I'm blown away by the structure of the video. It is incredibly organized and easy for beginners to follow along your thought process. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from the video and has been hooked ever since randomly coming across one of your videos. Thank you so much!
Hey Matt, havent had the time to watch your videos in a while! I'll catch up on them today! You seem like the type of guy i'd enjoy having around me. Have a great day!
what i liked about ur video is how you not only gave advice on the framework, but also tips to handle the interview better (like pausing and letting interviewer give u cue, or asking interviewer if u are on the right path etc.). Those are really impt points that I feel will make the interview a lot less stressful!
This has been the most helpful video I've come across on RUclips, as I prepare for the first case interview in my career...I feel more confident after hearing your tips and advice! Thank you Matt!
Love the way this video is conducted, particularly helpful as an intro to case interview. I've laid out my own framework to help the discussion and perhaps get some feedback. I opted for a more and objective-driven structure and inserted some hypothesis which mirrors closer to how a consulting project is conducted in real-life 1. Market Dynamics - What's the overall dynamics of the market a) Size, Growth of serving restaurants - If the market is still growing significantly, it's easier to compete than it is in a stagnant one b) Competitive landscape - If it's concentrated, we will have a better footing and make it hard for new entrants c) Barriers for Chalice such as political, regulatory - There might be a shifting perception to buy local in the US and this helps our case. Also are there any tariffs for Chinese goods that may solidfy our case 2. Remain Competitive - Can we hold our advantage a) What's the buying criteria for restaurants? -> Product, Servicing, Reliability, Prices, Quality b) How does our product stand against competitors? 3. Generate Solutions - Where are the gaps from 1 & 2 we can take advantage of? 4. Alternatives a) If supply is not yet 100%, how can we optimise to fulfill our orders faster and better b) If demand is unmet, what other restaurants can we target and perhaps do we venture into other FnB related areas like (Clubs, Hotels, Tourism)
understand most people only stay in consulting for 2 years. Long hours and traveling for long periods. Could be stuck in a hotel for months in a small town.
Hi! I’m a high school student trying to learn more about the consulting industry and your videos have been really helpful for me. Thanks and keep it up!
This was such an informative and insightful video that I came across by chance and I absolutely loved the Business Situation framework as it assisted in breaking down the entire case and analyzing it strategically from all the crucial aspects and perspectives. Thank you for doing what you do!
I like your ideas on the second question, but my recommendation would be spending more on service reliability and increase price a bit more than cost increase (since customers don't care as much about price as service reliability) to guard their profitability. This way they can fight off the potentially declining revenue from their competitors that would rely on lower price.
The thinking process you need to have to excel as a consultant is very specific. I interviewed for a handful of firms out of undergrad and I just could not grasp it. Some people are wired to think this way and others are not.
So i really liked the cases. Its been years i even did one. With the conclusion i believe your stance could be made first then followed by the supporting evidence as to why you make the recommendation and then follow up with risk or and next steps
Thanks Rafael - glad you found it helpful. Getting good at brainstorming is just going to come through practice and also developing your "business sense", which means understanding what options a business has in different situations. It's hard to teach this, so I would just focus on reading through the solutions to cases with brainstorming sections and trying to understand and remember each option so that in the future you have more ideas to draw from. Hope this helps!
Longer contracts might not be a great solution because locking the customer in a 7 year contract lacks legal levers for enforcing this relationship. A better option would be to offer the customer more freedom, for example by increasing the variety of products and driving out the competition with combination price policy. Great video! 🙏🙏🙏
My personal opinion is that if we were told that maintaining profitability is the goal. The competition is low cost company running at operational loss. And the market values reliability more than pricing. I would not suggest a price drop bc we won’t be able to compete in prices anyway and profitability is super important to the client. I would inquire about our financial muscle and ask abt the working capital. If we can offer better payment terms instead of lower prices we could appeal to more customers that way.
Nice video Matt! Really helpful during these stressful interview periods. To be able to practice alone I've been trying to create a ChatGPT customization as it sometimes can be hard to find a partner. However, I don't know the quality of the GPT and I was wondering if you could see how well it mirrors real interviews :)
Great analysis, Matt. However, it's interesting that you recommend price reduction after alluding that pricing wasn't a major concern for the customers. Theoretically, it's great to reduce prices but the probability is there that the customers will start associating the lowered price to quality reduction and they'll actually start considering the competitor's product (if their price remains same). I'll rather recommend consolidating on value addition to the customers, as you recommended, and also create a frequent feedback loop with the customers. By this, you major on your strengths and reduce weaknesses. Reminds me of Apple's pricing strategy.
Suppose you didn't have a pillar specifically for the product's unit economics. In that case, in a candidate-led interview, would the interviewer still try to steer you into that direction so they can ask you to analyze data? For example, instead of 'unit economics' what I noted down in my memo was "exploring other price lines for CupCo's products".
In most cases, yes I think the interviewer would try to steer you in that direction, especially if analyzing unit economics was a big part of the case. Whenever you think of price, you should also consider costs as well, since those two go hand in hand when we think about profitability.
I see lot of cuts in the video. I dont know why those cuts were made? Is it because there was extra time needed to think? If there was extra time to think or was there error, how are we supposed to have clear flow in interview when lot of variables come to the scenario?
Hello Matt. Great lesson. Any thoughts on how you would approach this if Chalice had scale economies that pushed their cost down materially compared to CupCo’s? Cheers
Great video, this is such a great structure to keep in mind during an interview. I have one question: Wouldn't it make sense to give only one recommendation since the reason why you are hired is to help them make a decision, not leave them with a somewhat unfinished case.
hi Matt, could you please do some videos about behavioral questions like those in case introduction? As an Asian, I have lots of problems when answering those questions because i was not good at being sociable or performing in some activities in the past. I feel really nervous
Excellent video Matt! When you have time would you do another video of this type maybe with a different case? Anyway thanks a lot for this great video 🔥
Hey matt, looking into your framework, it seems that its a market entry framework. The question posedw was asking about making sure it stays profitable, so looking into reducing costs and increasing revenue would be a good portion of our framework no? As well as ofcourse our product as well as the market and competition/Consumer demand/preferences. Do let me know what you think, Thanks.
Just watched your video, I hope it'll help me with my case study interview in 2 days, but I do have one question: Won't lowering the price affect our client's business relations with their clients? I mean that they could become suspicious as to why they are changing the price
Thank you so much for this video, you made the process seem easy with a nice flow. If you are able to provide more case studies as examples for preparation, you and your page will skyrocket from here
Thanks for the question! In my mind I split up company level differentiators and product level differentiators, but if I were doing this again I would aim to be more specific. Company level differentiators could be an experienced management team, better supplier relationships, etc. while product level differentiators would be something like "CupCo's cups are actually better at retaining the temp for hot beverages vs competitors". Hope this helps!
Thanks for this awesome video, but how do you know what framework to use for the case you’ve been given? Do you have a video or guide on what frameworks you use for different types of cases?
Hi Matt, first video I’ve watched from you (prepping to trying to break into strategy consulting myself), just to make sure would this case be more of a “1st round” case? Or a “2nd round” case? I’ve heard from various people that 2nd round cases can be very wild and even more vague since they’re delivered via partners and whatnot
This case is designated as a round 2 in the Darden consulting club casebook, but you're right that sometimes partners may give you something more out of the box. That said, I personally did not find that the 2nd round cases were of significantly greater difficulty in my BCG process than the earlier rounds (could be different for others).
Hi Matt! Thanks for this breakdown - super helpful. I had two questions if that’s alright. 1. How would the case have looked if you didn’t happen to start with the product bucket of the framework? I know the keys to the case were in this bucket, so if you started off with competitor for example would you just be gathering general data until you got to product? And is that why the case in relatively shorter than average (I tend to see 30ish mins) 2. Do you think taking a minute or two to go through the entire framework has value? I hear some advice against it as it might come across like you don’t know how to apply a framework but rather just memorized them all Thank you so much for your help!
1. If I didn't start at the product bucket, I would have asked about a different one (e.g., customer) and the interviewer would have likely given me feedback redirecting me away from that bucket (e.g., "we don't have any data on price elasticity"), and i would have continued down my framework until I uncovered that we have product level data available with which to conduct the analysis. This is also why it's important to invite the interviewer to react, even if it's a simple "what's going through my head right now is that...how does that sound to you?" and to be aware enough to notice that if there's a lack of data in a certain area, it may be an indication that you should try another bucket in your framework (don't get too caught up on one). Hope this somewhat makes sense. 2. I see no issues with restating the context before your recommendation as long as you are concise - for me it helps ground myself and establishes clear context for what you will say next. Take this with a grain of salt, but I have personally never received negative feedback regarding this practice. That said, you can definitely deliver the synthesis at the end without the context in the beginning (personal preference).
@@matthuang21 Absolutely, that made a lot of sense. Thanks so much for all your help again! Your channel is an invaluable resource for career and life in general :) Love your transparency and authenticity
Hey Max! How you address the topic and structure the approach is the most important - as long as you can justify your thinking and demonstrate you can think logically about a problem, the interviewer will view that positively. That said, they usually have an idea of what the general "right answer" or direction you should be headed in is, so yes - it does matter what your results are. This is especially the case if there are lots of quant sections where you either do the math right or wrong (e.g, if you're given an exhibit with specific numbers and asked to calculate how many units the company needs to sell to break-even). Hope this helps!
hey! love your videos and energy. Why did u pick this specific framework (CCCP)? There are so many frameworks out there, how would u know which one to pick?
Thanks for the comment! I picked it because it's easy for beginners to learn and works with 90% of business cases. There are other frameworks that could work too.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm blown away by the structure of the video. It is incredibly organized and easy for beginners to follow along your thought process. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from the video and has been hooked ever since randomly coming across one of your videos.
Thank you so much!
Wow thanks for the comment!! I’m glad you found the video super helpful, I’ll keep this in mind as I plan for future content
please don't stop making these! you made it so simple to understand and as soft spoken as you are it was still very engaging!
Thank you! Will do!
I love how calm you speak and down to earth.
Thank you 🙏
Hey Matt, havent had the time to watch your videos in a while! I'll catch up on them today! You seem like the type of guy i'd enjoy having around me. Have a great day!
Hey Emil! Good to hear from you - hope you’re doing well!
what i liked about ur video is how you not only gave advice on the framework, but also tips to handle the interview better (like pausing and letting interviewer give u cue, or asking interviewer if u are on the right path etc.). Those are really impt points that I feel will make the interview a lot less stressful!
Glad it was helpful!
This has been the most helpful video I've come across on RUclips, as I prepare for the first case interview in my career...I feel more confident after hearing your tips and advice! Thank you Matt!
Hey Cheryl! So glad you found it helpful
Thank you so much Matt! I'd love if it there would be more videos like this in the future.
Thanks Enrico! Will keep this in mind for future vids 🙏
Love the way this video is conducted, particularly helpful as an intro to case interview. I've laid out my own framework to help the discussion and perhaps get some feedback. I opted for a more and objective-driven structure and inserted some hypothesis which mirrors closer to how a consulting project is conducted in real-life
1. Market Dynamics - What's the overall dynamics of the market
a) Size, Growth of serving restaurants - If the market is still growing significantly, it's easier to compete than it is in a stagnant one
b) Competitive landscape - If it's concentrated, we will have a better footing and make it hard for new entrants
c) Barriers for Chalice such as political, regulatory - There might be a shifting perception to buy local in the US and this helps our case. Also are there any tariffs for Chinese goods that may solidfy our case
2. Remain Competitive - Can we hold our advantage
a) What's the buying criteria for restaurants? -> Product, Servicing, Reliability, Prices, Quality
b) How does our product stand against competitors?
3. Generate Solutions - Where are the gaps from 1 & 2 we can take advantage of?
4. Alternatives
a) If supply is not yet 100%, how can we optimise to fulfill our orders faster and better
b) If demand is unmet, what other restaurants can we target and perhaps do we venture into other FnB related areas like (Clubs, Hotels, Tourism)
Realising that management consulting is probably one of my career prospects now, thank you!
understand most people only stay in consulting for 2 years. Long hours and traveling for long periods. Could be stuck in a hotel for months in a small town.
Hi! I’m a high school student trying to learn more about the consulting industry and your videos have been really helpful for me. Thanks and keep it up!
Glad you find them helpful!
hey, same here. what are some insights youve learned in a while?
Love your well structured thoughts. Draw on knowledge from mircroeconomics /financial ratio /strategic management 😊
Hey Yong! Glad you found it helpful - appreciate the kind words
This was such an informative and insightful video that I came across by chance and I absolutely loved the Business Situation framework as it assisted in breaking down the entire case and analyzing it strategically from all the crucial aspects and perspectives. Thank you for doing what you do!
you should definitely continue this cracking case interviews series! i love the video
Glad you liked it! This is just the first of this type of video, planning to make more - stay tuned!
agree
I have done this exact case, love seeing your perspective on it!
Thanks Sean! What a coincidence!
Hey Matt, your contents are super helpful and watching them is much better than reading some of the case books. Keep posting.
I appreciate that!
I like your ideas on the second question, but my recommendation would be spending more on service reliability and increase price a bit more than cost increase (since customers don't care as much about price as service reliability) to guard their profitability. This way they can fight off the potentially declining revenue from their competitors that would rely on lower price.
you are the men ! thanks for the help.Amazing content
love this series. need more of this Matt! much love
Thanks Justin! More to come!
Thanks for the video, it was incredibly helpful. Some of the ideas that were mentioned in the video were particularly great.
The last part of Syethesis was very helpful. I was worried about closing. This helps, thanks!
Glad it helped!
Forget the consulting bro. Drop your skin care routine and btw you have such a sweet smile 💓
The thinking process you need to have to excel as a consultant is very specific. I interviewed for a handful of firms out of undergrad and I just could not grasp it. Some people are wired to think this way and others are not.
So i really liked the cases. Its been years i even did one. With the conclusion i believe your stance could be made first then followed by the supporting evidence as to why you make the recommendation and then follow up with risk or and next steps
Hey Owura! Thanks for the comment, glad you liked the video!
Great video, Matt! Your content consistently impresses with valuable insights. Thanks for your dedication, keep up the excellent work!
thanks Mike! Appreciate the support - stay tuned for more!
Awesome video Matt, can't wait to see more case walk-throughs . Any tips on how to better brainstorm solutions?
Thanks Rafael - glad you found it helpful. Getting good at brainstorming is just going to come through practice and also developing your "business sense", which means understanding what options a business has in different situations. It's hard to teach this, so I would just focus on reading through the solutions to cases with brainstorming sections and trying to understand and remember each option so that in the future you have more ideas to draw from. Hope this helps!
you're the best, thanks!@@matthuang21
Your video is really helpful, thank you so much, hope to see more in the future
Happy to hear that! More to come, so stay tuned
This was so helpful! I have my first ever case interview coming up. I hope I am as calm as you.
You can do it!
We need more videos like this one please
Noted! Thanks 🙏
Guys, you dont want to start at BCG.. get a job in a real company first..
Why do you say that?
@@MinhNguyen-ds7el because I have to deal with low skilled consultants all day. You are worthless if you don't understand what you try to help with.
This type of framework is also helpful in interviews for big tech strategy & ops roles
Good to know 🙂 will keep this in mind if I ever interview for tech roles. Thanks for watching!
Great video Matt!
Hey Sean! Appreciate the kind words, glad you found it helpful. Hope you’re enjoying winter break!
Hey Matt thank you so mucho for your connect!, I would appreciate a lot if you could do a tech consulting case, thanks again!
Longer contracts might not be a great solution because locking the customer in a 7 year contract lacks legal levers for enforcing this relationship. A better option would be to offer the customer more freedom, for example by increasing the variety of products and driving out the competition with combination price policy. Great video! 🙏🙏🙏
My personal opinion is that if we were told that maintaining profitability is the goal. The competition is low cost company running at operational loss. And the market values reliability more than pricing. I would not suggest a price drop bc we won’t be able to compete in prices anyway and profitability is super important to the client. I would inquire about our financial muscle and ask abt the working capital. If we can offer better payment terms instead of lower prices we could appeal to more customers that way.
Great Insight
enjoy your videos, keep up the good work.
Thanks David! Appreciate you being here!
incredible and i feel more confident now!
I found a gem. Thanks Matt
thanks for dropping by!
Thank you so much Matt!
Glad you liked it!
Nice video Matt! Really helpful during these stressful interview periods. To be able to practice alone I've been trying to create a ChatGPT customization as it sometimes can be hard to find a partner. However, I don't know the quality of the GPT and I was wondering if you could see how well it mirrors real interviews :)
Great analysis, Matt.
However, it's interesting that you recommend price reduction after alluding that pricing wasn't a major concern for the customers.
Theoretically, it's great to reduce prices but the probability is there that the customers will start associating the lowered price to quality reduction and they'll actually start considering the competitor's product (if their price remains same).
I'll rather recommend consolidating on value addition to the customers, as you recommended, and also create a frequent feedback loop with the customers. By this, you major on your strengths and reduce weaknesses.
Reminds me of Apple's pricing strategy.
Great point David!
Suppose you didn't have a pillar specifically for the product's unit economics. In that case, in a candidate-led interview, would the interviewer still try to steer you into that direction so they can ask you to analyze data?
For example, instead of 'unit economics' what I noted down in my memo was "exploring other price lines for CupCo's products".
In most cases, yes I think the interviewer would try to steer you in that direction, especially if analyzing unit economics was a big part of the case. Whenever you think of price, you should also consider costs as well, since those two go hand in hand when we think about profitability.
I see lot of cuts in the video. I dont know why those cuts were made? Is it because there was extra time needed to think?
If there was extra time to think or was there error, how are we supposed to have clear flow in interview when lot of variables come to the scenario?
Hello Matt. Great lesson. Any thoughts on how you would approach this if Chalice had scale economies that pushed their cost down materially compared to CupCo’s? Cheers
Great video, this is such a great structure to keep in mind during an interview. I have one question: Wouldn't it make sense to give only one recommendation since the reason why you are hired is to help them make a decision, not leave them with a somewhat unfinished case.
Would you advice that I use this framework work in a case where I am consulting for the company who wants to enter the market.
Can Cupco consider Customised cups as per the restaurant themes, as design is also playing a role???
hi Matt, could you please do some videos about behavioral questions like those in case introduction? As an Asian, I have lots of problems when answering those questions because i was not good at being sociable or performing in some activities in the past. I feel really nervous
Excellent video Matt! When you have time would you do another video of this type maybe with a different case?
Anyway thanks a lot for this great video 🔥
Thanks for the suggestion - will keep this in mind!
Hey matt, looking into your framework, it seems that its a market entry framework. The question posedw was asking about making sure it stays profitable, so looking into reducing costs and increasing revenue would be a good portion of our framework no? As well as ofcourse our product as well as the market and competition/Consumer demand/preferences. Do let me know what you think, Thanks.
Just watched your video, I hope it'll help me with my case study interview in 2 days, but I do have one question:
Won't lowering the price affect our client's business relations with their clients? I mean that they could become suspicious as to why they are changing the price
Thank you so much for this video, you made the process seem easy with a nice flow. If you are able to provide more case studies as examples for preparation, you and your page will skyrocket from here
May I ask u a question? In reality, how could find the unit costs of the competitors? Is it something public?
Great video. This comes across a lot like product management
Good to know! I think there’s a lot of overlap with PM interviews
Hi! In the bullet points you put differentiators twice. I understand you can't repeat items. What would you change there?
Thanks for the question! In my mind I split up company level differentiators and product level differentiators, but if I were doing this again I would aim to be more specific. Company level differentiators could be an experienced management team, better supplier relationships, etc. while product level differentiators would be something like "CupCo's cups are actually better at retaining the temp for hot beverages vs competitors". Hope this helps!
Thanks for this awesome video, but how do you know what framework to use for the case you’ve been given? Do you have a video or guide on what frameworks you use for different types of cases?
Step 1: To study all common case types and their framework (Product launch, profit, M&A etc.) There's about
thanks a lot. this was very very helpful!
Hi Matt, do you have any recommendations on business / strategy books?
I didnt understand very well how the conclusions relate to the findings. Can someone explain, pls?
wait this is so good thank you!!
very useful video, thank you!
Hi Matt, first video I’ve watched from you (prepping to trying to break into strategy consulting myself), just to make sure would this case be more of a “1st round” case? Or a “2nd round” case? I’ve heard from various people that 2nd round cases can be very wild and even more vague since they’re delivered via partners and whatnot
This case is designated as a round 2 in the Darden consulting club casebook, but you're right that sometimes partners may give you something more out of the box. That said, I personally did not find that the 2nd round cases were of significantly greater difficulty in my BCG process than the earlier rounds (could be different for others).
I see a lot of synthesis structure with the recommendation before findings in the spirit of top down, what are your thoughts on this?
Either method works, you can do it top down or bottom up as long as you keep it concise
How come this case interview did not have any quantitative questions in it?
Really Great video!
Can you provide a case bank for practice?
excellent! Thank you so much.
Hi Matt! Thanks for this breakdown - super helpful. I had two questions if that’s alright.
1. How would the case have looked if you didn’t happen to start with the product bucket of the framework? I know the keys to the case were in this bucket, so if you started off with competitor for example would you just be gathering general data until you got to product? And is that why the case in relatively shorter than average (I tend to see 30ish mins)
2. Do you think taking a minute or two to go through the entire framework has value? I hear some advice against it as it might come across like you don’t know how to apply a framework but rather just memorized them all
Thank you so much for your help!
1. If I didn't start at the product bucket, I would have asked about a different one (e.g., customer) and the interviewer would have likely given me feedback redirecting me away from that bucket (e.g., "we don't have any data on price elasticity"), and i would have continued down my framework until I uncovered that we have product level data available with which to conduct the analysis. This is also why it's important to invite the interviewer to react, even if it's a simple "what's going through my head right now is that...how does that sound to you?" and to be aware enough to notice that if there's a lack of data in a certain area, it may be an indication that you should try another bucket in your framework (don't get too caught up on one). Hope this somewhat makes sense.
2. I see no issues with restating the context before your recommendation as long as you are concise - for me it helps ground myself and establishes clear context for what you will say next. Take this with a grain of salt, but I have personally never received negative feedback regarding this practice. That said, you can definitely deliver the synthesis at the end without the context in the beginning (personal preference).
@@matthuang21 Absolutely, that made a lot of sense. Thanks so much for all your help again! Your channel is an invaluable resource for career and life in general :) Love your transparency and authenticity
Love this
Casing more is the key
Does the interviewer just evaluate your results or is it also about how you are adressing the topic and how u structure your approach?
Hey Max! How you address the topic and structure the approach is the most important - as long as you can justify your thinking and demonstrate you can think logically about a problem, the interviewer will view that positively. That said, they usually have an idea of what the general "right answer" or direction you should be headed in is, so yes - it does matter what your results are. This is especially the case if there are lots of quant sections where you either do the math right or wrong (e.g, if you're given an exhibit with specific numbers and asked to calculate how many units the company needs to sell to break-even). Hope this helps!
@@matthuang21 thanks for your fast reply
hey! love your videos and energy.
Why did u pick this specific framework (CCCP)?
There are so many frameworks out there, how would u know which one to pick?
Thanks for the comment! I picked it because it's easy for beginners to learn and works with 90% of business cases. There are other frameworks that could work too.
woohoo! pro ~ talk to you soon,
Wow
Harris Charles Jackson Karen Jones Christopher