that.

Personals formed an important part. I think he was testing my confidence. He was trying to see how I
make assumptions and convince him logically for the same. We should keep the interviewer involved
whenever we face a difficulty; it is good to keep him in the trap if we are not able to figure out on our
own.
Round 3

What was the case about? Which fuel to use for minimum pollution.
Anything peculiar about the case ? Electrical vehicles are not ecofriendly, normal petrol vehicles are
more ecofriendly then them.
What was the tone of the interviewer? Chill

I: (A RC type case. He read it aloud, it was like 1.5 pages, I kept noting important things. I am
mentioning the crux of it here). Our client is a CEO of an automobile company; he will be addressing a
meeting with the government. Agenda of the meeting is which automobile is ecofriendly conventional
or electrical. We have to suggest the CEO. List down the factors which will help in comparing the
carbon emissions from electrical automobiles and conventional automobiles.
C: I broke the factors into 3 buckets; conversion efficiency, transmission losses, type of engine and
quality of fuel. Asked for interviewers help, but he mentioned that the factors are ok to proceed with.
Had a discussion on the same for a couple of minutes and I described him all buckets.
I: He then gave me some data and asked me to confirm if electrical vehicles are more or less polluting.
C: I was a bit confused in the calculations as it involved some wastage in energy derived from
electricity. I checked my calculations again and when I was sure I gave him the answer. A reason that I
was confused was that it turned out that electrical vehicles cause more pollution, which was very new
to me. He confirmed that my answer was right.
I: (he then presented a chart) what do you interpret from it.
C: The chart had various fuels like electricity, petrol, coal and an average pollution line from all the
fuels. I explained him.
I: What can we do to reduce pollution then?
C: listed some factors like reduce transmission losses in electricity, use of high quality coal and so on.
He was ok with all the factors.

Personals formed an important part. I was tested on calculations, DI and structuring. Calculations for
this case were easy as unlike the first round the interviewer asked me to approximate the data and
proceed. The interviewer constantly kept telling me to call him by his name; I called him sir for like 20
times and each time he showed me a pamphlet where his name was written.

Arjun Dev
Internship Company: McKinsey & Co.
No. of Rounds: 2

 Round 1: Case and Personals
 Round 2: Only Personals
 Tone of Interviewers: Both the interviewers were really friendly and the general tone was
conversational.
Section 2: Case statement & your discussion
Round 1
Interviewer: Your client is a firm which is looking to enter into the Banking sector in India.
Candidate: Started off with the market entry framework asking about the objective behind the entry
and the client’s current line of business. Went on to look into the attractiveness of the industry in
terms of profitability, competition etc.
Interviewer: What other factors should be looked into?
Candidate: Talked about the different methods by the means of which it can enter(Starting from
scratch, Joint Ventures, Acquisitions..) and possible hindrances in general to the entry(Gov
regulations, Capital requirements, time etc.).
Interviewer: What are the typical costs that would be associated with the bank’s operations?
Candidate: Used the Fixed cost- Variable cost approach and listed out the factors in each.
Interviewer: Ok, let us now consider if the client wanted to enter the semi-urban/ rural markets,
what would be some additional factors that should be considered as far as the entry is concerned?
Candidate: Listed out different possibilities like low deposits, default risk(higher), problems with
infrastructure, tailoring offerings to that market etc.
Interviewer: Suppose it is not so feasible to set up physical branches in the rural areas, how would
you make the services accessible to the people?
Candidate: Asked whether the people in those areas were currently using any such services( they
were not). Talked about setting up of kiosks in the different villages enabling the people to access the
bank’s services (perhaps only limited number of them). Interviewer agreed with the suggestion how, if
the people can’t be brought to the bank, the bank must be brought to the people.
Round 2
Personals asked were nothing out of the ordinary. Was asked to introduce myself and went on to talk
about my family, friends, hobbies. Was also asked about “when I took a risk which paid off”, “when I
displayed leadership skills” etc.

 What did you do really well in your case?
I was calm and composed throughout the interview.
Could establish a good rapport with both the interviewers .
Wrote everything down clearly and in a structured manner.
Did not hesitate in asking question to clear doubts.
 What do you think was being tested in the case?
Clarity of thought, Communication skills, Thinking ability, Confidence
 How long was the interview?

The first round took around 20 minutes and the second round would have been 15 minutes
long

Ankur Aggarwal
General Background and Interview info
Number of Rounds – 2 [1 (Case and Personals) + 1 (Case)]
What was the case about? – 2 Guesstimates, 1Market Entry
Anything peculiar about the case? – None
What was the tone of the interviewer? – Very Helpful
Skills Tested – Communication, Analytical Thinking, Common Sense, Number Crunching
Case 1:
Market entry in Telecom sector
A telecom provider in the United Sates wants to enter the Indian market. Should it enter?
Discussion:
Clarified the objective with the interviewer. She smiled and mentioned that it was only profits. I first
understood the nature of business of the firm in its existing geographies. Then, we did a cost-benefit
analysis for the firm for Indian market. I first estimated the market size, then estimated revenues for
this new entrant assuming a reasonable market share. The interviewer was giving me some data to
help out at certain points. I then estimated the costs (both fixed and variable). The indicative numbers
suggested that company could break-even within 5 years. We did not go beyond that with calculations.
I then discussed other parameters to be kept in mind while entering India – especially with respect to
the political environment in India. Then, we had a discussion on differentiating factors that the
company could provide to its customers that would add value and attract more customers.
Finally, I was asked to give a recommendation. Based on the discussion, I recommended that the firm
should enter the Indian market.
Then, the interviewer asked me a few questions about my internship in Europe and about my hobbies.
This part was fun. Overall, the interview lasted about 25 minutes. Pretty chilled out, I was smiling for
most of the time
Reflections from the case:

Given the time constraints, I think I covered various different aspects of the case. Given more time, a
more detailed analysis could have been done. However, the interviewer seemed fine with the approach
Case 2:
Guesstimate: Estimate the number if people landing at Kolkata airport daily
Discussion:
Since this was a guesstimate, the discussion was limited to asking clarification questions. I was
speaking for most of the time, with interviewer nodding head at regular intervals. Pretty straight
forward. The interviewer was happy with the approach. The number I finally arrived at was very close
to the number the interviewer had in mind!
I was offered a position immediately after this round.
P a g e | 10 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Abhik Tandon
Section 1: General Background and Interview info
Cases: One market entry case and one business strategy case
Anything peculiar about the case? : Quick thinking and good synthesis of recommendations was
required
What was the tone of the interviewer? : Helpful yet probing
Focus on personals: Very much. Close to 10 min in first 2 interviews and 3rd round was completely
based on personals. Questions related to resume and personal life were asked
Section 2: Case Statement & your discussion
Round 1:
Two quick cases
Case Statement: Our client is an established Telecom operator in a developed market and is looking to
enter the Indian market. We need to recommend a strategy for the same.
Candidate: (Summarized the case). Asked few clarifying questions on what the interviewer meant by
Telecom – equipment/services etc. Came up with a structure and clearly outlined the approach. After a
brief discussion I was asked to stop and recommend a strategy.
Case Statement: ABC is an IT company and had been growing faster than Industry, recently it has seen
much slower growth. We need to identify the root cause and come up with recommendations
Candidate: (Summarized the case). Came up with a structure and clearly outlined the approach. Had a
very quick discussion. Due to paucity of time the case had to be ended.
Your reflection on the case:
First case focused on exhaustiveness of the framework and approach. The ability to come up with
recommendations based on limited facts was also tested. It was particularly important to identify the
risks associated with the recommendations.
Second case was completely speed based. Among other things, it required a quick understanding of the
different revenue models and Onshore-Offshore delivery approach adopted by IT companies along
with some of the challenges.
Round 2
Guesstimate 1: Estimate the no. of flights that take-off from Delhi Airport
Guesstimate 2: Estimate the no. of marriages in India
Your reflection:

Emphasis was on the approach. I wasn’t asked to work out the numbers. In the second guesstimate I
was asked to come up with more than 2 ways to arrive at the answer.
Interviewer: The government plans to introduce a Rural Bank. What kind of services would you offer?
Your reflection:
It was important to identify stakeholders of this bank. The interviewer didn’t make it sound like a case
but logical thinking and structuring of arguments were given emphasis.
Round 3:
Completely based on personals.

Prabhneet Dhamija

No. of Rounds: 3

I had three back to back interviews with the firm and all three interviewers were friendly. None of the
interviews was a stress interview. In 2 of the interviews I was given cases. But the last interview was
more on personals.
Round 1:
The interviewer was head director of Mckinsey India. It was held on video conference and also an
engagement manager was present in the room. We started the discussion on my interest in Mckinsey
(Why Mckinsey) and how my stay in IIM-C has been so far. He was very polite and encouraging.

I had 2 small case discussions –
First was on Modi’s idea of Digital India (he pitched in his Independence Day speech). He asked me 5
ways in which I would pitch shift to digital in Indian context.
Second was related to a point on my CV, he gave me a case on how TATA could manufacture nano in
60K while it took them 1.6Lac to manufacture Indica. What could be the different ways by which TATA
could achieve it.

For the first I was less aware of the points he pitched in campaign and cooked up something of my
own. I wasn’t satisfied of my response. But he didn’t give any bad remarks. For the second case I think
it went quite well. I proposed 4-5 ways of how this could have been achieved and also how Indica and
Nano were different. He seemed convinced.
My suggestion: Be honest and accept you don’t know as I think it could have worked negative for me.
*Engagement manager asked me a small question- If I was head of manufacturing division, would I be
willing to compromise on quality in case of budget was constrained? No correct answer for this but I
backed my reasoning with TATA Nano’s example.
Round 2:
The interviewer was an associate principal in the firm. The second round started with a small
discussion on personals followed by two cases- one business case and one guesstimate problem.

The business case was for a client who was running a successful Marathi daily newspaper in Mumbai
and wanted to start a similar setup in Nagpur. I was asked to suggest few factors he should consider
before making this decision. Further what would be expenses and sources of revenue?
We had a good discussion. I kept it interactive. We talked about client’s set up in Mumbai- his
operations and readership share, scenario in Nagpur etc (Market entry case)

Next, I was asked to estimate the number of airplanes that land and take off from the Mumbai airport
in a single day. We discussed the factors on which this count would depend and he kept giving
hypothetical data for each point I raised.

Keep the interviewer involved, so you know you are headed in the right direction. Also the interviewer
was helpful and guiding at all times. The cases were not so hard, hence being calm and logically
connecting all pieces worked just fine.
Round 3:
The interview was held with another Partner from the firm. It was mostly personals and a discussion
on one of the forms I had earlier submitted at Mckinsey’s numerical analysis test.
These were not the traditional HR questions- rather he asked me to tell about myself, family and
school days- initiatives I took in school, about my home town- whats most famous.
We then had 4-5 minute discussion on my work experience in BHEL- about 2 of my projects and my
associated learning.
Further we discussed 2 of my answers submitted earlier- what I would like to change about IIM-C and
what is my biggest regret.
After the third interview, soon I was called into a room where this partner was present and he
extended me my offer.
A personal suggestion would be – ‘be honest, be genuine and stay calm’. I know my first case on digital
India didn’t go well but I was always very determined to give my best shot and I maintained my calm
during remaining of the interview. Don’t let any bad experience shake your confidence- these people
are looking for reasons to select you and not to eliminate you!! & Personals are really important.
All the best!

Natasha Mittal
Internship Company: Mckinsey & Company
No. of Rounds: 2
CASE
 Round I: Business strategy case on Indian IT firms
 Round II: Market Entry case
Interviewers: Both the interviewers were very friendly and general tone was conversational
 Round I: The interviewer (McK India MD) was on video conference. The round was heavily focussed on
personals. Interview started with informal chat which continued for 10-15 minutes. The case statement
was given but the focus quickly shifted to personals again. MD listened to my case solution and then
started asking me stuff from my resume and what I learned from each experience.
 Round II: This round was taken by a partner in the firm. Directly gave me the case and asked me to
solve it quickly.
Round 1
Very short case on Indian IT firms, in particular Wipro and Infosys. Asked me about the factors for success,
in particular the markets (geographies) both the firms focus on. Which particular industries in which
markets should Infosys focus on (say Healthcare industry in the US market). Also, asked me general
reasons as to why European clients would outsource projects to Wipro even in times of recession.
Very broad case and he was looking for general sense and out of the box ideas. The case only took around
5 minutes of around ~25 minutes interview which was mostly based on personals.
What do you think was being tested in the case? Thinking ability, taking cues from the interviewer, out of
the box ideas
Any general comments you might want to add : Focus on Personals. It is very important. Just stay
confident and link very experience written in your resume with what you learnt from it. Also, keep a few
questions on hand to ask the interviewer at the end of interview. I was particularly asked if I had any
questions for the interviewer (in both the rounds).
Round 2

Interviewer: The client is a newspaper manufacturing firm presently operating in Mumbai and now wants
to expand in Nagpur. Should it enter the market?
Candidate: What is the objective of the firm? Also asked about the manufacturing and distribution model.
Interviewer: The objective is to breakeven in a single year. The firm would use the same manufacturing
plant it had in Mumbai. Since, the objective was to decide whether the firm could breakeven in a single
year, the interviewer quickly jumped on numbers. Asked me to first estimate the newspaper reading
population.
Candidate: Asked about the newspaper language and then estimated the market size of English newspaper
reading population in Nagpur. After calculating the market size, asked the interviewer about the market
share expected to be captured in the first year.
Interviewer: Gave some more numbers to calculate the market share in first year and growth in
subsequent years.
Candidate: Moved to the costs model first. Split into fixed and variable costs. Then looked into the revenue
streams. Was provided numbers by the interviewer at every step
Interviewer: Okay, so since we have all the costs and revenue streams, let’s quickly decide whether the
firm should enter the market or not.
Candidate: Did a simple break-even analysis for the first year and gave the conclusion. Also stated some
factors according to which the costs and revenues could change beyond the first year.
It was a straightforward case with focus on data analysis. Was asked in the beginning to wrap it up in 10
minutes.
What do you think was being tested in the case? Quick-Thinking ability, data-crunching
Any general comments you might want to add : Stay confident. Since time was less, laid the structure
initially and quickly did the number-crunching which impressed the interviewer.

BCG
Abhinav Punia
Internship Company: BCG

No. of Rounds: 2
Round 1
Section 1: Moves directly to the case
Section 2: An Indian Motorcycle manufacturer wanted to enter the Nigerian market. I had to come up
with a strategy to differentiate them from the competition.
I started of by understanding the objective of the client. Why the Nigerian market, what kind of
finances do we have, what are the long term and short term objectives of the move.
Moving I went on understanding the Nigerian market better and did a small industry analysis -
understanding the competitive landscape, the growth potential of the market and the consumers
preferences. What came out was that the Nigerian market was highly fragmented and price sensitive,
there was no major player. Moreover, the main usage of motorcycles in Nigeria was for taxi purpose.
So once i got to this, the interviewer asked to optimize the bike for this purpose.
So i came up with a few suggestion of increase the revenue that can be generated from a single bike by
the driver.
Section 3: It went well. I was confident and continuously interacted with the interviewer. The key was
to understand the problem correctly which helped me to move in the right direction and not go after
non-relevant go to market strategy framework.
Round 2
Section 1: Started with tell me about yourself and few personals. And then we went on to the case.
Section 2: Client was Nissam Motors and they wanted to increase their sales from the current 42000
units to 100000 units. how should they go about doing it.
I started by understanding whether this is a supply side issue or a demand side issue. I then started
going into the competitors are their sales. The interviewer interrupted a lot a wanted me to take his
cues. He wanted me to ask for different products that Nissan manufactures. There were three main

product lines and I asked for the market size and our sales in those segments. He then asked me to
target any one segment and state the reasons for that.
The rest of the case went on discussing how to actually boost sales in the segment that we had picked.
Section 3: it was important in this one to take cues from the interviewer. I missed a couple of things
on the first go but I was open to his suggestions and that helped me throughout the case.

Pankaj Dokania

No. of Rounds: 2
What was the case about? Growth drivers

Anything peculiar about the case? Lots of number
What was the tone of the interviewer? Helpful
Focus on personals – Tell me about yourself. Explain your work experience/ job responsibilities with a
project
Round 1
Case statement & your discussion
Case: A company was operating in 5 different sectors – Agricultural Equipments, Automobiles,

Industrial Goods, Construction and Chemicals. The company’s growth rate by different sectors was
given. The company’s stock was underperforming as compared to its peers. We had to identify the
reasons and suggest growth drivers.
We started looking at the share of each sector in the company’s revenue and the growth rate
(historical/forecast) for different sectors. After discussing various aspects, it became clear that the
company had a good market share in sectors with stable growth forecast, but an insignificant share in
sectors with high growth forecast. Finally, I was asked to summarize my findings in a way so as to
present it to the client. I used the BCG matrix to give my final recommendation.
Your reflection on the case

It was a very number-intensive case. The interviewer was primarily testing the ability to ask the right
questions and seek the right data/information.
Round 2

Guesstimate on the number of flights in Delhi airport on a given day. We looked at the demand side
and the supply side. On demand side, I estimated it by splitting the population (business and personal)
into different income groups and assigning appropriate flight usage rate to each segment. Using a
different approach, we looked at the average occupancy of the runway. By taking 5 minutes per flight
and 3 runways, we just calculated the possible number of flights.
Your reflection on the case

I think my initial hypothesis was correct and I handled the calculations well. Although in between I
made a loose assumption and my initial number was way off target. But the interviewer was very
helpful and asked me to revise my assumptions again. I was thinking out loud and tried to make the
estimation interactive.

Ruchika Airy
Internship Company: The Boston Consulting Group

No. of Rounds: 3
Round 1
I was interviewed by a Partner. He asked me to introduce myself.

He browsed through my C.V. and asked me questions about my summer internship with an NGO.
Case:
The case was to increase the sales of the F&B outlets of a high-end mall in a South Delhi.
The mall had three types of outlets:
1. Take away restaurants
2. Coffee shops
3. High end dining restaurants
Develop a strategy.
Candidate lays down an initial generic structure and explains flow of thought.
Interviewer: What numbers do you need for further analysis?
Candidate: The sales from each outlets.
Interviewer: If I say two numbers then?
Candidate: Revenue and number of items sold.
Interviewer gave me six numbers.
Type of restaurants Average Revenue Average number of orders

Take away restaurants 140 22
Coffee shops 180 25
High end dining ? (400) 4
restaurants
Find the remaining number given the average revenue overall is 180.
Candidate: 400 (asked me to explain how I had reached it)
Interviewer: Now, if I say you can work on only two numbers to increase the sales which you numbers
will you focus on? And why?
Candidate: Increase the average revenue of the take-away restaurants since ideally it should have more
revenue than coffee shops. Reasons being:
1. It had more variety of food to be offered unlike coffee shops which had just coffee and a few
snacks.
2. The time taken to serve the customers was less too.
Interviewer: Any reason to contradict your statement.
Candidate: The coffee shops provide the ambience and can be a place to have a good conversation, etc.
But, since we have high-end dining restaurants with better ambience ideally they should be preferred
for the same reason.

Also, since it is a high-end shopping mall I think it is safe to assume that the high price at the high-end
restaurants would not be much of an issue here.
Interviewer: Okay, second number?
Candidate: I could focus to increase the number of orders in high-end restaurants. They are extremely
low. Total revenue is 1600 for high-end restaurants while for coffee shops it is 4500. Clearly, there is a
scope to increase it.
Interviewer: How would you work on this?
Candidate:
1. Improve the product and services: Improvements in terms of taste, variety, cuisines, etc. Feedback
can be taken from the present customers.
2. Publicize:
Hoardings in the malls.
Adverts in magazines and newspapers.
Celebrity endorsements. (something like Khan Chacha)
3. Location: Is the restaurant situated in an easily accessible location within the mall?
Also, various tactics like catchy signage, infused aroma can be used to attract the customers.
Reflection: In this round what worked for me was that I did the calculation of the
number really fast and could see that the interviewer was impressed by the
methodology. Also, throughout the case discussion I tried to supplicate my suggestions
and line on thought with a detail explanation or a real live example. I helped me
communicate better.
Round 2
I was interviewed by a Partner. He browsed through my C.V. Asked me question on my background,

cuts me mid-way and moved to a case.
Case:
Client was Nissan Motors established three years back and they wanted to increase their
sales from the current 42000 units to 100000 units. How should they go about doing it?
Candidate: Time duration?
Interviewer: 1 year
Candidate: Let me look into this from two perspectives supply and demand side. List down several
factors within the same.
Asked me the reason for looking at the supply side and told me to focus on demand side.

Interviewer: Nissan has three major product lines we need to increase the demand of these.
I asked questions about the product type, how they were different, the segment targeted, existing sales,
and the competitors for each of these.
Interviewer asked me to choose the lower end brand and increase its sales.
Stated the strategy for the same. Cuts me mid-way. Asks me questions regarding various leadership
roles I had taken. Then, stops me mid-way saying I think that should be enough I am sure you have
other calls as well won’t keep you here for long.
Reflection: According to me this entire round was to test my ability to handle stress. I
was stopped by the interviewer several times during the discussion and asked to change
my line of thought every time. There was lot of cross questioning and he looked at my
rough sheet every time I wrote something.
Round 3
I was interviewed by the Principal, who was extremely warm and friendly.
She asked me several questions related to my stay here in IIM Calcutta.
Case:
A tyre manufacturing company in New Delhi has to increase the sales of its tyres.
There are two channels to sell these tyres.
1. The local mechanics
2. The stores of the company under the company brand name.
How to go about it?
The % sales from both paths was 74 and 26 respectively.
Candidate: Analysis will be based on the following parameters.
Services and Product: price, service & support during purchase, post sales service etc.
(I asked questions on how the channels were different in each aspect. Started to list down ways to
increase the sales across channels. Get cut in between…)

Interviewer: My aim is to increase the sales only from the stores of the company.
Candidate: We can either increase the tyres sales across the distribution channels or can steal share
from the local sellers. Do I need to focus on both?
Interviewer: No, the latter. We get more margin from the latter.
Candidate: Herein we can look into additional factor of accessibility. Are the company stores
adequately present across New Delhi?
Interviewer: Yes.
Candidate: Since, the company stores will be selling the tyres at a higher price than the local
mechanics. There has to some value addition to compensate for that.
POA:
1. Leverage upon the “brand” of the company. Since, tyres are a commodity which according the
consumers need to be of a high quality and reliable. The brand plays an important role here.
2. Provide training to the staff such that they are better equipped than the mechanics to provide the
services and information during the purchase.
Interviewer: Choose just one out of these three.
Candidate: I will choose the first strategy. It will help the company in a long run. Second strategy can
be replicated by the local mechanics as well.
Reflection: The interviewer was interested to see how I was in my personal life. She asked me detailed
questions on what I liked about IIM Calcutta. We spoke about IIM Calcutta rituals, the professors, the
scenic campus, how the first four months change you as a person among others.
I think I made a mark during my personals which then set a very positive tone prior to my case
interview.

Abhishek Debbarman

Number of Rounds – 1 (Case and Personals) + 1 (Case)

• What was the case about? – 1 Guesstimate, 1 Operations (Quantitative and Strategy)
• Anything peculiar about the case? – One of the cases was business project specific and another was a
standardised test
• What was the tone of the interviewer? – Helpful
• Skills Tested – Communication, Analytical Thinking, Common Sense, Number Crunching
Case 1 : Improving profits for food outlets in a mall
You client is a mall like forum. You are asked by the owner to improve the profits of the food outlets of
the mall.
Discussion:
The discussion initially revolved around what the mall was and basic introduction. They added more
information about the mall and the expectations of the mall owner.
We decided that we wanted to not modify volumes as this was seen as being infeasible in the case. We
started out by looking at the outlets. There were coffee shops accounting for 20 percent of the crowd
and quick service restaurants an 18 percent and 3 percent was fine dining ( the rest was
inconsequential). We started looking numbers and the average prices were given as 200,180,400
respectively. We started by looking at the points where we could work with. We looked at the
unaccounted percentage, the QSRs, and the fine dining restaurants as opportunities. We looked into
the QSRs further. There was a further split given for the restaurants and we looked into this. The split
was inconsequential. The ideas were looking to increase the average revenue per customer. The ideas
were bundling increasing the minimum prices modifying the price mix and improving quality and
advertising. The interviewer went and gave branding as well. This was the full interview. There were
some standard personals in the beginning as well
Your own reflections on the case
The case was actually very different, as I had to go though many Questions to get to the final answer,
which was still incomeplete. The case they gave me . The QSR part was the key point to catch, as they
are a variety of restaurants and offer more chance to improve revenues. The main thing that helped me
I suppose was thinking loudly and slowly. There were some points such lowering the banding of prices
which I did not get immediately as well as the importance of branding in this case.
Case 2:

This case was more standardised to test across candidates. This was a guesstimate to find out the
number of aircrafts transiting through the delhi airport in a day. This had lots of scope for detail.
Discussion :
This first step involved defining the problem. We first looked at the type of airport, time of year and
traffic. We settled on only passenger traffic and that too domestic and no variation though the year.
Then was the angle of if we had to consider the airport as demand or supply constrained and we
decided to look at the airport as being demand constrained where the full capacity of the airport was
not taken into account. We also decided to ignore the length of flight queues in the air. This
considerably simplified the issue. I also brought in an aspect that delhi is the Hub for air India adding
to extra traffic which was ignored to simplify the problem. We decided that take off and landings take
the same amount of time. i.e.: 5 mins. After this we ended up looking at how much density would be
there through the day. We divide the day into parts and came up with occupancy percentages for the
day. We went for higher in the early mornings and evenings. This led to a number that was off by a
factor of 2. We then tried to figure out why. This was because I had not considered delhi airport had
multiple runways which I got after a bit of time. The final answer was closer to what was expected.
Your own reflections on the case
This case was meant to be standardized and through. The idea was just to judge between candidates. I
suppose it matters how your first case goes as well since this is a follow up case.

Ayush Bohra
Internship Company: Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

No. of Rounds: 1
I was interviewed by a Principal, who was extremely warm and friendly. Initial first few minutes were
very informal talk where the Principal spoke about his career and the different sectors he's worked in.
He then asked me a couple of questions related to my CV which were basically intended to understand
why I'm interested in Consulting and what factors actually governed my decision towards it.
So my interviewer had a lot of experience in and passion for the automobile industry. After giving a
highly detailed insight into the different players and how the industry functions in India, he put
forward the problem statement ---- Nissan has over the years, since its entry into the country, neither
been able to capture the kind of market share they had hoped to nor equal the market share that their
competitors have been able to capture. As a consultant to the company, what are the steps you would
take to turn this around.
How I went about this was to subtly apply the 4Ps and cover the different aspects within each of the Ps
while simultaneously comparing them to industry/competitors standards. What I had missed out
before this step was to do a market segmentation, which the Principal pointed out. However, we
skipped that step and moved forward.
During the 4P analysis, I was asked few tricky questions like:
1. Our product is priced slightly higher (10-15%) than the competition, for which we provide certain
additional features.
2. If we have a market share of 1% of a $10m industry and now undergo all the suggestions given by us,
how much will our market share increase to?
3.If we but a machine worth 50 cr. for a special paint that is highly popular and appreciated by people,
should we invest in it and why?
The case was fairly simple, however riddled with trick questions which were the real challenge. Flow of
thought was important and even more was the logical reasoning behind every point I made. There
were times when the interviewer cross-questioned me just to understand clearly why I'm stating
certain points. However, what I feel was really important were answers to trick questions and to stick
to them even when he tried to persuade me otherwise.

Anmol Pandey
Internship Company: Boston Consulting Group

No. of Rounds: 3
Case Title: Doubling the sales of spare parts company of 2 wheelers in 1 year
Anything peculiar about the case? No
What was the tone of the interviewer? Quite helpful
Focus on personals: Moderate focus on personals. Questions consisted around on my background,

especially work experience and my motivations for consulting job. Then we moved on to the case
discussion.
I started the general questions about the company, its current market share and size. First, I looked at
the company to ascertain whether the company had enough capacity to ramp up the production, along
with understanding the current business model and competition. I was given the information that we
basically compete with the direct sales of OEM spare-parts through our wholesale distribution
network. Then, I found out that due to our brand and reputation, we command a premium higher than
other players as well. I structured it around the different distribution sales boosting techniques and
incentives specific to the spare parts dealers, like increase in sales margin, design of promotion
schemes, etc. After the front-end, I moved to the backend supply chain part of the company, and found
out that we followed hub and spoke model of delivery, with our main warehousing costs located in
Delhi being too costly and far from our main market. At this time, she seemed impressed and said to
give a summary for the case.
What did you do really well in your case: Initial conversation gave me confidence and helped me relax
during the case, from which I then proceeded to do a good case. I noted every piece of information
down, and initial questions were on target which helped me form a clear structure and way of moving
forward. She also asked me whether I had any experience with spare parts industry since I was going
along really well, and gave me clear indication that I was doing extremely well.
Interview lasted for about 30 minutes.
Round 2
Case Title: Increasing sales of Nissan Micra in 6 months
Anything peculiar about the case? Yes, it was a discussion rather than a case about the possibilities
that Nissan can explore to rapidly increase the sales. No pen or paper involved.

What was the tone of the interviewer? Helpful
Focus on personals: Focus on the background, talked about my hometown, and then about my startup
experience.
He started out with detailing out the current problems with Nissan in general. Then asked me my
opinion, about why it is not able to make that much of an impact in Indian hatchback car market. I
started out by listing points about competition, difficulty of breaking in and maintaining profitable
positions over years. Then he asked about what I would suggest to Nissan about Micra sales. I
described the current target segment that the car was aimed along with typical profile of customer. He
questioned me about strategies to pursue to get the customer to the showroom. I described the push
and pull strategies from dealers and customers side. Then went into the marketing and promotional
details, where he asked me to describe the process of selecting a brand icon for advertisements of
Micra, whether Shahrukh or Salman would fit as the ambassadors. I described the process of matching
personality traits of star with that of the car which we would want to offer. At this stage, he described a
particular paint job process and then asked how to can that be used as a factor of differentiation and
thereby how to decide on premium on that.
I started out well on a good note. But since it was an oral discussion, I somehow lost the structure in
between due to less practice on this kind of case solving. I had no idea about the features of Micra and
should have asked about it in detail. Overall, I should have kept my cool and be relaxed in that
situation. The purpose of the whole case was to know about my thinking process and whether the
conversation runs in a fluidic manner.
Round 3
Case Title: Increasing sales of Nissan Micra from 12000 to 50000 in 6 months
Anything peculiar about the case? Started directly from the general discussion of last round to specific
number based details
What was the tone of the interviewer? Yes
Focus on personals: No
The interviewer told me that I have to ask him specific questions useful for my case analysis and
coming up with proper strategy in the end. I listed down the broad strategy, then went into the details.
I asked him information to first find out the target segment, how many would be needing or buying the
car in 6 months. Then interviewer asked me pin-pointed questions like, “Quickly tell me, 5 things to be
done to get a customer to showroom”, “5 things that Nissan dealer would do to sell the ‘Micra’ to
customer”.

It was a straightforward case of target segmentation. Quick thinking and exhaustive structure was all
the interviewer was looking for. He was looking for innovative ideas, out of the box thinking. So
sticking to Case book type structure does not help much in this case.
Things that went wrong: The stress from previous round not going that well, carried over to this one,
which should not have happened ideally.

Siddhant Sachdeva
Internship Company: Boston Consulting Group

No. of rounds: 1
Interviewer: Tell me about yourself.

Candidate: Standard response; added some off beat project that I had done on Batman.
Interviewer: Did some follow up questions about the project.
Candidate: Project related answers.
Interviewer: Why do you want to join consulting?
Candidate: Some standard answers like diversity and the challenge involved in the job. Additionally,
I mentioned my inclination towards working in the education sector. Made it a point to link all reasons
with some or the other experience or activity that was already mentioned in my resume.
Interviewer: (Picking up from the conversation above) Do you think that creativity is a pre-requisite
for being a good consultant? If so, why? If not, why?
Candidate: (Took some time to think about the question) Some cases require looking at issues from a
new perspective, as a lot of problems faced by the client has already been looked upon by the people
working inside the firm.
Interviewer: (Grilled a little to look for different answers.
Candidate: After a certain amount of time, I ran out of answers, and innocently claimed to have run
out of options, while reiterating briefly, the points that I had mentioned.
Interviewer: Tell me about your internship at JSW Steels.
Candidate: (Made me construct my internship project into a project).
Interviewer: Anything that you would want to ask me.
Candidate: I asked about the question related to creativity, looking for a more suitable explanation.
Interviewer: (Told me the response). Thank you for the interview.
Candidate: Thank you, Sir.

Nithin Mannil

No of rounds: 4
General Background and Interview Info
 All rounds were case based with conventional format

 Very little focus on personals ( Personals was asked only in 3rd round)
 Each round took about 20-25 minutes
Case statement and your discussion
The client was a retail supermarket chain in Chennai, which has been suffering from losses. I was
supposed to figure out the reasons for the losses and come up with solutions to recover from losses.
Case discussion started with basic questions like
 Number of stores in Chennai - Five

 Its competitors and relative market share ( 20 % organized and 80% unorganized retail)
 Products being sold at those stores ( it was mostly vegetables and fruits)
 How long has the client been suffering losses ( Ever since it started)
 Which of the 5 stores were suffering losses ( All of them)
Losses could be either due to lower revenues or higher costs. Lower revenues was a result of lower
sales, resulting from lower footfall at stores compared to competitors. I suggested to the interviewer
that I would take a minute to jot down the possible reasons why the retail chain is suffering from low
footfall. I mentioned the following factors.
1. Price
2. Location of the stores
3. Quality of fruits and vegetables
4. Availability (stockouts)
5. Product variety
6. Service from the sales staff
If you closely look at the above 6 factors, it emerges indirectly from 4P.
The interviewer asked me to focus only on two factors, quality and location
The discussion moved towards whether our client is selling low quality fruits and vegetables compared
to our competitors. The low quality was due to the fact that many fruits were getting spoiled or rotten.
This was due to the fact the refrigeration system installed in the store was not working properly. The
refrigerator was not working due to irregular supply of electricity. Chennai had power cuts in most of
the regions and stores were affected by it. I realized that the same problem must be faced by the
competitors and explored how the competitor dealt with it. After further probing, it was found that the
client used a generator, whose technical specifications were different from those of competitor. Better
performance of the competitor’s generator ensured the good quality of fruits.

When the discussion shifted to location, it became obvious that client’s stores were not located in
strategic locations. It was located about on an average 1.5 km away from the residential areas, whereas
the competitor average was 1 km. This was the reason for the reduced footfall at the stores.
Now that I had found out the reasons for the low footfall, I needed to come up with recommendations
to improve the footfall, thereby increasing the sales
1. Change the generator and purchase the one which is used by the competitors
2. Increase the variety of fruits and vegetables and provide more offerings than competitors, so
that customers are attracted to client’s store despite location. In search of certain exotic fruits
and vegetables, customers will visit client’s store and make purchases for other normal fruits as
well. The kind of variety that can be introduced are
 Regional fruits and vegetables
 Exotic vegetables like Broccoli
In the second recommendation, the expectation from the interview was that candidate would come up
with ideas that can possibly attract more customers. Location is fixed and there isn’t much the client
can do about it.
Your reflection of the case
 It was a well-structured case which moved smoothly towards the solution without jumping any
steps
 4P is a powerful tool, which was used effectively in finding the factors responsible for low footfall

Nischay Gupta
No of Rounds: 2
Section 1: General Background and Interview info
Case Title: Decreasing profits of a retail store chain
What was the tone of the interviewer? – The interviewer was very friendly. He pulled his chair to my
side of the table while we went through the case.
Focus on personals – Not much. 2 questions: Why consulting? Why BCG?
Section 2: Case Statement & your discussion
Interviewer: Your client is a retail store chain who has been experiencing decrease in profits, what
would you recommend?
Candidate: Where are the retail outlets located?
Interviewer: In Chennai
Candidate: How many outlets do they have? Is the profit decreasing in all of them, or any specific
store?
Interviewer: They have 15 outlets, and the profit is decreasing in all of them.
Candidate: (Asked him for a few minutes to think, came up with a structure) I will first look into the
industry as a whole, and then firm specific factors. So, are the competitors also experiencing decrease
in profits, or is it just our client?
Interviewer: Other competitors are doing fine. Focus on our client.
Candidate: Ok. I would break up profit into sales minus costs. Has there been decrease in sales?
Interviewer: Yes.
Candidate: Have the sales decreased for all the products that we are offering, or any specific products?
Interviewer: Actually the sales of fruits and vegetables have been decreasing.
Candidate: (Took 1 minute to write down) Possible reasons could be:
 Variety of the fruits and vegetables that we are offering is lesser than our competitors.
 Quality of our products. Eg. Maybe we are not offering fresh vegetables.
 The location of our stores
 The service in our stores is not up to the standards. In-store experience.
 Our price is higher than our competitors

 Advertising and promotions are not sufficient.
Interviewer: (He looked at my sheet for a few seconds) The variety of our products is almost similar to
what is available in the market. There is no issue in the quality as well. Yes, the location of our stores is
an issue. Our stores are somewhat farther for our customers. Also, our store staff is also relatively new,
so we have been experiencing some issues. But I don’t want you to focus there. The rest of the factors
are pretty much standard.
Candidate: Ok. Since we cannot change the location of our stores immediately, we would have to look
at other factors to have a competitive advantage. We can have better quality fruits, by looking for better
suppliers.
Interviewer: We are already getting our fruits from some of the best suppliers. Think from the
customer perspective.
Candidate: (Took 1 minute) I would like to divide our customer base into few segments.
Interviewer: Go ahead.
Candidate: Based on the income group, we can have high income customers, who would want best
quality fruits, even exotic fruits. Average income customers, who would want medium priced fruits and
vegetables. Low income customers: Low priced, and also lesser quantities of vegetables.
Interviewer: Ok. Let’s focus on the high income customers.
Candidate: Since we are already getting the best quality, we can increase the fruits and vegetables
variety in our stores. We can also look for fruits that are not easily available in Chennai. Maybe from
other states.
Interviewer: Let’s say we tried to do so, but couldn’t get any fruits in the nearby states, that aren’t
already being sold in the market.
Candidate: We can even import fruits. Price isn’t a concern for these customers.
Interviewer: Ok, let’s say we started to import cherries and pears from Australia. Customers liked these
new fruits and we also saw an increase in our sales. But do you think this will work for long?
Candidate: Our competitors will also try to source similar fruits.
Interviewer: Can you anything about it?
Candidate: We can build relations with our suppliers in Australia. Try for a contract with the suppliers,
to make us the only buyers.
Interviewer: Ok, So our competitors will start sourcing similar fruits, not from Australia, but some
other neighbouring country. Let’s say that we have 6 months, after which they will put similar fruits in
their own stores. There will be a slight difference in the taste, but not enough for general customers to
notice. Any step that you would take in these six months?

Candidate: Since you mentioned that they won’t be getting the fruits from Australia, we can use it as an
advantage. We can advertise and promote our new fruits as the best quality fruits from Australia. We
can focus the branding on Australia’s fruits. This way, even when our competitors will get similar
fruits, our customers would still want the “cherries from Australia”.
Interviewer: Good. Summarize the case.
Candidate: (Summarized)
Section 3: Your own reflection on the case
What did you do really well in your case: Listened to him carefully, and worked on every hint that he
gave.
What did you do wrong in your case: Took too much time between questions due to initial
nervousness.
What do you think was being tested in the case: On the spot thinking, since he was giving ‘let’s say this
happened or that happened...’ scenarios.
How long was the interview: 40 minutes

Arijit Kumar Gorai

No. of Rounds: 2
Round 1: Partner round.
Case Title (one line): Slump in growth of client compared to the industry growth.
Anything peculiar about the case? Quite perplexing
What was the tone of the interviewer? Strict and sarcastic at times
Focus on personals: Quite a bit
Personals for 5-7 minutes, tell me about yourself and stuff; apparently he knew a few partners from my
previous firm, we talked about them. Then he suddenly brought out a piece of paper with a set of
numbers in rows and columns. That was the case: interpret the numbers and make a 5 minute pitch for
the client who is an IT giant. The underlying issue was that the company was not growing as expected
and the numbers as compared to the industry leader was on that paper. Then he went away from the
room and returned after 10 minutes. I did a few calculation like Y-o-Y growth of the firm vis-à-vis the
market leader. The partner wanted the numbers correct upto 2 decimal points! I fumbled at some
calculations and got some sarcastic comments in return. He then asked me for conclusions. I told him
my observations and recommendations and the partner was impressed by one of my recommendations
and mentioned that it was one of the points which many companies fail to realise. We discussed on a
few points where he disagreed with my conclusions. We had a healthy discussion and the case ended
there as time was up!
The case took me by surprise since I had never done anything like that. However, slowly I figured
things out. The interviewer was aware of this and he kept on building on the pressure with his
comments. The important point is to keep calm and work things out gradually.
Round 2: Principal
Case Title (one line): Growth strategy of a steel company

Anything peculiar about the case? Quite straightforward
Personals for 5-7 minutes, mostly about my experience in my previous company.

The case was about a steel company for which I had to develop the growth strategy.
I inquired about the industry, the client and its position relative to other competitors. Then I asked
about the product mix. It turned out that they had two different product. The percentage of volume
produced of each type was different. So, I asked if it would be okay to first focus on the product with
larger share. The interviewer said that is random and there has to be a logic why that product. Then he
asked me on what parameters would the priority of focus depend on. I listed down some parameters.
He demanded explanation of each. Then asked me to take down a few numbers to calculate the growth
potential for each. The fixed cost was given as a cumulative figure for both the products and I asked
him it should be divided as per production volume ratio. He asked what other ways could it be
allocated. Here I discussed some of the methods I had learnt in COMA class including ABC costing.
The interviewer seemed impressed and asked me to take the simpler route of production volume ratio.
I completed the calculations and the case ended there.
After 5 minutes, I was made an offer!
The case was straightforward with basic calculations. The interviewer had a strict tone but was guiding
the interview in the correct direction. I felt I could have done better but the interviewer told me later
on that I had done well!!

Arindam Mohanta
No. of Rounds: 2
Case Title (one line): Slump in growth of client compared to the industry growth.
Anything peculiar about the case? Quite Straightforward
What was the tone of the interviewer? Strict, told me initially to ask specific questions only
Section 2: Case statement & your discussion 
Started with my personals, grilled about my work experience including the project timelines and
industry details. Asked about my last project, what were the milestones, what were the challenges
faced, etc.
Interviewer: Our client manufactures different industrial products: automobile engines (let's say A),
industrial goods (let's say B) and 3 others (don't remember others exactly, let's say C, D, E). The
industry is growing at the annual rate of 10% but our growth rate was quite low at 2-3%. Our client
wants us to find out why we are worse off and what should be done to rectify the issues.
Candidate: Asked for a couple of minutes to think about the problem. Then, suggested we should look
at the market scenario for individual products and try to see if only we are facing slow growth for all
the products. If the issue is for some particular segments, then we can approach each issue separately
and suggest solutions.
Interviewer: The industry is growing at an overall rate of around 10%.
Candidate: OK, can you please tell me the industry growth rate for different products individually.
Interviewer: The expected industry growth rates for different products A, B, C, D, E in that order is
10%, 12%, 15%, 12% and 14%.
Candidate: Now that we know the industry standard, we need to look how our products are performing
vis-a-vis the industry. Can you please tell me the growth of each of the different products for our
clients?
Found out that 3 out of the 5 products were lagging a lot in terms of growth rate. Then compared the 3
products with the industry standard to find out the main issue and suggested solution.

Solution: Had to find the contribution of the different product segments to the revenue, the growth of
each segment and the company's revenue growth in each product segment. Suggested solution for the
different segments focusing on the issues, which included improving the quality of sales personnel for 1
category, improving the manufacturing process of 2nd type, etc
Section 3: Your reflection on the case The interviewer initially spent significant amount of time on
personals due to which we had only 10 minutes to solve the case and he made it clear that we have to
find the solution within the 10 minutes.
ROUND 2
Case Title (one line): Decreasing profitability even though revenue is increasing and business is
growing.
Anything peculiar about the case? Quite Straightforward
What was the tone of the interviewer? Friendly
Focus on personals: Mainly intro and some basic personals
Interviewer: Client is a gear manufacturer mainly in B2B business. The revenue for the last 5 years has
increased from 1000cr to 3000cr but the profit margin (EBITDA) has reduced from 10% to 5%. We
have to find out why this happened?
Candidate: Mainly started with the products manufactured by the firm and found out that a new type
of gear was being sold which was not done earlier. Its production included extra cost of treatment but
the price was 10% less than the price of other gear type
Candidate: In terms of the product mix of the manufacturer, can you elaborate on the types of gears it
manufactures and if there has been any change in the product mix offered?
Interviewer: Earlier there was just 1 type of gear the company was manufacturing but recently they
have added a new type of gear, say type B which is a metal coated one.
Candidate: Can you please explain the differences between these 2 types of gears in terms of raw
materials, manufacturing processes, post-processing job and marketing efforts required?
Interviewer: The raw materials and manufacturing processes are same for both the gears but there is
an additional post-processing task required for type B gear and greater effort in marketing required as
it is a new type of gear.
Candidate: Since the company has come up with this new type of gear, we should see how the 2 type of

gears are priced and how the cost are allocated (using activity based costing) and if they align with the
cost drivers. To start with we can look at the price charged for each type of gear and then check
The interviewer gave me the sales in terms of units earlier when revenue was Rs 1000 cr (only type A
gears) and the current scenario with Rs 3000cr revenue (both type A and B gears). The unit price for
type A gear had increased but unit price of type B gear was very close to type B gear.
Next we looked into the costing method and realized that same per unit cost for raw material,
processing and other activities were being allocated.
Interviewer: Okay, now that we now the issue, what would be your 3 major suggestions to the client?
Candidate: Since the price is based on the cost of the gear, we should adopt better costing methodology
as follows:
1) Raw materials: Cost should be allocated in terms of amount of raw material used per type A and type
B gear
2) Manufacturing and post-processes jobs: Cost should be allocated in terms of number of hours of
processing taken per type A and type B gear
3) Sales and Marketing: Total cost should be allocated between type A and B gears using the number of
sales personnel working for the respective division.
The interview went for around 40 minutes and interviewer was focusing on the breadth as well as
depth of business knowledge, clarity of basics of cost management, marketing, etc. helped a lot in the
case.

Monica Bhaskar
No of rounds: 2
Both rounds kicked off with personals (2 -3 generic questions in each round) and comprised of Case
Interviews. They continued for 20 – 25 mins each.
ROUND 1
Case Title (one line): Profitability of steel company
Anything peculiar about the case? Normal and Data centric
Focus on personals: Three questions – Introduction?, Why consulting? and Why should I be selected
over others?
Section 2: Case statement and your discussion

The case was about a steel company that is acquired by its supplier and is presently loss making. The
objective of the case is to find the reason for the losses and how can we fix the same. The initial
discussion included quick questions targeted to develop an understanding of the industry along with
core business of the steel firm and other related information including geography, competitors,
products, operations etc. It was established that the company had two different products and the
percentage share by volume was greater for one product. Due to lack of any specific direction by the
interviewer, I started discussing on various parameters that can be responsible for the loss. The
interviewer argued on the logic supporting/ not supporting each parameter. He then handed over a
sheet of paper that presented firm specific data for both the products: Sales Revenue, Fixed Costs and
Production (as far as I remember). It required allocating the cumulative fixed cost to each product by
dividing as per production volume. We further discussed on how the firm should focus on more
profitable product along with other points of improvement including better capacity utilization,
improving workforce utilization (allocation of skilled and unskilled), etc. The case was concluded post
this and I was asked to wait for 2-3 minutes for the second interviewer to arrive.

The interview went for around 20 – 25 minutes and the interviewer was strict and restricted in his
responses. He did not provide much hints and direction. But gradually it was mainly focused on
interpreting data correctly along with providing logical and correct calculations.
ROUND 2
Case Title (one line): Decreasing profitability over past 5 years though the revenues are increasing and
business is growing
Anything peculiar about the case? Normal
What was the tone of the interviewer? Friendly
Focus on personals: Two questions – Introduction? and one more question

The case was about a Client who is a gear manufacturer mainly in B2B business. The revenue increased
from 1000 Cr to 3000 Cr but the profit margin (EBITDA) has reduced from 10% to 5% during last 5
years. The objective of the case is to find out why this happened. The initial discussion was about the
client and product offerings. The interviewer told that a new type of product was being sold which was
not done earlier (the difference was in the type of coating used which was different than the earlier
one). So, now the firm was selling two products (Type A and B) and earlier it used to sell only one
(Type A). I further asked more about the difference in these two products with respect to the raw
materials, manufacturing process, product demand, etc. The interviewer told that the only differences
include that an additional process is required for manufacturing of Type B product along with greater
efforts in creating demand for this new product. The interviewer further provided some percentage
data around costs incurred which followed a series of calculations to compare both the products.

The interview went for around 20 – 25 minutes and the interviewer was friendly and interactive. The
case went smooth with questions and responses flowing logically one after other. It tested
understanding of the business, basics of cost management and asking right questions about the
product mix.

Sonal Poddar

Number of Rounds – 2[1 (Case and Personals) + 1 (Case)]
What was the case about? – 2 Quantitative and strategy
Anything peculiar about the case? – None
What was the tone of the interviewer? – Very Helpful
Skills Tested – Communication, Analytical Thinking, Common Sense, Number Crunching
Case 1:
Increasing market share of Nissan
Discussion:
The discussion started with what exactly was the position of automobile industry. I understood the
nature of business and the competitors existing in the market. I did the competitive analysis to
understand why we couldn’t capture a good market share and what benefits the competitor was
enjoying. We came up with the idea that we don’t have a car in high margin range and that can be
improved if we buy new equipment, which would enhance the properties of the automobile. After that I
did the cost-benefit analysis. The interviewer was giving me some data to help out at certain points. I
calculated the break-even to be 1 year.
Finally, I summarized the entire case and recommended that we should go with that equipment. It
would help us to gain market share and was not very costly. Indeed, we can get the return within a
year.
Then, he asked me why I wanted to join consulting and how was my experience with previous job.

This case was bit on quantitative side. I think I covered most of the aspects of the case. Thinking loudly
helped me to understand what exactly the interviewer expects from me.
Case 2:
Increasing revenues from food sales in a mall
Discussion:
A mall wanted to increase its revenues from food sales. We began with discussing about the mall,
different type of outlets it has and expectations of the mall owner. I started by looking at the outlets
and the percent of crowd these outlets cater to. The interviewer provided numbers to work with
regarding average prices. We looked at the opportunities with different outlets. The underlying idea
was to increase the average revenue per customer. We then went into the price mix to improve quality
and advertising.
In this case you have to consider many aspects and was a lengthy case. Given the time constraint, I
tried covering most of the sides. A detailed analysis could have been done, as there were many
questions that were incomplete till the end of the case. But the interviewer wanted to see the approach
and wasn’t concerned with the final answer.

Rahul Shrivastava
Internship Company: Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
No. of Rounds: 2
The interview tested the following skills:
1. Communication & analytical skills
2. Logical thought process
3. Basic case solving ability
Case 1
Interviewer asked me about my background and quickly jumped to a case he recently worked on. He
told me that our client has a chain of restaurants across various malls in a metro city. It is experiencing
declining revenues over the last quarter and has approached BCG to look into this.
I started analyzing the case by asking whether we are observing this trend across all the restaurants or
a specific restaurant. The interviewer told me to consider a single restaurant and analyze it. I asked a
couple of questions regarding the cuisine, store location, current business model, waiting time, etc.
After that I asked him questions regarding introduction of new dishes, cost per dish and total volume
of customer compared to the quarter before that. From this I observed that declining revenues is
mainly because of decrease in number of customers that we are serving. We are one of the most
popular restaurant in the mall, still we are observing decline in number of customers. I connected this
to the waiting time details he gave me earlier. Being a popular restaurant, the waiting time was quite
high, and a couple of new joints opened up in that particular zone of the mall. So people chose those
joints over waiting in queue for our particular restaurant, and this was the key driver for declining
revenues.
After reaching this conclusion, he gave me a couple of numbers to work on related to this particular
situation. Finally, he asked me for a couple of suggestions to increase revenue for the restaurant.
Case 2
The second round was with a principal from the Delhi office. She asked me a couple of questions
related to my resume. We had a detailed discussion on an Indian Railways optimization problem that I
worked on during my internship. The discussion was followed by a very short case in which she asked
me the revenue drivers for an automobile part manufacturer. She cross-questioned me regarding a
couple of drivers. I asked her whether she has worked on a similar case and how was her experience
with that.
Section 3: Your reflection on the cases/process

In the first case, I was able to drill down the situation pretty well, and reached the waiting time issue
quite soon. I did a couple of silly mistakes in the calculation part, but recovered well towards the end.
The interviewer was pretty impressed with the structure and framework with which I approached the
issue. The second interview was about my resume and a short case.
Couple of pointers:
· Stay confident throughout the process, even if you get stuck up at some point.
· Smile - it always helps and keeps the interviewer in a good mood
· Never hesitate to ask the interviewer to clarify something you don't fully understand
· The buddy process is very important, not just for the firm but also for you to understand about a
particular company and its work culture. Use your buddy well, and keep him impressed

A. T. Kearney
Sammyak Jain
Internship Company: A.T. Kearney
Number of rounds: 2
This was my 3rd company for the day and I entered the interview room around 10:45 AM. The initial
anxiety that was there at 8AM had already subdued and I was somehow very relaxed when I entered
ATK even after being rejected from the first two firms. Both the interviews were a mix of case
interviews and personals. First Interviewer, Principal, was poker-faced while the second interviewer,
Partner, was very friendly throughout. Both the interviews started with the discussion about what went
wrong in the previous interviews and why I didn’t prefer to come to ATK earlier. This formed the major
part of the interview where we were discussing on how I made the choices between the firms. There
were some CV based questions-related to extra-curricular and also instances of team work and
challenges. Also, questions like why Consulting and why ATK.
Round 1:
Since you are from Delhi, estimate the daily milk consumption in Delhi in litres.
Discussion:
I took a few minutes to lay out my structure. I structured the case from demand side.
My first level was where all milk is consumed: households, Food and Beverage Industry, various café’s
and canteens in offices. At this point, interviewer asked me to focus only on households.
So I started with the population of Delhi -> average household size -> number of households in India -
> income distribution in Delhi (high, mid, low), as they will vary in their consumption
The case was abruptly stopped at this point. And the interview was over.
My reflection:
The interviewer was only seeing the structure and how I was thinking. The case formed a very small
part of the interview. Most of it was a general chit-chat.
Round 2:

Our client is a chemical commodity manufacturer in India. AT Kearney is working with the client on its
expansion strategy. Before building the complete strategy, you are hired to figure if there are any
problems with the client currently.
Discussion:
Exact problem was not mentioned upfront. After gaining a general understanding about the client, I
started the discussion so as to understand the client’s performance over the last couple of years. I tried
to figure out some trends in its revenues, cost structure, market share and also the overall market size.
In the discussion it came out that the overall market share has shrunk over the last 2 years. So, I took a
couple of minutes and structured the case for declining market share.
Industry was growing but the absolute revenues of the client were almost stagnant. Since, it was a
commodity product, prices were not in the control of the client. Therefore, overall volumes were
constant. So I further broke down the problem in supply and demand side. Understood the complete
distribution channels, the various customer segments and their preferences for our product. There was
not much change in the demand side. So I moved towards supply side and figured out that the client’s
capacity was a constraint. The case ended at this point.
Reflection:
Again, the interviewer was seeing the structure and how exhaustive I was in it. He was friendly and
helpful throughout.

Harneet Singh
Internship Company: A T Kearney

No of Rounds: 3
Interview 1:
10 mins of personals followed by a guesstimate

Personals: Why consulting and points from CV
Guesstimate: Estimate the no. of milk packets sold in Delhi

The tone of the interviewer was a little stern.
Interviewer: Would you estimate the no. of milk packets sold in Delhi?
Candidate: Asked about the quantity of packets, and some other related questions about different
consumers of the milk packets
Interviewer: Asked me to take only one standard size and only one variety
Candidate: Took the population and divided it on the basis of the income groups and after several
questions could narrow it down to different customers, uses of milk packets and average per person
consumption of milk in each of these categories.
Interview 2:
10 minutes of personals and a case which took around 20 minutes
Case: Client is a chemical commodity manufacturer and has been doing well. Diagnose the business
model and suggest if the business is sustainable in the future.
Candidate: Asked about the business model, industry, customers, competition and other relevant
questions
Interviewer: Simplified the case by asking me to assume just one product produced
Candidate: Had to diagnose every aspect of the business model. Started with the revenues, and found
out that the plant was working at over-capacity. I was asked to suggest improvements in the model.
On the cost side, identified several constraints and suggested improvements for each of these
constraints.
Interviewer was very helpful and constantly gave suggestions and insights. Was happy with the
approach and the fact that I had covered almost all the points
Interview 3:
Almost entirely personals with a small guesstimate ~25-30 mins

The partner was very interested in one of the points in extra-curricular section of my CV and we
discussed the point for about 20 mins.
Guesstimate: Estimate the market for spectacles in India.

Wanted to know how I divided the population into groups according to age. Was also interested in the
division I had made for near-sighted and far-sighted users of spectacles. I also included some other
divisions and the discussion was more on how I reached the number.
The tone of the interviewer was a little strict and did not help unless I asked for it.

Tanya Khera
Internship Company: A.T Kearney
No.of Rounds: 4
Round 1:
General background and interview Info.: A mix of personals and a case question.
Case Statement and discussion:
There is a company XYZ that deals in chemical commodities. Its customers are approaching other
companies to meet their additional demand. What is the issue?
Started off by asking a few questions related to the kind of business, the type of customers and the
machinery and raw material required and got a fair idea of the business.
Me: Are the customers still buying the same volume of product or has that decreased?
Interviewer: It is the same. There has not been any increase though.
Me: Are the services being provided any different by the competitors, is there any differentiation in the
product?
Interviewer: It is a commodity. There is no difference at all.
Me: Are we facing any operational issues?
Interviewer: What do you mean? what kind of operational issue?
Me: Any labour union related issue or raw material procurement issue?
Interviewer: No. None of those. Any other operational issue you can think of?
Me: Just to summarise whatever has been discussed up till now, so basically our product and services
are the same, it is just that we are not being able to manufacture in greater volumes due to some
constraint/ restriction and hence not being able to meet the additional demand of our customers and
of new customers. Am i right?
Interviewer: Yes. Give me a reason why this could happen?
Me: Probably, we were performing to the maximum of our capacity and hence our not able to increase
production with increase in demand. We need to expand, purchase new machinery if it is a highly
mechanised production or employ more labour if it is labour intensive.
Interviewer: I think that is pretty much it. Thank you.

Reflection on the case: Case was pretty straightforward. Needed to be MECE, else the solution could
have easily been missed.
Round 2:
Your client is a cellphone network provider.Analyse the various sources of revenue and in what ways
can you increase your revenues. Also how will you approach if you want your prepaid customers to
being postpaid.
Listed down the various revenue streams of a mobile network provider: voice, data etc.
I approached the second part by identifying customers who would easily make a shift to postpaid plans
like Owners of SMEs, housewives, students. Also targeting and collaborating with organisations like
colleges, offices, and provide them CUG services.
The MNP or the mobile number portability can also be exploited by providing lucrative schemes and
attracting customers on different network to move to ours.
Reflection on the case: Case was a little subjective, there was no one right solution and hence it was
extremely important to follow a structure.
Round 3:
General background and interview Info.: Personals and a case question. I was also asked to give a
speech to the chief minister of West Bengal sharing my thoughts about the state of West bengal.
You are the CEO of ABC a multi-national company, which has recently started operations in India.
ABC deals in 3 product lines X, Y, Z. After its first year of operations the company has performed very
well in India, product X that has been doing relatively poorly in other countries but has done
tremendously well in India whereas Y, Z have not done so well.
You start to think about it and you realise there is nothing to be really happy about. Why?
Me: Could i get some information related to the margins of each product line.
Him: Yes. You are going in the right direction. X has the least margins.
Me: That answers the disappointment of the CEO. The product which has the least margins is doing
well and hence is not really something to be very happy about.
Reflection on the case: It was a 5 minute case. No detailed analysis required.
Round 4:
General background and interview Info.: Purely personals based.

Before entering this room, i was told that this was more of a formality. They had already made their
mind up.

Ayanti Ghosh
Internship Company: A.T. KEARNEY
No. of Rounds: 3
Round 1:
The case given was a logistics case. The client owns three plants in the northern, western and southern
part of the country. There are supply points of raw materials for the plant sparsed out in the regions
whereas the supply points of the finished goods were all across the country. The client takes services
from a logistics company. However, the cost involved is getting beyond budget and the client needs
help regarding that.
The interviewer wanted me to narrate the entire thought process. He didn’t give any additional
information unless a relevant question was asked. Gave mostly numerical data, but said that the
numbers should be treated in terms of volume rather than data.
I approached the case first breaking up the logistics service in two parts- inflow of raw materials to the
plants and outflow of finished goods. When dealing with inflow, I asked basic questions relating to the
supply points, their locations, inventory storage facilities, transport of raw material from supply points
to storage facility and from storage facility to plant. As one can understand the case is information
intensive, hence the interviewer did spend time answering my questions providing me good amount of
data in every answer. Following this, I identified all the cost points involved in one trip from supply
point to storage facility to the plant. The interviewer helped me into realizing other details that I
couldn't come up with. After coming up with an exhaustive list of cost points, I looked into each trying
to figure out if there could be any cost cutting methodology. I came up with two - one was cutting cost
at the supply point to collection center flow by optimizing the routes of the smaller vehicles used to
reduce the inventory storage cost and a smooth flow of materials and more effective inventory
handling. The second point that the interviewer appreciated was the suggestion to optimize route
selection from the storage points to the plant. Following this I moved on to the finished good outflow
route and my approach was on similar lines. There wasn't much scope of cost cutting there. However,
the main takeaway and solution of the case was optimizing the truck route. The logistics service was
employing two sets of truck and driver for the inflow of raw material to the plant and outflow of raw
material from the plant. This was basically involved in a forward trip and an idle backward trip for the
trucks, the back trips adding no utility but incurring cost. An alternative to this would be using the
same truck to carry raw material from say north storage facility to north plant, then dispatching
finished good to southern storage facility, then carrying raw material from storage to plant and so on.
I was also asked to come up (if possible) with another solution to which I suggested freight trains,
following which I was asked if there would be any problems with freight trains. I could come up with
one- that is movements of good from storage to boarding point and from unloading point to plant
would incur extra cost. The interviewer was very helpful, encouraging me when I was coming up with
anything useful and discouraged me to wander into useless territories. Over all, the case took nearly 30
minutes to be discussed and concluded.
(In case you are not clear on the solution, I will tell you in person)
Round 2
Personals to the details of school life, undergrad activities, strengths and perspective on things.
One guesstimate to find out the demand for bottled water in India
Interviewer was looking for the approach and wasn’t exactly looking for a number
I identified the usage points - at home, corporate, travel, eateries, and miscellaneous purchase

Following this, I was asked to ignore home and miscellaneous as they were negligible compared to the
others.
The interviewer focused on a lot of personals as well in this round.
Round 3
Personals questions followed by 2 cases.
Case 1: Had to find out the pain point for a chemical industry
I : Our client is a chemicals manufacturing firm. In an expanding market our client facing declining
market share. I want you to reckon the pain points of our client.
C : Clarified problem statement. Asked questions of the industry in general (growth trends), market
trends, product line, substitute for the firm product.
I : Provided information to all the above.
C: Broke down into revenue and cost structures. (Interviewer directed the case discussion to revenues.)
Realized revenue streams and cost streams. Broke down Revenue into relevant blocks, analyzed each
block. (Interviewer provided direction and discouraged unnecessary thought process.)
Broke down revenue into price and volume blocks, looked into pricing mechanism of the product
I : What do u think could be pricing strategies
C: Discussed pricing techniques, in this case, pricing was on the mark up of production whereas a
competitor based pricing would be more advantageous (concluded)
I : That’s our first pain point.
C: Calculated volume by computing the market share of the firm. Asked if any expansion in the
capacity (production line)
I : No. That was the second pain point.
Second case in this round was to estimate the demand for natural gas distribution in any metro city of
my choice.

Bain & Co.

Abhishek Kumar
Internship Company: Bain & Co.
No. of Rounds: 3

There were 3 case interviews and one personals round. The skills tested were - case analysis, the
approach to case solving, communication skills.

the first case statement was that our client is a major BPO firm and needs our assistance to reduce
costs and increase productivity. I was asked not to go into numbers and walk through major areas of
concern. I laid out a basic structure pointing out the various cost centres (Customer care staff,
managers, infrastructure etc.) under which the costs of the firm could be broadly segregated. Then, I
pointed out how under each of these we could modify existing processes ( such as training session, IVR
systems) or do away with them to reduce costs. We also discussed some new additions/alternatives
(location of new BPO centres, doing away with hiring mid-level managers from outside as the costs are
higher, instead promote staff and hire entry level staff, ) etc.

The key was a structured approach to the case, asking the right questions and letting the interviewer
know your thought process.
Round 2:

The case statement was - A major UK TV channel ( Music) wants to enter the Indian Market with a
POP magazine. They need assistance to understand if they should enter the market, what the current
market size is, how they should enter the market, how long it will take them to break even etc.
Estimated these numbers by making valid assumptions (do make sure that you confirm your
assumption with the interviewer) and discussed on how the firm should enter the Indian market.

It was a very number intensive case. I stayed calm and confident throughout the interview. Again
breaking the problem into smaller heads and asking the right questions helped. I made sure to
structure the case well and did not rush through when doing the math.
Round 3: personals
It started with the “Tell me about yourself question”. Then we discussed my CV for a bit, my work
experience etc. The interview ended with a rather unexpected question - "Do you take very life very

easy"? (The tone of the interviewer was a little intimidating but he smiled throughout) but I kept my
cool and answered.
Section 3: Your reflection

I think it is really important to be calm throughout communicate well and not get stressed or unsettled
by the questions. The last question was probably to throw me off guard and see how I reacted.

Akhil Manikanta

No. of Rounds: 3
Round 1:
Started with “Tell me about yourself”. 5-10 minutes discussion on personal and my work experience –
on Smart phones, CDMA etc.
Problem Statement: A European Customer in Telecom business wants to enter the Indian Market.
Should they or should they not enter? If yes then how?
Discussion:
Me: Took a minute to properly understand the statement by re iterating it and asking for their main
aim: Profitability or Mkt share or just to create awareness to expand their business in India.
Interviewer: Profitability
Me: Noted down the important factors that are to be considered like government regulations, Mkt size,
growth, competitors, targeted market share, Capital requirements, spectrum requirement etc and gave
a brief overview on how I’d like to tackle the case.
Interviewer: Looks good. We are looking to get a rough estimate on the profitability/market share 5
years down the line. Market size is great but recently, the growth was very less around 5 to 6 million
new subscribers per month currently. Proceed
Me: Market size? Do we have the exact size or do you want me to estimate it?
I: Do it
Me: Would like to segment the entire population of 1.2 billion (for simplicity asked if I could take it as 1
billion which he accepted) to 4 groups:
0 – 20, 20- 40, 40 – 60 and 60 – 80 assuming life expectancy of 80 years. 65% of the population is <
40 years of age and according distributed. Then divided 0 – 20 to two more parts 0-10 and 10-20.
Took some assumptions and gave the % of people in each group who are probably current users.
Finally came up with a number.
I: Okay what next?
Me: 5 years down the line, new customer base would be from the segment 0-20 mainly and a few from
20-40. But should also consider people from 60-80 group going away. Accordingly came up with a
number.
Interviewer: Are you sure about this?

Me: As you said earlier, currently 5 million new customer are added every month. I’d like to consider
that for next 2 years this rate would be 5 million per month then 4 million per month for the 3rd year, 3
mn per month in 4th and 2 in 5th year. On adding these, the final value is very near to what I estimated
earlier. So I think I took the assumptions rite.
I: Good next?
Me: Now consider this - if they would like to enter and start the business rite from the scratch,
1. Huge capital
2. Getting hold of spectrum is very difficult and it would take really long time as gov is involved.
3. Spectrum could be rented from existing player but not sure if this can be possible as the
counter party might or might not be ready to share the spectrum, legality also should be
considered.
4. Competition is very high and hence pricing should be given top most priority.
5. Finally, say we want to target 5% of the new customers, this number seems to be very less
considering the fact that huge investment is made ahead. SO probably they must not go ahead
I: But this is European customer and the number which you got is very high when compared to what
their customer base in their country is. Don’t you think this is attractive for them?
Me: Yes the number might be attractive but considering the huge investment, and the time it could
take for gov to roll out spectrum auction and a few other factors, I don’t think they should proceed.
I: Okay I get your point. Is there any other way?
Me: Yes. There is always an option to acquire an existing small player who has a hold of spectrum and
a little customer base. We can acquire them and see how the things go. Then when there is an option to
expand we can do that.
I: okay. Can you summarize the case?
Me: briefed the case in 3 minutes and as I wrote down all the numbers I mentioned, did not have to put
much effort in briefing it and finally said acquiring an existing player seems to be a good option.
What went well?
Numbers. The discussion went on for about 25 minutes. There was lot of calculations involved and I
wanted the case to be like that. Took my time in giving him calculations as he was stressing on that –
“So what is the final number” is what he asked many times. Also giving appropriate assumptions and
the part where I justified by re calculating new market potential and showing that these two match.
And finally I changed my answer at the end a little by considering other ways to enter which I think
helped me get through.
Round 2:
2 partners came in and asked “Tell me about yourself” and then discussion went on for a while on my
hobbies. One of the partners left and the other started the case interview

Problem Statement:
Our customer has a huge call center business. He wants to have some restructuring. Can you help him
out?
Me: reiterated. Asked for their business model:
I: 2 sources of revenue: Tele marketing and Customer query handling for large corporates. Why don’t
you start off with telling what essential divisions do they need?
Me: Listed all possible division that are commonly present in any organization.
I: Okay, let us consider that our client has 4 main teams: team that handle calls: both queries and tele
marketing, HR, Management team and services team who takes of everything else. Now say, I want to
eliminate HR team. Is there anything you can do to minimize the effect of eliminating them?
Me: Gave some simple solutions like make use of management, create online apps/portal so that
anyone can use it, Use the employees from the team handling calls on rotation basis to take care and
globed around for some time.
Interviewer: Ok anything else?
Me: Gave two or three more ways to handle (Don’t remember what I said).
I: Okay these are what I was looking for. We are done with your interview.
What went well?
Personals: A lot of discussion went on my personals and especially my hobbies. The case was very
simple and I had to give out all ways possible to handle HR activities without HR team. Got to know
later that they were really impressed with my personals 

Akhila G P

No. of Rounds: 1.5 (Technically 1 round with a case and after which I was told I will be given an
offer. The second round was 5mts long with basic personals)
Round 1
Case: Improving profits with solely focusing on reducing costs
Tone of the interviewer: Poker faced but really helpful
Personals: Just one question, “Tell me about yourself”
Interviewer: Tell me about yourself.
Candidate: Explained.
Interviewer: Gave me the case: “Our client is a BPO service provider solely focusing on financial
services like accounting to banks and the client wants to improve efficiency and increase profits”
Candidate: Asked clarifying questions about outsourcing companies that provide financial services and
general questions about the industry.
Note: Basic hygiene questions like market share, competitors, operating structure, industry and
company trends were all asked. Didn’t help me much in solving the case but still it’s better to ask the
questions to be thorough and exhaustive which was noted and appreciated in the end.
Interviewer: He wanted me to focus on the cost side and forget about revenue aspect.
Candidate: Asked the interviewer to list all the financial services the BPO provides and how much each
service contributes to the revenue. Then to cut costs, told him that we could stop providing the services
that are the lowest contributors to the profit and specialize more on our marquee or highly value
services and create a niche.
Interviewer: He appreciated the idea but wanted me to forget about broad outlines like cutting down
on services and focus on operating costs
Candidate: Identified the major operating costs to be labor and got support from the interviewer to
focus on labor. I said we could map every worker’s performance with respect to the time spent on their
work and the effectiveness and quality of the work and identify the poor performers. Further, the poor
performers can be motivated to do well with training or lay off subsequently thereby reducing costs.
Interviewer: Admitted it was a fair point but he said BPOs do not lay off workers and in fact they have a
lot of people on the bench and wanted me to focus on the bench.

Candidate: I said we could do away with the bench or reduce the number of people in the bench.
Interviewer: Not possible. As attrition rate in this sector is very high and highly competitive industry,
so we need people on the bench to take over immediately when someone quits.
Candidate: The problem could be solved by increasing the notice period before quitting like giving a
prior notice of 3 months before quitting and that’ll give a sufficient time to hire new people than
keeping people on the bench and labor is easy to get. Suggested more measures to keep a check on the
benched people, which I can’t recollect now
Interviewer: He was impressed with suggestions and asked me to focus on training costs.
Candidate: Suggested that seniors train their junior counterparts and also club training activities for
senior management and middle management. Also club training programs like joining level training
and review level training into one single training program. Do not remember other suggestions related
to training programs to reduce costs but it all flowed in this nature.
Interviewer: Asked me to summarize the case.
Candidate: Gave a crisp and precise summary that made the interviewer know that I was focused
throughout the interview and had the primary objective in mind.
Reflection:
Had to give a lot of suggestions and ideas to reduce costs. So it’s important to have an open mind and
listen carefully. Couple of ideas with respect to the bench clinched the decision in my favor. Stay
relaxed and summarize very well.
Round 2:
I was already told that I’ll get the offer and this round was a formality.
1. Why should we select you?

2. Why Bain?
Received the offer after these two questions in my second round

Ankita Lal

No. of Rounds: 4
ROUND 1:

First round was with a Partner. General discussion on " About yourself", "Why Bain", "How would
people describe you?", etc. followed by a case
Case - Guesstimate to estimate the number of lighting equipment in the world, with exact numbers.
I structured the case around developed, developing and under-developed countries. Then taking India
as a sample for developing countries, divided the nation by rural-urban split, income-wise split (for
domestic usage) and some percentage for industry usage, etc. I extended the numbers to the
underdeveloped and developed nations with some assumptions. I was stopped midway.
The case went very well and the Principal was very happy with my approach. I believe laying the
structure out beforehand helped.
ROUND 2:
The interviewer asked me about myself and directly jumped to the case.
Case: A BPO needs to reduce costs but you can't touch their operations. How would you do this?
After some discussion, we arrived at the conclusion that the reduction in cost was to be done by laying
off staff. I was asked to look into the organizational structure and find who all could be fired. I was also
asked about the processes that could be optimized to accommodate this lay-off.
I feel that I covered the breadth but could have delved deeper into each aspect. Appear confident and
back your questions and assumptions by sound logic.
ROUND 3:
Direct case with a Manager
Case: A multi-specialty hospital needs to increase profits. How should they go about it?
We had a good discussion on all aspects ranging from increasing sales to reducing costs. The answer he
was looking for was focused marketing; i.e. finding out about prospective people with diseases in
nearby areas and targeting them specifically.
While the discussion was very exhaustive, the interviewer was looking for a pointed answer.
ROUND 4:
Some questions on myself, etc. and a short case with a Partner
Case: A super-premium restaurant is looking to enter India. Should they enter?
We discussed the industry and the interviewer was looking for a quick way to size this market, without
conducting surveys etc. I suggested that we could look at a parallel luxury segment with already

existing data and he agreed. He asked me about the industry that could be similar to this. I suggested
the luxury apparel market due to similarity in consumer behavior. He was happy.
The interviewers appreciate relevant, to-the point questions. This helped me to arrive at the answer
quickly.

Achyut Bihani
Company Name: Bain & Co.

No. of rounds: 3
Round 1
Interviewer: 'Tell me something about yourself'
Candidate: While I hadn’t memorized the answer by heart, I had some points that I wanted to convey
and was able to do so successfully.
Interviewer: Client is a European Telecom company that wanted to figure out whether they should
enter the Indian market. What factors should they consider?
Candidate: Explained different factors like market size, margins, competitors, regulatory environment,
ease of setting up etc. – Basically used the guiding principles of Porters’ and some common sense to
come up with the best answer in this situation.
Interviewer: Why don’t you help them in estimating the size of the market for new mobile connections
in India?
Candidate: New mobile customers can come from people already using mobile connections who are
getting a corporate / second connection, and new users.
Interviewer: Ignore second connections of existing consumers (assume 1 connection per person and
ignore corporate connections). The current number of mobile connections in India is 800M. Average
spend is Rs. 200 per month per connection.
Candidate: Since we are assuming 1 connection per person, this means that 400 M people in India
don’t have a mobile connection. The different types of people who don't have a mobile connection:
those who are can't afford (assumed that BPL folks can't afford. even though some percentage may be
able to), those who are too old. those who are too young, and those whose family can afford but haven't
bought yet for various reasons.
Interviewer: So how many new connections per year?
Candidate: Guesstimated the number of people from each category of current non-possession who
would start to have a connection each year, making simplifying assumptions and stating them.
Interviewer: So what’s your final answer on whether they should enter or not?
Candidate: No, given that they are looking to be profitable in the short term. Also, the high degree of
competition, regulatory uncertainty (3G allocation etc) and the rock-bottom telecom prices in India
would make their business unviable in the short term.
Interviewer: Thank you, please wait for the next round of interview.

Round 2
Round 2 started off with a market entry guesstimate straightaway.
Interviewer: The client is a Fortune 500 diagnostics (medical lab tests) chain. Help them size the
Indian market.
Candidate: We can start by taking the indian population of 1.2 billion, accounting for access to
healthcare, % of people that fall sick, % of illnesses that require diagnostic tests etc, to arrive at a rupee
value for the market…
Interviewer: (Interrupting) Don’t you think that doing this by number of doctors would be a better
idea? Assume that India has 7 doctors per 1000 people and proceed with your analysis.
Candidate: We can estimate the number of tests prescribed by these doctors daily, and multiply by avg
revenue per test to get the final value…
Interviewer: Don’t you think some doctors should be excluded from this number?
Candidate: Yes, army doctors etc who don’t have a fixed practice and speciality doctors who don’t
prescribe tests will be excluded.
Interviewer: How will you arrive at number of tests per doctor?
Candidate: Well, my neighbourhood physician sits in 3 chambers in the area in two shifts, morning
and evening of 1 hour each. .. went on to estimate rupee value of diagnostic tests per year. I had to
multiply 7 numbers to get to the final answer . The interviewer helped me by simplifying some of
them
Interviewer: Does the figure look high or low to you?
Candidate: It looks high, but I have no solid information to say why exactly.
Interviewer: What’s the GDP of India? Given that the Indian pharma market is $12bn per year, does
this number look accurate?
Candidate: The GDP of India is approx. $1800 bn, and given that information, this number looks to be
on the higher side. This could be because we have assumed 100% doctor utilization as well as 100%
conversion of prescribed tests into actual tests. Many people would be careless and not get their tests
done.
Interviewer: Yes, that’s a good point. Please wait in the room, I’ll be right back.
Round 3 (lasted < 5 mins)
Interviewer: Why Bain?
Candidate: Explained my reasons for choosing to interview with Bain

Interviewer: Congratulations! You’re being made an offer!
All interviewers were really nice and made me feel completely at ease even though I was quite
nervous at the start. I got encouraging feedback after my first interview and that helped me do well
in subsequent rounds.

Karan Issar
Internship Company: Bain & Company
No. of Rounds: 2
The interview tested the following skills:
1. Communication skills
2. Logical thought process
3. Basic case solving ability
Case 1:
It was with a partner from the Mumbai office. The interview started off with a discussion on sailing
which was a point on my CV. It was followed by a discussion on the armed forces in the country as I'd
mentioned that my father is in the forces. He then suddenly asked me what would be the implications
of a reduction in global oil prices on OPEC and India. We discussed each group separately. The major
points of discussion were possible reasons for fluctuation in oil prices like US production of shale gas,
the political instabilities in the region like the Islamic State movement and possible social unrest in
OPEC nations as their economies are dependent on revenues to a major extent. For India we discussed
how this would help reduce cost of imports and oil subsidies which would improve our Balance of
Payments and Current Account Deficit. He also explained to me how it might affect interest rates. We
then suddenly switched to why I had picked Bain as my first preference, having shortlists from all the
top 4 consulting firms. I talked about how I connected most with the people at Bain during the
informal and formal sessions. I also mentioned that I was impressed at how everyone from former
interns to current partners talk about Bain with the same warmth.
Case 2:
The second round was with a principal from the Mumbai office. It started off with a 2 minute tell me
about yourself. Following that we dived into the case immediately. It was a market entry case regarding
an MNC in the FMCG space(skincare) that wanted to enter the Indian market. I asked a few
preliminary questions and drew out an initial structure. The broad categories I included were:
Customers
- market size
- growth rate
- customer segments and their respective growth rates
- needs satisfied
- price sensitivity
- preferred channels
Competitive Analysis
(i) Environment
- barriers to entry (legal, govt, tech, economies of scale, brand loyalty)
- new markets

- new products
(ii) Product (Comparison with existing players)
- Price
- Mix
- Variants/Features
- Distribution channels
- Promotion
Company
- Financing (self or debt)
- Operations (build, acquire, JV, import(this is something that I missed out before but managed to
come up with when he asked for additional ways)
- Organizational structure
The case involved him guiding me into a particular bucket and probing for rationale and ideas on each
of the aspects. A few notable points of discussion were what kind of company we might look to acquire
(market leader or high growth prospect) and when would we not mind taking the import route(if
products are premium and consumers are not very price sensitive). Finally, he asked me to do a quick
market size estimation for the skincare sectors. The filers I used were rural-urban, income levels, male-
female and age. He seemed satisfied and stepped out for a bit. A couple of minutes later both him and
my first interviewer walked in and offered me the internship.
Section 3: Your reflection on the cases/process
1. Use the interactions to both get your questions answered about the firm and see if the culture is
something you'd want to be a part of.
2. Come across as inquisitive and confident.
3. SMILE! Both in the interactions and during the interview.
4. Never hesitate to ask the interviewer to clarify something you don't fully understand.
5. Try developing a case solving style that promotes maximum engagement with the interviewer i.e. it
should become almost like a conversation or brain-storming session.
6. Use your buddies well as, in my opinion, they give you the best feedback. However, only do this after
achieving basic competence in case solving

Shreya Pokharna
No of Rounds: 3
Section 1: General Background and Info
 Case Title (one line): Estimating market size and increasing sales
 Anything peculiar about the cases? Very broad outline, could cover various dimensions
 What was the tone of the interviewer? helpful
 Focus on personals: High. Right from tell me about yourself to work experience to academics to
IIM Calcutta experience to what kind of boss would you want to what kind of boss you would
be. All the rounds focused on personals more than the case
Round 1 – Estimate the market size for an English Music magazine in India
The discussion revolved around various parameters that should be considered while drilling down to
the final numbers. The interviewer asked me to not focus on numbers but just the parameters. I started
with considering the Indian population and then went on to add other parameters like literacy, age
group, rural – urban divide, access, interest etc. The interviewer kept prompting other factors that
could also be considered. He later asked me to suggest the pricing strategy for the magazine. I spoke
about the three types of pricing strategy that could be considered and decided to go with pricing with
respect to competition.
Round 2 – How to increase sales for an FMCG in skin care products

The case discussion was very short and the interview was mainly on personals. We looked at the
current industry scenario and then the strengths and weaknesses of the company. Thereafter, I
considered the Ansoff matrix and looked at each quadrant and proposed various solutions for the
same.
Round 3 – Estimate the market size of road construction equipment industry

Here again, the interviewer asked me to not focus on numbers but just the parameters. I was required
to just give the structure. I therefore, divided this into new roads and maintenance of old roads. The
interviewer asked me to focus on new roads and take a percentage of the same for old roads. I
considered the rural – urban divide again. Suggested various factors such as location, frequency of
usage etc. After suggesting various parameters for this, we looked at the factors that would affect the
purchase decision of a road construction equipment.
Section 3: Your own reflection on the case
 What did you do really well in your case: Suggested various parameters and tried to make them
as comprehensive as possible
 What did you do wrong in your case: Focused almost completely on qualitative aspects

 What do you think was being tested in the case: Case Structure
 Any general comments you might want to add: If you are there to interview, they really want to
pick you. So even if you go wrong once, it is ok to step back and correct your mistake
 How long was the interview : Around 15-20 mins per round

Vaibhav Kalani
Internship Company: Bain and Company
No. of Rounds: 3
Round 1: Case+ Market Size Estimation
Interviewer: You are sitting in front of CEO of a Fortune 500 diagnostic firm who is mainly saturated
now in the developed markets of US and Canada. It is looking for expansion. How to go about it? Tell
the CEO.
Vaibhav: It has an option to explore developing markets such as India and South-East Asia since it is
currently located in saturated markets only.
Interviewer: Should it enter India? How?
Vaibhav: I asked regarding the Indian market and how Indian Diagnostic market is performing. Also, I
asked whether there is any special entry to barrier.
Interviewer: The market is mainly defragmented in India and our firm is a premium service provider
in Diagnostics. Is defragmented market good or bad in this case?
Vaibhav: I earlier put arguments that defragmented market is good but eventually through more
discussion and counter arguments we decided that it is bad for the firm. Then I approached that we
should first explore the opportunity in Tier 1 cities (Metro cities) mainly initially and then with time
move on to Tier 2 cities. Options are: Acquire a local firm, start from scratch, merge with a local firm
and do business.
Interviewer: How will you estimate the size of diagnostic market in India? Just explain in brief.
Vaibhav: We will do it Tier wise i.e. different assumptions for different Tier. Then, for each type of city,
how much demand each Diagnostic center cater to, on basis of population in neighborhood.
Interviewer: Final suggestion.
Vaibhav: Explore in 1 or 2 Tier 1 cities first and then wait for results (short term) and then eventually
move on for long term establishments.
Round 2: Case
Interviewer: Let’s do a quick case. There is a multi-specialty hospital which has to increase its profits.
Help the authorities in this matter.
Vaibhav: Where is it located?
Interviewer: It is located in a pretty congested area of New Delhi.
Vaibhav: Since its located in a highly congested area, demand is not an issue. There is an issue on
supply side. Also, I will analyze both revenue and cost aspect.
Interviewer: Yes. Focus on revenue side only, don’t look at cost side.
Vaibhav: What services does it provide?
Interviewer: and provides 3 types of surgeries. Focus on only 1 type of surgery (He guided me to
analyze only 1 kind). Told about how the services are performed and how operations lead to revenue.
Vaibhav: Revenue comprises of (Number of surgeries)*(Price per surgery)

Interviewer: Analyze number of surgeries part of the equation.

Vaibhav: How much time does it take to complete a surgery and how much surgeries can be done in
day?
Interviewer: Told some data about the number of surgeries.

Vaibhav: I calculated the number of operations possible in 1 day and thus calculated yearly operations.
Since, price was fixed, the only possibility is to increase number of operations. Thus, reduce time per
operation or increase the operation theatres.
Interviewer: Yes. He then explained that he had worked on this real case and started telling its stories.
Round 3: Personals and discussion on falling oil prices.
Interviewer: Tell me about yourself. Why you want to join Bain? Where do you look yourself after 5
years? And a couple of questions on similar lines.
Vaibhav: Answered those normally.
Interviewer: Do you know what’s happening with oil prices in the world and how is it affecting India?
Vaibhav: I thoroughly gave a good global view as I followed this news very closely. We discussed OPEC,
OPEC meeting in Vienna, falling in oil prices, improvement in fiscal deficit of India and lowering of
inflation in India.
Interviewer: He was very surprised about how closely I was following the news and had a global
opinion about it.

Prateek Deo
Internship Company: Bain and Company
No. of Rounds: 4
Section 1: First round was case-study round where case-solving skills were tested. Second round, I
was tested on macro-economic awareness. Third and fourth rounds were personal rounds
Section 2: The given case was to analyze the entry of a FMCG multinational client in Indian markets
by launching a skincare product.
First laid down a basic structure of how to analyze the things in terms of initial set-up cost and future
revenues and costs. To streamline the discussion, created a supply chain for FMCG and analyzed each
component of supply chain.
Was asked to list down different factors that can influence the entry decision-making process for each
process of supply chain.
Also we did a market size estimation of a premium skin-care product in India
Section 3: A good case with equal emphasis on structuring of thoughts, creative thinking and
quantitative skills

Neeraj Sharda

No. of Rounds: 3
I have 3 years of pre-MBA work experience in consulting though not many questions were based on
that. The first round of interview was a case interview, the other two largely being on personals.
Analyze opportunity for a large European telecom player’s entry in Indian market.
The discussion started with a guestimate of telecom subscribers in India and respective growth in next
10 years.
I started with rural and urban market taking some assumptions about penetration rates and son on.
Syndicated them with the interviewer. On specific number he went into the rationale and we discussed
to adjust them to reasonable levels.
Then we went on to discuss the market opportunity inn money terms. I started by segregating voice
business and VAS. We went into detail in assessing voice business.
Then I addressed the core question about India entry by comparing the column and growth numbers
with its parent market (Europe) which was high in per subscriber revenue but low in total number of
subscribers so I recommended India entry.
Then the interviewer asked to list out points which the player should consider for entry. I went on to
make a fairly exhaustive list including funding requirement to regulations and culture to conflict with
parent country.
The interview went for almost 30 minutes.
The case interview was followed by two more rounds, one with an HR person another with a partner.
They were largely focused on my previous consulting experience, my interests, long-term goal, my
opinion about work-life balance I consulting and how do I plan to sustain a long-term career with
tough deadlines and so on.
The HR person also gave a puzzle which I believe was a pass-time since I could not solve it yet got
through 
Reflecting back upon the case, I made couple of assumptions which did not sound very reasonable to hi
and interviewer asked about rationale for them. Where I di well was picking up his clues and making
reasonable corrections in those assumptions. Also I made a calculation mistake but the interviewer

was more engaged in my thought process and logic flow (but certainly you should not be doing such
silly mistakes).

Alvarez & Marsal

Amitesh Sharma
Company Name: Alvarez & Marsal

No. of rounds: 2 (I: Case based, II: Personals)
Round 1
The interview started with brief introduction about myself. Then the interviewer asked me to discuss
the case which was provided 5 min before the interview. The case was about an Oats & Muesli making
firm operating in India. The firm has been in the market for 3 years and have a market share of 10%.
Market’s growth rate is 305. There is another player which holds the majority of market share – 70%.
The bigger player generates greater profits than the firm in question. The big player used to price its
products high. There was a fragmented market in the players used to price low for their products. Also
it was mentioned in the case that the competition is increasing. The market trend was briefly described
to be shifting towards westernization.
Two questions were to be answered:-
i. Whether a private equity firm should invest in the market?

ii. Whether PE form should invest in Oats & Muesli making firm?
I took a minute and then summarized the case briefly sating facts and trends. I mentioned the things a
investor looks for before investing and that the motive is to get good returns. Then I spoke about the
robust growth of the market and favourable trend towards more demand of Oats & Muesli. Also
mentioned about increasing pace of life of people of India. Working class that comes out of MBA &
good UG colleges are earning well and have are increasing becoming health conscious. More of nuclear
families than joint families. All these point towards good return for investors. I even mentioned that
since it is early stage of the industry and competition is increasing, so , one of the reasons for the fir to
enter the market is because profits would be high at least for the initial phase of the industry so the
investor can gain in short run. I did screw up at few places and interviewer asked for explanations for
my comments but at the same time she was helpful and guided me through the interview.
For the second question, I mentioned that if the firm showed good prospects for the growth investors
will be attracted. For this the investor can check the firm’s growth plans. If the future plan of the
management is constructive enough, the investor can go for investment. I also mentioned that the firm
can exploit the gap between premium products by big player and low price products from fragmented
players by catering to a specific segment and using its R&D to make products with mediocre price and
quality.
Round 2

It was more of a general discussion about my family background, why consulting, work experience, etc.
I was asked of my qualities and qualities of a consultant. The interviewer asked me to explain how I
relate to consulting as a profession. While I was telling about myself I mentioned a lot about my work
experience and automobiles from which the interviewer got the hang of my inclination towards
operations/automobile sector. He told me about the good and bad of Operation consulting and finance
consulting. He also told about his own experience while working in a manufacturing firm and about his
decision to shift in finance consulting & the work which AnM does. He wanted me to take an informed
decision keeping in mind the long term perspective and in what type of environment I would want to
work – whether it would be interacting with manufacturing firms’ officials on assembly lines who
seldom help you with your work as a consultant or with sophisticated bankers & investors.
Key take away
 Confidence in answering is of prime importance. Even if you don’t know much about the case
or when you are answering personal question speak firmly, clearly and with confidence.
 Smile (The interviewer asked me to ease out a bit, relax when I was looking serious) He was
looking for a healthy discussion like two normal people have.
 Be firmly clear about your qualities and that required by the profession you are planning to go
into. Try to relate them. How you as a person will do good in that profession. Good thing would
be to cite examples from real life about how you handled situation(similar to those which will
be faced in profession you are aiming)
 Speak up and loud – Even if you are thinking something just keep on saying what is going in
your head – that can be the thing the interviewer is looking for or otherwise she will help you
out saving time and possible disaster of going in wrong direction.

Roland Berger
Nilabjo Ghosh
Internship Company: Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

No. of Rounds: 2
Work Experience: 3 years in Siemens as Engineering Executive
Educational Background: Electrical Engineer from Bengal Engineering And Science University,
Shibpur
Company Background:
Roland Berger is headquartered in Munich, Germany and is one of Europe’s top consulting firms. They
have started their operations in India in 2012. The domains of focus are automotive, engineering &
high technology, energy & chemicals, consumer & retail. In India, the team consists of 40 consultants
with offices in Mumbai and Delhi and Pune.
Process:
The process had 2 rounds of interviews, with the first round also as eliminative. Both the rounds of
interview was similar with both personal and case based questions, which tested my analytical thinking
and communication skills. The cases were short, and were expected to be answered within 5-10
minutes each. In addition to this, finance (mainly CFR) concepts were tested extensively in the second
round. Each round lasted 25-30 minutes.
Round 1:
Case 1:
You have been asked to come with a system to rate the restaurants of Kolkata for a
website. Decide on the parameters to be used for this purpose (I happened to mention
that I held the position of Mess Manager in college and was a foodie).
Discussion:
Initially I listed down the broad categories as food, service, price and infrastructure. In that I further
subdivided food into cuisine, quality, taste and speciality items; infrastructure into location, ambience
and physical restaurant set-up. The panel asked me to explain each of the points in detail and how to
rate a restaurant on each of them.

Reflection on the case:
I almost got all the parameters the panel was expecting and it went quite well.
Case 2:
You have to find out the valuation of a R&D company (similar to where I worked). How
would you go about it? Discuss and come up with a 30 seconds pitch for it.
Discussion:
I did not know the financial techniques of valuation. So, I came up with 2 possible ways to value the
company. One was from the current assets and liabilities of the firm; and the second was the orders
and future prospects of the firm. I explained the reason for these suggestions. However, the panel
wanted more technical solution, at which point I informed them that this topic has not been covered.
Though I did not have any idea about valuation (was not expecting in a consult interview), I still went
ahead and approached it with a framework. Later, I clarified to the panel that valuation has not been
covered as a part of our course. I believe that it impressed the panel that though I was not aware of the
topic I tried to analyse it analytically and came up with some distant solution.
Round 2:
Case 1:
The client is a manufacturer of plastic materials. They have a revenue of 200 cr. At
current rate, they are going to reach 400 cr by 2020. Come up with a plan to take this
figure to 800 crores.
Discussion:
I tried to use the 5 C model to get a better idea about the client’s business.
Me: Can you give me a better idea about the company with regards to the products it manufactures and
the markets it caters to?
Interviewer: The company is located in India and has one manufacturing centre in Delhi. It supplies
plastic components to machine manufacturers in different parts of the country.
Me: What about the present and future competition in this segment?
Interviewer: This is mostly a relationship based industry and most of the customers have long term
relationships with the client. There are some other companies, both national and international who
supply the same component to different manufacturers.

At this point, I was asked to directly come up with possible strategies to achieve the required growth. I
suggested 3 strategies:
 Open more manufacturing centres in the country to reduce the distance from customers. This
will give the client local price (due to reduced transportation costs) and lead time advantage
over its competitors.
 Use their current expertise in plastic manufacturing and diversify to other areas of plastics like
bottles, boxes and other retail products.
 Expand internationally and develop customers in other parts of the world as well. This will help
them explore new markets and increase their sales rapidly. In order to be successful in this
firstly the client needed to work on their costs, to reduce prices ( I offered to look deeper into
this, but the panel ended the case here).
This case went well. Only problem that I faced was that I was going too deep into the details, while the
panel required me too get a broad overview of the problem and provide solution. So after 5-6 minutes
of analysis, I was asked to come up with the strategies to achieve the end objective. I quickly corrected
my course of analysis and gave them with the above mentioned solutions.
Case 2:
A major airline company, Jet Airways is thinking of going into low cost airlines. Discuss
the benefits of organic growth versus acquisition (he mentioned Indigo as the target
firm) strategies.
Discussion:
In this case, I took the 2 possibilities separately and tried to come up with the benefits of each of them.
In either cases I was informed by the interviewer that the company has already arranged for financing
and that need not be considered while evaluating the options. In case of acquisition, the entire
infrastructure will be available faster, Jet could also benefit from the synergies on combining the
operations facilities of the 2 companies. Further, the brand name of Indigo and its goodwill among
customers could also give Jet a captive market. On the other hand, organic growth will enable Jet to
work on its existing capabilities and increase these to support the growth of its own low cost airlines. It
will also prevent any cannibalisation that is possible between Indigo and its own low cost airlines in
case of acquisition.
This case let was a bit difficult as the solution I provided was repeatedly being questioned by the
interviewer, and I did not seem to get the exact solution he was looking from me. This possibly could
have been a pressure tactics too, since I was not provided with a better solution at the end of the
interview.

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A collection of successful case Interview

experiences of the students of the 51/21

Prabhneet Dhamija & Arijit Kumar Gorai

Page |1 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Page |2 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

McKinsey & Co.

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2.1: Case statement & your discussion

Section 3.1: Your reflection on the case

Section 2.2: Case statement & your discussion

Section 3.2: Your reflection on the case

Page |3 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 3.3: Your reflection on the case

Page |4 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2: Case statement & your discussion (I=Interviewer, C=Candidate)

Section 3: Your reflection on the case

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2: Case statement & your discussion (I=Interviewer, C=Candidate)

I: Give the details of these approaches.

C: explained him all three.

I: ok good, price it by demand based pricing

Page |5 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

C: Came with a number. He was kind of fine with that.

Section 3: Your reflection on the case

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2: Case statement & your discussion (I=Interviewer, C=Candidate)

I: (he then presented a chart) what do you interpret from it.

I: What can we do to reduce pollution then?

Section 3: Your reflection on the case

Page |6 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Page |7 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2: Case statement & your discussion

Section 3: Your reflection on the case

Page |8 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Page |9 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Reflections from the case:

P a g e | 10 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 1: General Background and Interview info

Section 2: Case Statement & your discussion

Two quick cases

Your reflection on the case:

Guesstimate 2: Estimate the no. of marriages in India

P a g e | 11 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Completely based on personals.

P a g e | 12 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Internship Company: McKinsey

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2.1: Case statement & your discussion

Section 3.1: Your reflection on the case

Section 2.2: Case statement & your discussion

P a g e | 13 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 3.2: Your reflection on the case

All the best!

P a g e | 14 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 1: General Background and Interview Info

Section 2: Case statement & your discussion

Section 3: Your reflection on the case

Section 2: Case statement & your discussion

P a g e | 15 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club

Section 3: Your reflection on the case

P a g e | 16 IIM Calcutta Consulting Club