Candidate interview: corrected Bain case study

The case study is the flagship event for strategy consulting firms, from MBBs to specialist boutiques.

Feb. 17, 2025 Carrière

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a. Article 27 (2250 x 1500 px) - Cover

At every interview, for every round of recruitment, you'll be given a case study to test your skills. At first glance, the case study exercise may seem difficult, but with the right preparation, anyone can become an expert in the field. In this article, we present the correction of a case study by a PrépaStrat candidate who obtained an offer in MBB. The case study was submitted to Bain in the 1st round of recruitment for a CDI position at junior consultant level. This was a growth operation for a player in the contract catering sector.

Find out below how to solve a strategy consulting case study, with all the steps and reflexes to adopt.

Read also: TOP 5 reasons to join a strategy consulting firm

Step 1: Understanding the case study

Interviewer: Our customer is a player in the contract catering sector. Its business model is as follows: it orders the raw materials, receives them, cooks them and then serves them. It has 3 types of customer: companies, schools, health establishments (both hospitals/clinics and retirement homes).

Our client has recently changed CEO, and the new boss is seeing weak sales growth of around 0.5% per year. He called on Bain to find new avenues for sales growth and reach 5% per year within 5 years.

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Candidate: Very well, to sum up, the objective here is to achieve 5% annual sales growth within 5 years for our customer through new growth drivers. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you 3 questions before going into more detail about our study.

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Interviewer: Yes, that's it. Go ahead.

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Candidate: I understand that our customer is and operates as a B2B canteen, its business model is clear. In terms of customers, how much does a meal cost and how is the cost shared?

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Interviewer: The meal costs €10 and is split 50/50.

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Candidate: Very good. And how are sales divided between the 3 types of customer? And is our customer an international player?

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Interviewer: Sales are 50% to companies, 30% to schools and 20% to healthcare institutions. Our customer generates over 40% of its sales in France and the remaining 60% in Europe and the USA.

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Candidate: Very well, thank you. If it's all right with you, I'll take a few moments to structure an approach to achieving the customer's objectives.

Step 2: Structure the problem

b. Article 27 - Structure

Candidate: In order to achieve 5% annual sales growth within 5 years, I will use a 3-pronged approach. First, I will study the foodservice market to assess its attractiveness and accessibility, and identify potential growth drivers. The market analysis will enable us to better understand whether we can grow in our current markets (companies, schools and healthcare establishments), and the aim of my second axis will be to assess the potential for organic and external growth in these segments. Finally, in the 3rd axis, I will look at the opportunities for diversifying our business in the contract catering sector.

  1. Can the market allow us to grow +?
    1. Market attractiveness
      • Size, demand, growth: by customer and geography
      • Targets: consumer trends by customer and customer needs
  1. Do we have the capacity to grow in our markets?
    1. Organic growth
      • Improving our prices
      • Improve our offers: products, quantities sold, geographical distribution, customer distribution
  2. Can we diversify?
    1. Horizontal diversification
      • Complementary products and services
      • New offer
      • New customers

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Interviewer: Very well, your approach suits me. Our customer is interested in diversifying and improving his offering, and I'd like you to continue in this direction.

See also: Preparing for a successful fit in strategy consulting

Step 3: Making hypotheses

Candidate: Very well. In terms of diversification, I'm thinking above all of an opportunity for new segments. In my opinion, horizontal diversification is the most relevant, especially with the possibility of extending to new customers. In terms of improving our offer, I'm thinking in particular of digital and delivery issues.

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Interviewer: These are two interesting avenues to explore, please continue.

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Candidate: Very well, let's start looking into the possibility of getting new customers. Our customer has B2B expertise, so I suggest we take a closer look at this sector. Since 50% of its sales come from businesses, it seems to have mastered the value chain in the professional segments, in the sense that these are different issues from education and healthcare. I'd like to pursue this line of thinking, and would like to focus on two sectors: events and hospitality.

  • Events: corporate seminars/team building, weddings/great occasions, sports/cultural events.
  • Hospitality: hotels, youth hostels, vacation centers, etc.

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Interviewer: Interesting for our customer, but targeting new segments isn't a priority for him after all.

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Candidate: Very well, I suggest we take a closer look at the opportunity to improve and/or diversify our offering. In my opinion, the segment with the greatest potential for growth is the corporate segment, especially since it generates 50% of sales. I'd like to focus on this segment first.

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Interviewer: Yes, very good.

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Candidate: As I understand it, our customer's main source of income is the price of a meal, averaging €10, which is shared equally between the employee and the company. To grow, we have two options: raise the price or increase the number of meals sold.

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Interviewer: Price is not an issue.

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Candidate: So, we can look to increase the number of meals sold at each service in a company. Do we know the % of employees who come to our canteens?

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Interviewer: We don't have the exact figure, but we do know that less than 50% of a company's employees go to the canteen nationwide.

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Candidate: Interesting. In my opinion, there are reasons for this, if we think about employees' needs and their choice criteria, I see two things:

  • Employees don't want to go to the canteen because of high prices and offers that don't meet their expectations.
  • Employees can't go to the canteen due to lack of capacity and slow service.

We could think of lifts to address both these problems.

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Interviewer: What kind of levers?

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Candidate: On the one hand we could improve the offer to attract employees who don't want to go to the canteen, on the other we could make the canteen more accessible.

In terms of improving the offer, we could play on three factors:

  • Quality: using top-of-the-range raw materials and communicating on premium foods
  • Diversity: offer alternatives with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, organic, local food, etc.
  • Speed: offer snack/tray formats, streamline people flows, impose time slots, set up self-service food, create takeaway sales, create a menu reservation application

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Interviewer: Playing on the lever of accessibility and speed is interesting, what more can you tell me?

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Candidate: We can think of a digital solution for online ordering and take-away sales which could :

  1. Increase the number of sales
  2. Relieve overcrowding in company canteens
  3. Lower costs through better visibility

If our customer is interested in this option, we could carry out a market study to estimate the addressable growth potential.

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Step 4: Test our hypotheses

Interviewer Our customer is interested in takeaway sales. He would like to offer employees of the companies he works for the chance to buy takeaway food for the evening, so that they can eat it at home. Estimate the size of the market in value terms in France.

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Candidate: Very well, if possible, I'd like a few moments to structure the market size equation. The market by value is calculated by :

No. of company employees with a canteen France x % people interested (penetration rate) x frequency of purchase x average price per takeaway

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Interviewer Continue.

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Candidate: All right, let's estimate the figures for each of the variables in our equation.

  • Number of employees in companies with a canteen in France = (working population - unemployed) * % in companies* of companies with a canteen = 20M people
  • We are particularly interested in large companies with at least 200 employees.
  • of employees interested in an evening takeaway service = 10%.
  • We could survey our current customers to calculate this penetration rate.
  • Purchase frequency = 1/month and 1.5 dishes per basket
  • To be segmented by age, income, household, etc.

The total market volume is 20M*10%*12*1.5 = 36M dishes sold each year. At an average price of €10 per dish, the total market value is 36M*€10 = €360M.

To better analyze this market, we need to put it into perspective with that of corporate catering. However, this is a young market with strong growth potential in relation to employee consumption habits.

It would now be interesting to determine market growth and the market share we could achieve. This would give us an idea of whether we could achieve 5% annual growth over the next 5 years.

See also: McKinsey, BCG, Bain: a trio of firms still undisputed

Step 5: Conclusion

Interviewer Thank you. The CEO is interested in your study and would like you to summarize it for him.

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Candidate: The recent growth pace is too low to achieve a 5% growth per year within 5 years, so the firm must find new ways of growth in order to reach its targets. Following our study, we do recommend to you to improve your offer by offering take-away food for night diner. Market in France is estimated at 360M€ with a high potential of growth.

However, there are risks considering your capacity to develop through the value chain and risks for cannibalization.

Therefore, next steps will be to further study the take-aways food market for B2B to determine how much market share the firm can catch and if yes or no, it will allow you to reach your targets.

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Read also : McKinsey case study: preparing for success

Feedback from the Bain case study

The conclusion is over, and so is the case study! Congratulations! You've come to the end of this catering case study. Now it's time to take a step back. This case study is a good example, as it may seem to lack structure and focus. In reality, this is not the case. The candidate used a good structure and offered several opportunities to the interviewer. He took the lead whenever he could, proposing and testing hypotheses. The interviewer steered him in the right direction and vice versa. At the end, the candidate was tested on a more quantitative part with a market study. The case was not very difficult, but required a good structure throughout, and the ability to keep the customer's objectives in mind.

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