1.- Is there an economic benefit to this new approach to hip replacement surgery?
2.- If so, how can your client reap financial success from it?
3.- If not, what can they do to make it economically successful?
Boston Scientific, a developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices has developed a minimally invasive approach to hip replacement surgery, two 1.5-2” incisions to replace the hip joint instead of the standard 6-10 inch single incision. Muscles and tendons surrounding the hip joint are avoided or separated and never fully cut. Therefore, patients are in less pain from the incision and their recovery time is shorter. Rather than the standard 3-5 days in the hospital, 80% of patients go home the same day as the surgery. The major drawback of the surgery is that it requires longer time in the operating room — 3 hours versus 2 hours in the traditional approach — and so far has only been performed on younger, healthier patients with commercial insurance (versus Medicare). Also, the new procedure cannot be performed on obese patients. The device used in the new approach is exactly the same as the device used in the traditional single-incision approach; however, the instruments are smaller and need to be specially manufactured by Boston Scientific. Boston Scientific has hired you to advise them on commercializing the new hip replacement approach. Specifically:
1.- Is there an economic benefit to this new approach to hip replacement surgery? 2.- If so, how can your client reap financial success from it? 3.- If not, what can they do to make it economically successful?
1 Commentaire
Senior Care Development LLC operates retirement homes, ie multi-residence housing facilities intended for senior citizens. Typically each person or couple in the home has an apartment-style room or suite of rooms. Additional facilities are provided within the building, retirement homeincluding facilities for meals, gatherings, recreation activities, and some form of health or hospice care. The level of facilities varies between facilities. A place in a retirement home can be paid for on a rental basis, like an apartment, or can be bought in perpetuity on the same basis as a condominium.
Senior Care Development has specialized in developing the full spectrum of senior living facilities, with an emphasis on continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). They just opened a new retirement home in Chicago (The Clare at Water Tower) about a year ago and the management have concerns about the Clare retirement home’s profitability. Question : What recommendations would you make? Bank Mandiri (IDX: BMRI), a large bank in Jakarta, Indonesia, boasts more than 1,700 branches spread across three different time zones in the Indonesian archipelago and six branches abroad. It has about 11,000 Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) as of September 2012. The CEO of Bank Mandiri has hired you to determine how it can further grow in the local Indonesian market, specifically in retail banking.
Dyno Nobel is a large manufacturer of explosive products. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian multinational corporation Incitec Pivot Limited (ASX: IPL), and has customers in the mining, quarry, construction, pipeline and geophysical exploration industries. Headquartered in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, the company operates in Australia, Canada, the United States, Africa, Indonesia, Mexico, South America, Papua New Guinea and Turkey. Dyno Nobel’s largest customer, an American mining company, has called for a competitive bid for their next 3 year contract. Previously, Dyno Nobel has been their preferred provider and have run uncontested for nearly 10 years. Dyno Nobel wants to know how to price the bid.
Lenovo Group is a multinational information technology company that develops, manufactures and markets desktop and notebook computers, workstations, servers, storage drives, IT management software, and other related products and services. Lenovo is the world’s second largest PC maker following its 2005 acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business. Lenovo is planning to set up BPO (Business process outsourcing) call centers in India and they need to know whether the talent supply in India is sufficient for the next five years, i.e. for the period 2005 – 2010. You have been brought in by Lenovo to figure out the pool of people available for hiring for such call centers.
Transportes Aeromar is a mid-size passenger airline based in the General Aviation Terminal at Mexico City International Airport in Venustiano Carranza, Mexico City. Aeromar operates scheduled domestic services in Mexico and international services to the USA, South America, and Central America. Aeromar operates on the Hub & Spoke model and is currently seeking to increase its revenue. It intends to do so by switching the only airplane currently serving the flight from Mexico City to Brasilia, to their existing Mexico City-New York City line service.
Question : how sound a business idea is this ? Strategy case interview question :
What is the annual demand and supply for management consulting jobs in the world ? With thirty franchised member clubs (29 in the US and 1 in Canada), the NBA is widely considered to be the premier men’s professional basketball league in the world.
Question : How many basketballs are purchased by the NBA and all its teams each year? Heidelberg Cement is a building materials manufacturing company headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany. It is currently the world’s third largest cement producer, the market leader in aggregates and fourth in ready-mix concrete as of 2010. The company employs 53,000 people at 2,500 locations in more than 40 countries with an annual turnover of approximately EUR €11 bn. In 2010 the company produced a combined 78 million tonnes of cement in all their locations worldwide. Recently Heidelberg Cement has started experiencing a decline in profit margins of cement products. They have hired you as a strategy consultant to determine the cause of their declining profitability and suggest remedial measures. How would you go about analyzing the case?
What recommendations would you make to help Heidelberg Cement improve their profitability ? Ashland Inc. (NYSE: ASH) is an American Fortune 500 chemical company headquartered in Covington, Kentucky. Ashland is a major U.S. chemical manufacturer in the commodity chemicals business with single digit market share. It recently emerged from bankruptcy. Ashland has limited capital available. The chemicals business is cyclical with pricing cycles of 7 years. Ashland is worried about how it will survive year 2015 when it hits the bottom of the pricing cycle. The question is how this company can become sustainable, if at all possible. The CEO of Ashland has hired you to develop a new business model, either through: (1) acquisition into a non-cyclical chemicals market, or (2) the manufacture of new products and services for customers, or (3) your own recommendations.
Question : What would you recommend? Courtesy : ADL
Apax Partners is a global private equity and venture capital firm headquartered in London, UK. The firm have raised $35 billion dating back to 1969. As of 2012, Apax has invested in more than 360 companies in all stages of development, representing a broad range of industries. Apax Partners is looking at investing in a start-up low cost airline carrier focused on the NYC-London route. Currently there are only large players in this market, and no low cost carriers for that route. Question: should Apax Partners invest in the start-up airlines company? Optical Fiber Solutions (OFS) manufactures and markets leading-edge fusion splicers, optical fiber, optical cable, fiber to the home (FTTX), connectivity and optical components. Headquartered in Norcross in the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, Optical Fiber Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese telecom and electric company Furukawa Electric Co. An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of glass (silica), slightly thicker than a human hair. It can function as a waveguide, or “light pipe”, to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. Optical fibre has volume advantages to copper wire and is mainly used by the telecom, cable and mobile phone industries. It’s made of glass strands and rolled onto 25 km spools. Optical Fiber Solutions’ customers (major Telecoms like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon) buy a huge quantity, bundle it up, dig a trench and put the bundle of optical fibres in the ground. Recently, OFS has seen a 50% decline in revenues, and has recently brought in a new CEO.
The new CEO wants you to help address the following questions: 1/ Why did revenues drop 50% in one year? 2/ Can he expect an improvement, and if so in what timeframe? 3/ How does the company compare to its competitors? Graphic Packaging (NYSE: GPK) is a Fortune 1000 corporation based in Marietta, Georgia, and a leading company in the design and manufacturing of packaging for commercial products. GPK has created the display packaging for a wide range of popular consumer goods, paperboard carton for Coca Cola, Pepsi and packaged food. GPK is experiencing a sustained period of near-zero operating margins while competitors are doing well. The CEO of GPK has hired you to help him restore profitability.
O’Reilly Media (formerly known as O’Reilly & Associates), is an American media company based in Sebastopol, California. O’Reilly Media was established by Tim O’Reilly and it publishes information technology related books and Web sites. O'Reilly Media also produces conferences on computer technology. You have 20 minutes to prepare a Powerpoint presentation to give to Tim O’Reilly regarding his electronic components catalog. This catalog is distributed at no cost to product designers. Revenues come from ads in the catalog. The CEO has noticed that revenues have declined 60% year over year. The CEO feels that because of the quality of the product, they are a content service provider. He is interested in converting the electronic components catalog into an online publication. He has come to you to determine if this makes sense and how he should market it.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (trading as Foxconn), is a Taiwanese multinational electronics manufacturing company headquartered in Tucheng, New Taipei, Taiwan. As of 2011, Foxconn is the world’s largest maker of electronic components by revenue. Clients include major American, European and Japanese electronics and information technology companies. Notable products which the company manufactures include the iPad, iPhone, iPod, Kindle, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, etc. The Chairman and President of Foxconn has approached your consulting firm to help grow profits. As an original design manufacturer, Foxconn receives a prototype from its clients (e.g., Apple) and it has the competency to produce as many as required. For example, Apple provides a design for a new iPhone, and Foxconn is responsible for producing millions. Currently, the company has a 10% profit margin. The Chairman wants your help in growing the profit margin to 20% within one year.
Question : What do you recommend? Oliver Wyman case interview question:
BofA Merrill Lynch is the corporate and investment banking division of Bank of America. It provides services in mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt capital markets, lending, trading, risk management, research, and liquidity and payments management. It was formed through the financial statement analysiscombination of the corporate and investment banking activities of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch following the acquisition of the latter by the former in January 2009. You are an Equity Research Analyst recently hired by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Here is information about three companies A, B, and C. What can you make of this data? Can you determine what type of industry each company is in? (all figures are expressed in dollars) NEAT Revenues Assets Liabilities Equity Company A 254M 2.6B 2.8B 1.0B 1.8B Company B 7B 77B 1.121T 1.085T 35B Company C 11B 348B 151B 89B 61B How many people play football over watch football in the UK?
Oliver Wyman Consulting case interview question :
How many gallons of gas does a gas station sell per day in the US? Oliver Wyman Consulting case interview question:
How many spikes are there on the back of a hedgehog? Oliver Wyman Consulting Case Interview question : How many trains are there on the London Underground?
Consulting case interview question : How many words are there in the daily edition of The Times?
Interview case from Oliver Wyman Consulting: How many songs are stored on iPods in the United Kingdom?
Caesars Entertainment Corp is an American gaming and hospitality company that owns and operates over 50 casinos, hotels, and seven golf courses under several brands. With its headquarter located in Paradise, NV, Caesars is one of the largest gaming companies in the world, with annual revenues of USD $8.9 billion in fiscal year 2010. Caesars Entertainment currently owns four casinos in Atlantic City: Bally’s Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah’s Atlantic City, and Showboat Atlantic City. One of Caesars’ major competitors, namely Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc. is contemplating opening up a rival casino in nearby Philadelphia. The CEO of Caesars Entertainment has hired Simon Kucher & Partners to :
Assess the ramifications of Trump Entertainment opening a casino in Philadelphia. Also, what are Caesars Entertainment’s strategic options to respond? Hyatt Hotels, which is headquartered in Chicago, operates 400 properties under several brands, including Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place and Park Hyatt. Hyatt Regency hotels are aimed at convention and business travelers as well as leisure travelers and are located in urban, suburban, airport, convention and resort destinations around the world. Grand Hyatt hotels are large-scale hotels that provide upscale accommodations in major cities. Hyatt Place hotels are mid-sized properties designed for families and business travelers; they are located in urban, airport and suburban areas. You have been retained by the CEO of Hyatt Hotels to advise whether or not they should raise their average daily room rate from $180 to $200.
The Chief Scientific Officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb is in charge of the company’s R&D. Currently, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s R&D process works like this: the company’s satellite research labs located all over the country send potential drug compounds to a centralized analysis center which does all the testing work, analyzes the results, and then sends results back to satellite research labs. This is an iterative process for each drug compound, with 5 to 15 reviews per compound. A 15-year patent begins after the 1st review/iteration if the compound passes initial tests during the 1st review/iteration. There is to be a long queue of potential drug compounds waiting to be analyzed. The Chief Scientific Officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb, wants to reduce the R&D cycle time.
Question : What do you recommend ? What are the benefits to the company of following your recommendations ? |
Strategy Consulting
|