1、案例面世真题 1:HELP! OUR PROFIT MARGINS ARE SHRINKING! You are the consultant to a company that produces large household appliances. Over the past three years, profit margins have fallen 20 percent and market share has tumbled to 15 percent of the market from 25 percent. What is the source of the companys
2、 problems? This is an example of the type of question an undergraduate student (or an MBA student in an early interview round) might receive. The interviewer has done you the favor of defining the problem - your client is in something of a slump! This dialogue illustrates how you, the perspicacious
3、candidate, might drill down into the core of the woes besetting the firm. You: How would you characterize the current marketplace for these products? Emerging? Mature? Interviewer: The product line is considered mature. You: How would you characterize your manufacturing process relative to your comp
4、etition? (Youre looking to see if the company has a strategic advantage.) Interviewer: Can you be more specific? You: Do you benefit from an advantage in technology, economies of scale, exchange rates, or other manufacturing element over your competition? Interviewer: We have not updated our manufac
5、turing process since 1988. We manufacture our products exclusively in the United States. As one of the oldest manufacturers of these products, we have a reliable customer base and a good reputation. As for price, we are one of the lower-priced in the market, though not the lowest. You: Do any of you
6、r competitors manufacture overseas? Interviewer: Our number one competitor produces all of its appliances in Indonesia. (Heres your clue - manufacturing outside the country significantly lowers costs.) You: It probably suffices to say that some of your decline in profit can be attributed to the incr
7、eased costs you are facing relative to older manufacturing techniques and higher costs associated with manufacturing domestically. This is especially toxic in a mature market where consumers are mostly aware of the product category and the product may be considered a commodity. (A commodity marketpl
8、ace is one in which customers make their purchasing decisions largely on price. For example, toilet paper is largely a commodity market, where consumers buy whatevers on sale.) Lets talk about market share now. Can you tell me about any recent market research you have regarding the strength of your
9、brand, price, your products position, and any promotional activity you have had? Interviewer: Our market research department has told us that consumers are confused about the product category, that they do not understand the differences between our brand and our competitors brands. We sell to all ma
10、jor appliance retailers in the U.S. We promote aggressively twice a year, and have smaller promotions once a quarter. (This is consistent with the description of a commodity product. The ways of breaking out of commodity markets include promotions and making value-added differences in the brand - li
11、ke, in the case of toilet paper, introducing new designer colors and specially quilted cotton-blend paper.) You: What form does your promotional activity take? Interviewer: We offer a price discount to consumers twice a year. We regularly advertise in major magazines targeted to our consumer, and we
12、 have an active outdoor campaign underway. You: It would appear you are competing in an undifferentiated marketplace and there may be an opportunity to capture additional share through an aggressive brand differentiation effort. I believe it would also be worth investigating the efficacy of your cur
13、rent promotional programs, relative to your competition. The consumer may be responsive to other types of promotions that havent been utilized by the company as of yet. 案例面世真题 2:COST-SAVINGS ANALYSIS FOR FOOD SERVICES COMPANY Cost-savings analysis for food services company In this case, we will prov
14、ide you with information regarding a client situation and ask you questions regarding the case issues. After you submit your answer, well provide a detailed Bain answer that you can compare with your ideas. Remember, in case interviews there is no “right answer“: interviewers look for problem-solvin
15、g skills, creativity and common sense. You will not be able to skip questions in this online case, so take your time and have fun! Question 1 The client situation: A large fast food chain has hired Bain to improve the companys profitability. Youre about to have an initial brainstorming session with
16、your team around your clients options, and you want to collect your thoughts first. How would you begin to tackle your clients profitability problem? Your answer: Bain recommended answer: Your interviewer wants to know that you have a structure in mind. An appropriate structure for this case would b
17、e the profit equation. Be sure to state that to your interviewer. For example: “Profit is: total revenue total cost. Where Revenue = Price * Quantity and Costs = Fixed Costs + Quantity * (Variable Costs). In order for the company to improve its profitability, management needs to increase revenues an
18、d/or decrease costs. So to begin tackling my clients profit problem I am going to look at these two sides of the equation: Could the client increase prices? How would customers react? Could the client sell more meals, either at existing branches or through opening new ones? Are there other creative
19、ways to grow revenue (enter into large-scale catering contracts, for example)? Could the client decrease our fixed costs by selling some of our branches or real estate? Could the client reduce the quantity of products they buy, such as ingredients for their meals? How else could they reduce their co
20、sts?“ Question 2 At your case team meeting, your manager informs the team the customer is price sensitive, the market is fairly saturated, and that the fixed costs are pretty stable. Thus Bain and the client agree that the team should focus on lowering variable costs. Specifically the client wants t
21、o reduce their spending on purchased items (items the client buys from others and then uses or offers to their customers, like the meat in the hamburgers or the ketchup packets). Without knowing much more about the situation, what would you suggest are some ways to do so? Which ideas seem the most a
22、ttractive and why? Your answer: analyse the supplier of purchased items to see if there exist the space to reduce the purchaseing cost. Then contacting several similar suppliers, and get the reasonable price of raw materials Bain recommended answer: Purchased goods in this business fall primarily in
23、to 2 categories: food and packaging. Variable costs are a function of: price and volume. Therefore, the client needs to reduce volumes purchased or negotiate lower prices. Food: We could negotiate lower food prices with our suppliers (consolidate our purchasing, etc.). We could look for cheaper ingr
24、edients. This sounds risky because it could lower the quality of the food that we sell. We could reduce the volume used. For the same reason, this sounds risky because it would change our recipes, one of our competitive advantages in producing winning recipes. Packaging: We could negotiate lower pri
25、ces with our suppliers or look for cheaper alternatives. We could reduce the volume used. Recommendation: Most attractive ideas are: negotiating lower food prices or packaging prices, looking for cheaper packaging materials, or reducing the volume used. Question 3 At this point in the brainstorming
26、session, the VP adds that two years ago, the company launched a program to centralize purchasing and successfully negotiated much lower prices. Therefore, it is critical to determine if you could reduce the volume of goods that the client purchases. How could you reduce the volume of purchased goods
27、? Your answer: 11 Bain recommended answer: Some good creative answers here include (but are in no way limited to): Can the client change the shape or size of food containers? Can the client packaging for families be consolidated? Can the client reduce the weight of the packaging while still protecti
28、ng the food? Can the client reduce other qualities of the packaging including degree of color or logo prevalence without sacrificing their brand? Can the client lock bathrooms so that non-customers do not waste toilet paper and towels? Can the client charge for extra condiments? Can the client reduc
29、e the size or number of napkins they purchase? Question 4 Bain focuses on components that make up large portions of a companys costs: reductions in these areas will have the largest impact on a clients overall costs. Bains philosophy is to always focus on where the value is. At first glance, napkins
30、 would not appear to fall within this category because they are so low cost. But there is a new napkin dispensing technology on the market that you have heard about and think could save the client some money. You decide to investigate. One way to reduce volume is to reduce how many napkins a custome
31、r takes. Customers in fast food chains often take many more napkins than are needed for the meal, or actively hoard them to take home. One action some chains have taken to combat this is to switch their napkin dispensers from small metal dispensers (from which you pull napkins out in bunches) to lar
32、ger plastic dispensers (from which you pull napkins one at a time, like a reverse Kleenex box). These dispensers are produced by major paper manufacturers. Lets assume your chain came to you with the following question: How much money could we save per year in the US from using the new type of napki
33、n dispenser in all restaurants? What information would you like to know from the company? (Do not take into account the cost of the dispensers for now.) Your answer: number of customers per day, the average paper usage per meal Bain recommended answer: Key information that would be necessary include
34、s: Number of restaurants Number of customer visits per store per year Number of napkins used per customer now Number of napkins used per customer after the switch Price per napkin Question 5 As you talk through the data points that you would need to gather with your colleagues, you learn from a fell
35、ow AC who worked for a local restaurant that a case of 6000 napkins cost his client $28. Thus, a reasonable price per napkin is about $0.005. Conduct your estimates as if your client is similar to McDonalds in terms of the number of outlets. Your manager calls you for a quick estimation of the marke
36、t size before getting the actual data from your client. Use creative approaches to hypothesize values for each of the above pieces of information and then calculate the estimated savings. Your answer: 10000*365*100*(3-1)*0.005=3650000 Bain recommended answer: The interviewer is not looking for you t
37、o know the values of each of these buckets, however it is important for you to make reasonable estimates and be able to defend your answer. Were your estimates near these, or did you at least take similar approaches? Number of restaurants Actual answer: 12,000 McDonalds in the US. One estimation app
38、roach: Think of your hometown: How many McDonalds are there for the number of people? Assume there is a McDonalds for every 20-25,000 Americans, with a population of 275 million people in the US, that would be 11-13,750 McDonalds. Other approaches: Estimate the entire fast food market and then estim
39、ate McDonalds share Estimate the area covered per McDonalds across the United States. Note: With this approach, be careful to account for population differences between 10 square miles of NYC and 10 square miles of Utah. Number of customers per restaurant per day Actual answer: Fast food restaurants
40、 expect around 1,500 customers a day. One estimation approach: Assume the 20,000 people per McDonalds visit an average of twice a month, thats 24 times a year per customer or 480,000 visits / 365 days = 1,315 customers per day. Other approaches: One might take this a step further during a case inter
41、view and attempt to segment these customers. For example, one might assume 50% of the restaurants customers are drive-through and 25% of the remaining take their food “to go.“ Drive-through customers do not take, but are given napkins. “To go“ customers may be more likely to “hoard napkins“ as they
42、can not go back to the counter for more. Note: This would influence potential answers to the next question - but for now, assume you did not take this step and all customers are the same. Number of napkins used per customer per visit Actual answer: Five napkins with old dispensers and two napkins wi
43、th prohibitive dispensers for a savings of three napkins per customer. One estimation approach: During a case interview you would most likely just use personal experience here - how many napkins do you take or see others take when youre at a fast food restaurant? Other approaches: Bain would send pe
44、ople to the chain to watch napkin taking behavior or call fast food restaurants with both kinds of dispensers to find out how many napkins they go through a day. Calculations $0.005 per napkin * 3 napkins * 1500 customers * 365 days per year * 12,000 restaurants = $98.6M dollars saved in napkin purc
45、hases. Question 6 Does this estimate sound reasonable? How would you go about feeling comfortable with this figure and pressure checking your assumptions? What would you want to flag for your manager as factors that might significantly alter the answer? Your answer: 11 Bain recommended answer: To ch
46、eck the magnitude of the overall number some options include: Looking at a comparable companys operating income to see what percentage of the expense napkins account for. Find out what your client currently spends per restaurant per year on napkins. Keep in mind that with a company of this size any
47、small changes in assumptions will significantly alter your answer. Some things to flag for your manager: The chain you work for probably gets a significantly better deal on napkin pricing due to the magnitude of their orders (in contrast to the single-location restaurant napkin price estimate you re
48、ceived) Up to 50% of customers are drive-through and their napkin behavior should not change. This would reduce the savings by up to 50% The three napkin reduction estimate needs refining. Perhaps a pilot program would need to be done to see if the dispensers really have the desired effect Question
49、7 Assume you would need 10 dispensers per store for a total of 120,000 dispensers. Also note that napkins in these dispensers cost more at a price of $.01 per napkin (remember it is the paper companies that make the new dispensers). At what price per dispenser would the investment not be worth doing? Your answer: 11 Bain recommended answer: 120,000 * cost of dispenser + 2 napkins * .$01 per napkin * 1,500 customers * 365 days * 12,000 stores = 5 napkins * .005 per napkin * 1,500 customers *
