Unclarity on some parts

Hi there,

Thanks for your comments and feedback on my case :)

To your questions:

Part 4: 

Q: An important question on this as I think Bain brings those a lot in cases, what are the possible other tricks in such graph? and please can you tell me what is its name?

This is an indexed bar chart. They are used to see relative distribution across categories. In this case, we are placing one close to each other to compare how flavored waters and others compared in their distribution across different channels.

My advice on this type of charts would be to take into account what is the absolute amount per category. If you look at the first exhibit of the case, you can see that flavored water is only 5% of total sales. You can also use this information to weight the importance of the channel distribution strategy if you want to tailor it for flavored water.

Q: Does it mean for example; that for flavored water it is 30% for Supermarket sales while it is 60% for supermarket on other products?. Is it more of a comparison between the Flavored VS others? 
 

Take a look at the chart title. You can read it like “for flavored water 30% of consumers would buy it in supermarkets while for other products they would buy 60% of them in supermarkets. You can get insights per water category and also per channel. 

Part 5:

Q: On this part of the question, by “Would need to increase capacity.." do you mean production capacity So we reach the 420M units as planned? 
 

Exactly. You should identify a gap in the production capacity to reach the 420M bottles target and offer some alternatives on how to do so and its implications (e.g., modernize the bottling process machines with its corresponding cost, increase production time to 24 hours per day with its corresponding labor and machinery maintenance increase, consider getting production capacity from another plant with its corresponding opportunity costs on existing production, etc.)

Part 6:

Q: On the economic factors, shouldn't that be already a “default” let's say that cost structures and investments should be the same? Or maybe I ask the interviewer before hand.

I suggest you always split capex (investment) and opex (cost structures) in your frameworks and calculations. They have different impact in a P&L and in how companies usually take financial decision.

Q: Another thing on this one is that the other Economic factors; Speed of installations, adequate locations.. it seems more of a non economical factors right? as speed of installations would be more of an operational thing, and adequate locations might be within both buckets or am I wrong? 

You can safely consider these two in non-economic factors if you justify it accordingly. The reason why I put them under the economic factors is that they have a direct implication on financials (e.g., speed of installations might impact on current production and this is an opportunity cost with financial implications, adequate locations would have an impact on logistics costs for distribution.
 

Part 7: 

Q: On this one specifically, if I ever get a Next Steps questions.. shall I take the approach of diving deep onto launching projects (phases after planning)

How about if I thought about from this approach? 
1)Design

2)Prototypes/Trials

3)Approach

4)Implementation 

and I dive deep on each bucket.. However this approach would lead to me forgetting the marketing/sales aspect of things right?

You are missing more than the go-to-market part, which is key. You are also missing the company ensuring it has the economic resources to fund the initiative. You are also missing the distribution part. 

Your approach is very bottom-up and focused on the implementation project. You are missing quite important parts as ensuring the company has the financial resources to launch the project. You are also missing the marketing / go-to-market. You are missing the distribution. You can argue that some of these categories would fall into your “implementation” phase but this is too broad compared with your “prototype” phase or your “approach” phase (which sounds very theoretical to me).

Happy to tackle any other question on the case or in general in private. Just send me a message :)

Best,

Alberto

Woah, that's quite the list :)

I'll let the coach who wrote this case answer, as there's quite a lot here!

But, if you wanted some more case practice, check out the below. Make sure to click into both cases in the article and then in those cases follow the link to the live walkthrough of them!

Candidate-Led Cases: What to Expect With Example Cases

I see you already got a detailed answer that is addressing your questions.

Adding here a resource if you are casing at the moment - the most common terms that show up during interviews:

• Expert Guide: The Must-Know Consulting Terms for Interviews

Best,
Cristian