If it's a numerical problem you need to find the numerical root cause first.

@@CraftingCases How would you determine if its a numerical problem vs qualitiative? Thanks!

@@FM-dm8xj well, in this case profits dropped so they need to fix that specific number. The number is composed by many other numbers (the profit tree) so it helps to know which one changed the most to make profits go down. Otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time talking about pricing or market share without even realizing those things are fine.

99.9% of the times you're not allowed. They want to see how numerical fluent you are.

Total revenue divided by number of sales. But usually you can get detailed info from the company’s databases. Competitors also usually share this in annual reports.

@@CraftingCases Thank you so much for the swift reply. Just wondering if u guys will be doing any more courses or adding more recources (particularly around issue more trees, strucutres and cases in general) to CCases?

I was thinking the same thing. I would say that asking this as a clarifying question is the way to go.

They’ll need to make the test harder then.

You can ask, but 99.9% of interviewers will say no, because the point is to understand your comfort with numbers.

@@CraftingCases That makes sense, didn’t think of it that way. I just thought it’d be a decent question to ask because it shows some dedication to accuracy. Thank you!

@@pureloor8634 it’s a fair question indeed

We're Brazilian.

Well, this is a cost reduction case so it leaves that impression for sure. No one goes to the revenue growth case and make a comment on it saying that it’s nice that consultants help companies grow, nor do they go to the public sector case and say it’s nice that they help with vaccine distribution or literacy rates. As for the real job, in my experience there are cost cutting projects and projects focused on growth. Usually when the economy is down most clients want to cut costs and when the economy is up they care more about growth. Of course, the media doesn’t give headlines to the later, only to the former. I was once in a cost cutting project where the explicit goal of the “evil capitalists” running the company was to cut costs without having to do lay-offs. We got to help them achieve this goal and helped keep everyone’s jobs. Again, no headlines of this anywhere. Not saying that all consultants are saints and that everything is roses and rainbows. There are things to be improved in consulting, as there are things to improve in medicine, law, academia, government, NGOs. The list goes on. Just saying that there are HUGE biases in public perception (availability bias being the main one) because the nice outcomes of the work are very private and lay-offs are are public (and also make clickable, rage-inducing headlines).

@@CraftingCases I completely appreciate your reply and my comment wasn’t meant to criticise any individuals or demean the work of consultants. I was just expressing that there is a big culture these days of blindly cutting costs to make a quick dollar that extends far beyond the “bad times”. Although I’m not in the sector directly, my ex associates who are have honestly expressed that all they are ever asked is “where can we cut costs”. I now work for a company where leadership has changed every few years with only short term goals in mind, which as I said, has led to damaged brand reputation and poor staff morale. I hope for a more refreshing approach in the future. I have no doubt that consultants are a necessity and help create a lot of positive outcomes for companies and society. As an ex banker, I’m more than aware of the unfairness of everyone being tarnished with the same brush. No offence was intended and thanks again for your reply

@@pb4012Oh, not personally offended at all. I've been out of consulting for 8 years now, so not attached to the profession. I just commented because there's been a surge of comments criticizing the profession in my channel in the last few months (probably because of that skit on John Oliver and the second order effects of that). Now, my channel isn't even defending the consulting industry (not more than an SAT prep channel is "defending" the university system in the US), so I find that both odd and a bit unfair given my experience. As for the culture of blindly cutting costs, I partially agree with you. I think many companies (and consultants) do indeed have poorly structured incentives that make them do "dumb" cost cutting (aka: long-term unwise), but at the same time I think there's more bloat than ever in the average corporation. It's a weird conundrum.

This video is on the upper range of what you’ll find in real interviews in terms of calculations. The reason they test this is because if you’re numerically comfortable and can do math out loud, this makes thinking in groups more fluid and effective if you don’t have to pull out the calculator all the time. You may know someone who can do math on the spot in the middle of a conversation and often these people can make better arguments to defend a point of view that’d be weird socially if they had to stop the conversation to do the math on a device. Same principle. Obviously this type of math isn’t exactly the same as the one in this interview, but it’s what they’re testing.

@@CraftingCases thank you

I've often seen overwhelm at the firm, but never boredom.