“Candidate: OK, things have remained flat during this time. I wonder if this is an industry-wide problem or a company-specific problem. Is… — Victor Cheng Candidate Copy Share Image
“You want to run this conclusiveness test on each branch of your issue tree (to see if perhaps that branch should be… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“Below are some of these initial questions: Who is the customer? What are the customer’s segment needs? What is each segment’s price… — Victor Cheng Customer Copy Share Image
“even suggest that candidates audio-record themselves communicating their synthesis, play it back, and analyze it. If even one word is off, rerecord… — Victor Cheng Communication Copy Share Image
“If there isn’t any obvious segmentation pattern, avoid stating the segmentation pattern you want to see. Instead, phrase your question such that… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“Partners sell “phase 2” of an engagement by indicating what additional certainty the consulting team could’ve discovered if it’d had more time.… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“Synthesis involves stating your conclusion in a way that Tells the client what to do Tells the client what you discovered and… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“quantitative analysis is often not useful in determining why a certain decision in a client organization was made and how certain processes… — Victor Cheng Analysis Copy Share Image
“The single biggest nightmare of partners at the top firms is some first-year consultant shooting off his or her mouth, saying something… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“I’d like to know the components of revenue. For example, do we know if there’s a change in revenue per account or… — Victor Cheng Change Copy Share Image
“The preliminary conclusion here is that the profitability problem the client faces is a company-specific problem, not an industry-wide problem. Determining the… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“If you were to determine in this branch of the analysis that the client had only a modest and temporary competitive advantage… — Victor Cheng Competitive advantage Copy Share Image
“The companies that win in commodity markets tend to be large and have incredible operational efficiencies or some type of cost advantage.… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“develop strategies for bundling products or partnering with companies in other industries. For example, when I was a child, my mom gave… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“How Is It Packaged? Packaging refers to what products and services are sold together. For example, years ago McDonald’s noticed that many… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“If you start a case with absolutely no background information, this framework is used initially as an information-gathering tool. The questions in… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“You should synthesize the case not only at the end of the interview but also throughout the case. Most candidates don’t use… — Victor Cheng Interview Copy Share Image
“In my experience, the two most useful comparisons to make are the following: Compare a metric to itself in a previous time… — Victor Cheng Comparisons Copy Share Image
“Clients probably have a lot of intuitive problem solvers on staff already, and each employee has his or her own opinion. But… — Victor Cheng Problem solving Copy Share Image
“In the U.S. criminal justice system, someone accused of a crime cannot be convicted unless evidence demonstrates that person’s guilt “beyond a… — Victor Cheng Criminal justice Copy Share Image
“Nothing you said in your synthesis supported your point on unwinding Program B. You need to say, “After the short-term crisis has… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“The balanced candidate would instead numerically measure what percentage of the total decline in profits is attributable to the decline in sales… — Victor Cheng Customer Copy Share Image
“When analyzing costs, it’s often useful to segment them into fixed versus variable costs. You can do this in two ways. One… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“To test the sub-hypothesis “Client has a strong, sustainable competitive advantage in the market,” you need to understand the differences between the… — Victor Cheng Competitive advantage Copy Share Image
“If I do any company analysis at all, I almost always ask two specific questions related to this topic: What does this… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“If analysis of a branch disproves the hypothesis, you should revise your hypothesis, reconsider what framework or issue tree is needed to… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“As you “drill down,” you ignore the parts of the business where the problem does not exist to focus on the areas… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“Once this happens, no matter where I am in the framework, I immediately synthesize, revise my hypothesis, and determine what is the… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“Because we spent so much time on it, I thought it deserved a mention in the synthesis. Obviously I was wrong; the… — Victor Cheng Big picture Copy Share Image
“Consultants use four tools to solve clients’ biggest problems. You can use the exact same tools to tackle any type of case… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“In consulting, you always pick and choose your words carefully, because you need to be able to back up anything you say.… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“In this last example, it would’ve been much better to say, “Under most circumstances, the client should do X.” It’s much easier… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“This process-of-elimination approach ends once you’ve proven every branch of your issue tree (which may have been revised several times) and can… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“If these three supporting statements are true, they provide reasonable support that the hypothesis is correct and thus should be considered a… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“It may be tempting to work through the framework diagram mentally and ask all the questions it lists. But by now, you… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“consider whether intangible assets such as brand names, reputation, and culture are relevant in testing the hypothesis. For example, if a no-name… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“An interesting problem arises with brand-new first-year consultants, who often contribute negative value to an engagement team. More-experienced consultants must double-check at… — Victor Cheng Copy Share Image
“After you analyze each company independently, you’ll run a third analysis of the two companies combined, which will provide you with qualitative… — Victor Cheng Analysis Copy Share Image
“The Mergers and Acquisitions Framework You might use the mergers and acquisitions framework to address cases in which one company wants to… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“The more concentrated the competition, the more you have to worry about it. If you don’t realize when a case involves high… — Victor Cheng Customer Copy Share Image
