What would be the ideal approach and structure for the interviewee?

Question

Hello,

When defining the approach to the interviewer in the beginning, should it be "Background to understand failure to launch, branch this into Market (growth, competitiors, barriers to entry, etc), Product (price, differentiation, etc.), Customers (segments) " followed by "Recommendations"?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Hi there,

Please never have a bucket that is "Understanding the problem"...this is implied i.e. the entire point of a framework!

Please also don't have a "Recommendations" bucket. Exact same reason...it's implied that we'll have recommendations.

A framework is, fundamentally, how do I plan to figure out this problem and determine solutions in structured way. Therefore, you can't have buckets around root cause analysis, problem identification, reocmmendation, risks, next steps, etc. etc.

Furthermore, it seems you've just listed a few things that "sound good" such as growth,barriers to entry, etc. without much substance/direction.

Rather, the framework should be specifically about figuring out why sales are not what we expect. As such, I would break this down as:

Market (but not the same as what you had) - question here: Is the Austrian EV market just not what we thought it was? I.e. it total demand not good...no one is winning here
License to Operate/USP - the question here is: Is something about our product just not cutting it? I.e. is our product better than the competitions' product in the areas our customers care about?
Execution - Have we not executed as planned? Have competitiors blocked our moves? Are barriers to entry harder to overcome than originally planned? Is our pricing/distribution/production not right?

Do you see the difference here? You can't just list words and expect to solve the case. Structure it in a logical way!

Answer 2

Hello!

Key thing to this question is the fact that there is not one true answer and one unique approach to cases.

Indeed, and for the fact that interviewers repeat the same case again and again, originality in answer is precisely a good point -as far, of course, as the main poins are covered-.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Answer 3

Hi there,

I think Ian gave you the most detailed answer to this question. I just would like to add that with time and a lot of practice the logical structure comes easier and easier.

A nice structure is what helps you stay structured!

Cheers,

GB