“She is also thinking, Do I want you on my team right now? Will my life get easier if you’re on my… — Victor Cheng Interviewer Copy Share Image
“If a client asks you a question you don’t know how to answer, reply confidently that you do not have the facts… — Victor Cheng Truth Seeking Copy Share Image
“Integrating micro-recommendations into the company’s big-picture vision and providing supporting facts and analysis for those micro-recommendations allow the consultant to instill greater… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“If customers are more concentrated, then the customers can demand (and get) big price discounts. If suppliers (the client’s company and its… — Victor Cheng Customer Copy Share Image
“Competitor Behaviors Answer these questions: What strategic choices do key competitors make? Who are their customers? What products do they offer? What… — Victor Cheng Competitor Copy Share Image
“If I were to nitpick (which I’ve been known to do), I would say her last sentence should have restated the conclusion… — Victor Cheng Nitpick Copy Share Image
“JUST LIKE A scientist devises an experiment to test a working theory about a disease, you need to determine how to test… — Victor Cheng Problem solving Copy Share Image
“Using my conclusiveness test, you’d want to ask yourself, “Can I imagine any scenario where entering the iPad market would be a… — Victor Cheng Ask yourself Copy Share Image
“What does the product do? Why do people buy it? Why is it useful? Basically, I want to see how the product… — Victor Cheng Use Product Copy Share Image
“Having personally entered markets in which there supposedly was no competition, I can tell you that lack of direct competition doesn’t mean… — Victor Cheng Customer 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 Biggest Nightmare Copy Share Image
“For example, let’s say that during your analysis you discover something indicating that the client’s key issue is internal, not related to… — Victor Cheng Issue Tree Copy Share Image
“The preferred method uses the following structure: What client should do Why client should do it—Fact #1 Why client should do it—Fact… — Victor Cheng Communication Copy Share Image
“Candidate: This is a pretty broad problem, so I’d like to start with an arbitrary hypothesis. Because the client wants both sales… — Victor Cheng Three years Copy Share Image
“If your client can’t beat the competitor in its area of strength, one strategic option is to refocus your client’s business on… — Victor Cheng Business 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
“when I look back on my first two years at McKinsey, a solid 80 percent of my managers’ feedback related to communication… — Victor Cheng Communication Copy Share Image
“For example, does one customer segment care a lot about speed of delivery but another cares about order customization? Or does one… — Victor Cheng Customer Copy Share Image
“Because the profitability framework won’t give me the additional information I need about customers and competitors, I’ve officially exhausted its usefulness. My… — Victor Cheng Exhausted Usefulness Copy Share Image
“About 50 percent of the time, I don’t finish the entire business situation framework. By the time I’ve worked through part of… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“Hypothesis: Client should enter the XYZ market. Consumer demand is strong, growing, and likely to stay that way. Client has a strong,… — Victor Cheng Competitive advantage Copy Share Image
“Hypothesis: The client should enter one segment of the XYZ market. One segment of the market is growing and attractive. Client has… — Victor Cheng Competitive advantage Copy Share Image
“This entire process, convoluted as it seems, exists in large part because first-year consultants have not yet proven their ability to solve… — Victor Cheng Convoluted Copy Share Image
“Hypothesis: Introducing XYZ product makes sense. Favorable customer factors Favorable competitive environment Favorable company operations factor Favorable aspects related to the product” — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“The Business Situation Framework The business situation framework is useful for developing a conceptual and qualitative understanding of a client’s business, market,… — Victor Cheng Investing Copy Share Image
“I was able to get to this much more specific point in a minute or two just by asking some of the… — Victor Cheng Answer Copy Share Image
“Sometimes there’s more than one type of customer, so you need to identify not only the customer but also the key customer… — Victor Cheng Customer Segments Copy Share Image
“If you isolate the problem exceedingly well, usually the answer is extremely obvious, so stating your recommendation is just a formality, because… — Victor Cheng Interviewer Know Copy Share Image
“If your case or hypothesis necessitates a better qualitative understanding of your client’s company, you might use the section of the business… — Victor Cheng Business Copy Share Image
“This structure synthesizes what you know, indicates what else you need to know, and lays out your plan to address those remaining… — Victor Cheng Approach Copy Share Image
“Once you have enough insight to state a refined hypothesis, you’ll want to do one of two things: (1) Work through the… — Victor Cheng Hypothesis Copy Share Image
“Interviewers highly value candidates who can think and communicate linearly (as opposed to jumping around in a scattershot way). They like candidates… — Victor Cheng Interview Copy Share Image
“Candidate: Aha! Interesting. So industry growth is really being driven by a single segment that is offsetting flat and declining sales in… — Victor Cheng Growth Copy Share Image
“the consultant’s process was the exact process consulting firms value. It was linear, logical, and based on facts (and reasonable estimates of… — Victor Cheng Consultant Copy Share Image
“Product Analysis In the product branch of the framework, you look to understand the product at a qualitative level. I use this… — Victor Cheng Analysis 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 Consultants Contribute 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 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 Profitability 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
“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
