McKinsey & Company Summer Intern Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Case analysis:Got the working model of the firm. The bidding model. Eventually came to revelation that they are not winning bids in last 2 years Structure:
Analyzed bidding structure ( COST + MARGIN).Broke into typical cost analysis and identified different cost heads.Required to provide innovative solutions for decreasing cost.
Tips: Practice a lot of cases with diverse people to open your analytical approach.

Skills: Case Solving Ability, Case Analysis
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: First, I confirmed whether he was talking about leather cricket ball. Thereafter, I started talking about where a cricket ball will be used and who will buy a cricket ball. At each juncture, I kept on checking with Mr. Sikka so as I’m not deviating from the solution. Then I told him that I would estimate sales of cricket balls for Mumbai and then extrapolate it to the whole country.I calculated number of matches played in one day by estimating number of grounds in Mumbai (having played on most of the grounds, it was easy for me). Then I separated one day matches and 20-20 matches as one day match requires 2 balls and 20-20 requires 4 balls(As two 20-20 matches are possible on a single pitch in one day).Also, considering that each ground hosts practice session 2 times a day and this will also contribute towards the sales. Then he stopped me and said fine. He did not go into depth of the guesstimate as it could have got complicated with other parts of the country to be considered for contribution towards the sales of cricket balls.
Tips: Please practice your cases as well as guesstimates. Also, know your CV in and out. Always connect with the interviewer.

Skills: Case Analysis
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Had a 1 minute intro prepared highlighting specific aspects about myself that I wanted to bring to his notice.
I explained that I was engaged in assigning Credit Ratings to Corporates under Basel II Regulations.
Because it was Bharti Airtel I had to give an answer tailored to what the approach would be for a Telecom company would be. While answering I was conscious of 2 things –One, that I have a clear structure to my answers and Two, tried to keep it as simple and jargon free as possible.

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Preliminary questions -We all know Bharti Airtel and the services it offered quite well –So there was no need to ask preliminary questions. Also, since I wasn’t aware that I was doing a case I did not have the opportunity to ask preliminary questions.Structure: The Structure that I used was fairly simple –Increase in Revenues can in Existing markets or through expansion in new markets. I explored the existing markets first. Here increase in revenues could occur through increased market penetration, increased usage of basic services among current users or increased usage of Value added services among existing customers. He asked me a couple of questions on how these things can be done and I gave him some off the cuff answers. For the New markets, I suggested that the company could look at inorganic expansion through acquisitions or through establishment of Greenfield operations in new markets with high market potential.The entire case was more like an informal chat. There were a few follow up questions on some of the options I had generated. The case did not last very long –about 10 minutes at the max.
Tips: Know your Resume well. At no point in the interview should you ramble on. All answers must be natural (ie, must not appear rehearsed), brief, structured and to the point. Retaining composure through the interview is critical. Mistakes may happen during the interview,but it is important to pick youup and keep at it. People rarely have perfect interviews where everything has gone right and interviewers don’t expect it either.

Round: Problem Statement
Experience: Preliminaryquestions –
Since it was Tata Nano, lot of the background questions were not required. I clarified whether the problem was a lack of bookings that they received. He agreed.
Structure:
The Structure that I used was not the best but it did get me to the problem. I started off by saying the lack of bookings could be on account of 3 reasons –One, a lack ofawareness of the product among the target customers (Marketing problem), Two, Being aware of the product but not being able to place a booking (Distribution problem) or a Three, being aware of the product yet not interested in the product (I called this the product problem). He asked me to ignore the first 2 (he did not seem highly impressed) and explore the 3rdthe product problem.Here I again broke it upin to 2 further branches –Problems that the Car has by itself (Internal factors) and problems in the external environment mainly competition, etc. I deep delved in to the Internal factors. Of the internal problems I mentioned, he agreed that the negative publicity from the steering wheel catching fire was an issue and comfort factor was another issue. As and when he acknowledged a problem, I made a separate note of it. Eventually when he asked me to explore the external factors, I used these points to do a quick summary of the key takeaways up to that point In the external problem, I divided it into competition from other cars and two wheelers. I asked a few questions here trying to pick up a clue or 2 of how to proceed from there but he just refused to shell out any information. At this point he also took out his Blackberry and acted uncooperative. I went on to analyse for myself that given that the price of the next cheapest car was over a lakh higher than this car the issue lay more with the 2 wheelers. I went on to list factors why people would prefer 2 wheelers to a Tata Nano. Of the factors I listed, he acknowledged that the high running costs and availability of easy financing options seemed like the distinguishing factors. He said I seemed to havearrived at the problem,He now asked me to tell me how he could provide financing options for the Nano. This I felt was like a guess estimate problem. I said I would work backward to solve the problem. This is how I solved it –I said the average Nano target customer would earn Rs 10000 per month (he had given me that number in an earlier discussion, he liked the fact that I had noted it down and was using it again) I said, given the average savings rate of the country is at 35%-40% (this is from the RBI website I think). That meant a saving of about Rs 4,000 per month. No one would be comfortable giving up their entire saving, so if we considered 50% of this, the customer will be willing to pay an EMI of 2000 per month. The company would want to complete the financing within a period of 4 years cause after that the car may be worthless in case of repossession. So this meant roughly a down payment of 20,000 followed by 4 years of EMI of 2000 pm approximately (I took his approval on all of the numbers I used, so he was comfortable with this number). Summary: I began to summarize all my recommendations to that point but he stopped me saying that I didn't have to absolutely nail the case.
Tips: The most important thing to nail a consult interview is composure and confidence. With this in place, half the job is done. In all HR answers it is important to show genuineness. No answer must come across as fabricated.

Skills: Problem Solving Abilties, Case Analysis
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case: Estimate the demand for treadmills in India. You can assume that there is only one variety of treadmill costing 20k.
Tips: guestimates have some standard ways to proceed and are easily crackable.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: -A PE firm wants to evaluate an opportunity for online DVD rental market in India. Advise them. I looked at all possible dimensions, took care of issues like privacy, demand drivers, possible business model, segmented the customers, estimated annual sales and costs. Told that returns would be much lesser than what a PE firm demands on an investment.

- The sales cost/ acquisition of a certain credit card sales company has suddenly increased. The number of conversations per employee though remains the same. What can be the possible reasons. Gave a broad set of possibilities like inflation, market saturation, new product arrival, competition etc. Divided into fixed and variable costs and indicated that employee cost would have increased in variable cost.
Tips: Be confident, take your time and try to gauge the problem correctly before giving answers.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: SBI has 150 branches and ICICI has 50 in Mumbai. The home loan sales for the two are though 50 cr and 150 cr respectively. What are the possible reasons.
Initially checked whether there was a real problem for SBI by identifying no. of employees in the home loan department for both, company focus and years since in the market.
Identified the following reasons:
1. Marketing effort by ICICI
2. Word of mouth approach to home loans
3. Tie ups with Real estate guys
4. Lower home loan rates; less diligence
5. Customer friendly staff; Possible use of technology
6. Consumer profile incline towards private banking
7. Other VAS provided by ICICI.

Skills:
Duration: 3 months
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Sabre has to invest in a logistics company in India. Tell the approach which it would take before making the decision whether to invest in it or not, from a PE perspective.
Tips: Change your perspective according to the purpose for which the analysis is to be carried out. For example: PE firm looks at growth potential with long term perspective. Communicate to them that you have understood this, and then proceed further.

Skills:
Duration: 3
College Name: IIM Lucknow

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: The case was about declining profitability of an Italian restaurant in New Delhi. Looked like a plain vanilla profitability case to me. I did the clarification part and gave him the standard cost vs revenue profit model as my structure. He said the structure was ok and asked me to continue, I launched into the analysis only to be stumped just 2 minutes later.
The restaurant was not losing revenue and costs were the same. I asked him three times to confirm this. I took time out and decided this structure would get me nowhere. Flipped a page and started on 4Ps ... Product being first. Asked him about the items sold and then the price of these items. He went one step ahead and gave me profitability figures. Apparently alcohol had more profitability than pasta and meats.
I asked if the product mix had changed over the last 2 years when profits had declined. The look on his face told me the case was over. However, he followed it up with an interesting question about why this may have happened/ I gave him two good reasons that were to do with outside environment, regulation of alcohol and some such thing.
He asked me to take some time to think that the owner of the restaurant may have done which made this happen. I took the customary one-minute and came up with the idea that probably the owner had tried to increase turnover, By improving service time and that the consumers all consumed alcohol while they waited for the main course.
Tips: practise hard. Also make sure you are thinking about the case in the interview and are not thinking about how the interview is proceeding.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Investment decision with limited budget about the creche business in chennai. Guesstimate about numbers of creches that can be opened in Chennai.
Tips: When faced with friendly interviewer you can afford to relax a bit but do not let your guard down quickly.

Round: Case Study Interview
Experience: Case was about a bank.. big bank in India. Wanted to tap rural market. After initial clarification and structure building I identified correctly the areas where the bankk had to apply effort to gain market share. Was stopped before getting in depth.

General Tips: Structure your cases properly.
Skills:
Duration: 3
College Name: IIM Lucknow