F
Name Chithra Unnikrishnan
Interviewing with
(consulting firm) Deloitte Name of the interviewer -
Round and Interview Number
(first/second/third)
Round 1, Interview 1 AND 2 (Interview 1 was PI and interview 2 was a case)
Personal Interview Questions
1. How has interviews been going so far?
I had only Deloitte interview scheduled for Day 1 but I gave a general answer that they have been going well. I really didn’t expect this question and don’t know the right answer. Thankfully he didn’t follow up with which other interviews did you attend etc.
2. Why Deloitte? I gave 3 points:
! Work culture. Very approachable and down to earth and I had personally experienced this during the dinner. (Deloitte had organized a dinner for all short listed applicants 2 days before the interview. I had met and chatted with most of their team, which helped as they recognized me during the interview.)
! TMT (technology, media & telecommunication) division of Deloitte is where I want to work as it ties in with my previous telecom experience at Nokia. Logical career progression. ! Deloitte does a lot of implementation along with strategy
consulting which I would enjoy as I am an engineer and have enjoyed product design experience.
3. So you are from RVCE, Bangalore? Didn’t Kumble or Dravid study in your college?
I said yes Kumble did study in my college. Though Rahul Dravid didn’t, however his brother Vijay Dravid studied in my college and he was in the same class as my elder sister. We than casually chatted about how I have gone to watch a cricket match with Vijay Dravid and my sister’s gang at Chinnaswamy stadium and the interviewer mentioned his experience in IIM when Dravid had come to their campus. My PI interview ended on a very casual note and I felt the interviewer was pleased with the conversation. He then wished me best of luck.
Case question
Case Type Market Entry Decision
Narration of the case, as descriptively as possible
I was through for the second round. The ratio that cleared the first round was 2:5 (~40 out of ~100). The 2nd round was a case interview with 2 partners of Deloitte. The interview was in a small room with a small table and 3 chairs. Both the partners were sitting right in front of me. After brief introductions they jumped right to the case.
They first mentioned it as a heavy case and that they would first give a 1 part of the data after which I have to make some analysis and then based on what information I ask for they will give out the rest of the data. The case was Market Entry strategy for a European Pharma company which until now was into skin and hair products which was sold to hospitals. The market was highly fragmented and the firm had 10% market share. The company had strong relationships with doctors. It had a distribution channel which consisted of direct sales and wholesalers. The revenue was stable at ________. (some number in billions.. don’t remember exactly. Lot of facts was thrown at me and I was jotting down everything. One of the partners was keenly looking at my sheet so I tried to be as organized as I could.)
The firm wanted to expand into consumer market and had to decide between some options to achieve an increase in revenue by 20% in 5 years. A Sheet with a 2 by 2 matrix and a table was shown to me which had growth rates and size of OTC vs Prescription and Generic vs Branded markets. Then another graph and a table which had information of 4 geographies (Europe, India, US, Japan): market size and characteristics of customers in each geography was given.
They first asked what factors I will consider for my evaluation. I gave the market entry framework tailored to the scenario presented. They were fine with this and a partner said “Good I covered all points including company alignment which is critical”. By looking at the 4 tables/graphs I had to tell them which business to enter and which Geography to target for this?
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a presence and distribution system and relationships with doctors which it can leverage. US because the market was attractive and though there was huge competition the company can enter US by merging/acquiring a big player if it has the money to do so. I felt one partner liked the rationale for US as he nodded vigorously. Then came the number crunching where I was asked to calculate in 5 years how much revenue I will make by following the strategy I had mentioned previously. I asked for the required data to do so and started calculating. It was quite unnerving as both of them were staring at my sheet and I got the feeling that they wanted me to be fast (may be because they need to conduct so many interviews). However I gave them the numbers they asked for and one of the numbers was wrong. The partner went over the calculation with me and pointed out where I went wrong. Basically I had taken 15% growth rate instead of 8% for US.
The result was that the revenue was not much and did not reach the target Return the CEO was looking for. They then asked strategic questions on what the firm do should. I said since in their current business they have only 10% market share they should attempt to capture a larger portion as their existing business was giving them high margins. They asked what specifically the firm should do to increase revenues. I was a bit stuck and thought for a while; I said they can increase their product offerings to target more segments. Also they can increase the quantity of purchase from the current customer base. With this the interview ended and I was through for the 3rd round which was a HR round and I knew I was in! The HR interview was mainly about my family and whether Hyderabad base is good for me etc.
What do you think went right for you in the interview?
What do you think went wrong in this interview Any tips for the future batch based in this interview