Advice / Guidance needed pleas. Am I thinking wrong?

Happy to answer this as I'm the author of the case.

1- It says difficult, but the maths seems extremely easy. Would this be really considered difficult? Or should I be preparing for more challenging maths in real life cases? 

This is considered difficult not because of the maths, but because the prompt / client request is vague. To effectively navigate the case, the candidate needs to be really strong on the structuring component. 

With interviews these days, maths is rarely difficult. They are starting to care about it less and less, and instead put more emphasis on the candidate's independent, creative and structured thinking. 

Re maths, you might find this guide useful because it contains all the most common formulas you need:

Cheatsheet: The Must-Know Consulting Terms for Interviews

2. Could you argue for pursuing soy milk?  Whilst it is perishable, this can be easily mitigated, and given the frequency of purchase, this is probably is not a major issue as inventory will turn over quicker. The market size is also the biggest and Soy Milk only requires 45% of protein, and I would assume lower extraction % require less processing (and subsequent lower costs).  Surely we would ned to know the market growth of these products to be able to give any firm answer. 

Yes, you can. 

You'll notice that with many cases, especially when it comes down to interpreting data, there is no right and wrong answer.

There are perspectives.

What you as the candidate are expected to do is argue for that perspective in a clear manner and then lay out the next steps that would be necessary in order to validate your hypothesis. 

3. Nonetheless, the answer / decision not to pursue the protein bar venture seems a bit odd, given we do not have any information on the the companies existing products sales and costs from existing operations (profitability). They are looking for more profitable alternative, but given the data we do not know this. 

Absolutely. As mentioned in point 2 above, it's a different hypothesis that is proposed, but it's still a high-level one considering the lack of data at this point. 

Btw, lack of data will always be a challenge, in case practice as in the job itself. The idea is to gradually increase the level of confidence in a hypothesis and have clarity as to how to do that.

4. Final recommendations…. A 6 year ROI might seem high, but we would need to know the company cost of capital or opportunity costs to be able to make any such claim.  The answer states a 12-18 month ROI is industry standard but this is not mentioned in the data. For next steps they suggest looking at other products, if they can lower the production costs. Surely if we can lower production costs, the protein bar would also make sense?  There are a lot of unsupported assumptions here. 

Super. I totally agree with you. This is exactly the sort of thinking you need to bring in the interview. 

With interpreting the end result / or with the recommendation, also don't feel the need to provide a subjective interpretation (e.g., it's doable). Instead, lay out what you would need to know / believe in order for that to be doable. 

Best of luck with your prep! I hope I answered your questions but do let me know if something is still fuzzy.

Best,
Cristian

Hi there,

I would be happy to share my thoughts on some of your questions:

• First of all, you are right that the quantitative part can be considered rather easy. However, “difficult” relates to the case study as a whole. Did you consider it to be difficult or still easy?
• Moreover, you are right that the case study lacks clarity regarding the ROI. Also, an ROI cannot technically be stated as a time period.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Math definitely not difficult in this case.