Extra reading to do before case interviews?

I believe the answers to this question will address yours:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-can-i-efficiently-learn-the-basics-about-as-many-industries-as-possible-1522

Andrea

Hi,

I strongly recommend learning more about different industries. It will help you to:

• Build better structures
• Demonstrate business judgment
• Answer the questions on creativity

Focus on the most common industries in the following priority (sorted by probability of getting a case): 1-retail and CPG; 2-airlines; 3-Telecom; 4-banking; 5-natural resources; 6-tech and work on building analytical thinking in each of these industries.

There are several sources of info to develop analytical thinking:

1) Cases - you simply solve 50-70 cases and get a broad knowledge of different industries, common pitfalls and questions. The key here - find good partners who already had case interviews with MBB companies

2) Company reports, equity reports, IB roadshow docs - usually have a good overview of company and industries. The most useful sources to understand what's going on with the companies

3) HBS cases - quite useful, but not sure if lot's of them available publically. Probably worth buying

4) Books - one good book about airlines with numbers and industry analysis can give you all needed industry knowledge

5) News, Industry blogs

For each industry, you should understand:

• Revenue streams
• Cost structure
• Margins
• Key performance indicators
• Key revenue drivers
• Industry trends

I strongly recommend practice drawing structures for each industry - profitability, value chain, etc

Also some comments about particular industries:

1) Retail - make sure you understand key retail metrics (P&L lines, same store sales, revenue per square meter and per person, etc) and how distribution works as well as its metrics (share on shelf, etc)

2) Airlines - read about profitability issues, different routing models, cost structure, industry metric s like load factor and make sure you know all possible additional revenue streams

3) Telecom - I would read industry reports and try to understanf how telecom is transforming with internet penetration and tech innovations

4) Banking - you should know the key products in corporate and retail banking and how they earn money (Interest, commision, transactional)

5) PE / M&A - go through available case examples and read about different PE strategies

Then I will switch to getting the functional knowledge and key concepts in:

• Marketing (Brand and trade marketing tools, etc)
• Supply chain (Ops metrics like cycle time and throughput time, distribution and delivery specifics, etc)
• Finance (Basic Accounting and Valuation)

Good Luck