Q1. What would be your plan of attack to help Kitchen World create a revenue growth strategy?
Structure your approach through four areas:
High-end kitchenware U.S. market
- Growth rate
- Major premium kitchenware chains
- Recent changes in customer behavior and other trends
Kitchen World
- Customer segments (e.g. B2C/B2B, professionals vs amateurs, gifts vs for yourself)
- Product range
- Marketing strategy
Revenue analysis
- Growth rate and market share
- Break-down by region, product line and customer segment
- Pricing strategy
Sales growth opportunities
- Geographical expansion
- Market share increase
- New customer segments
- Product innovation
Step 1. Do horizontal presentation
The best practice is to start with a 15-second big-picture overview, e.g. “I’d like to assess this problem through the lens of four areas – first, …; secondly, …; thirdly, …; and finally …”
Step 2. Hit key points
Check if the candidate covers all key points typical for a revenue growth case structure:
Revenue analysis, Business model (Client segments, Product portfolio), External factors (Growth rate, Competition)
Step 3. Add stories (optionally)
To avoid cookie-cutter/generic approach, the candidates can incorporate 2-3 stories into their structure presentation, e.g.:
- “Kitchenware is likely a commoditized market due to standardized product form and functionality (e.g. plates, pots), however kitchenware design might be a strong differentiation point, especially for high-end brands like ours”
- “Kitchenware represents a wide variety of products which offers a lot of cross-selling and up-selling opportunities at different points of customer cooking journey (e.g. beginner, advanced, professional)”
- “I’d expect a fairly fragmented competitive landscape given healthy margins and high barriers for entry like strong brand loyalty and deep product expertise”
Step 4. Finish with a question
At the end of the structure presentation, it is helpful for candidate to show that they can drive team forward and prioritize, e.g. “This is how I plan to attack this problem. Does it make sense to you? If it does, I’d like to explore the market first. Do we have…?”