BCG Case Interview – Solar Energy Revenue Decline (Live Candidate + Expert Feedback)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: So it's a tall order to double your volume, right? So you're going from $80,000 to $160,000. That's what your math showed. Can you brainstorm some really broad creative ways in which you can potentially achieve a very aggressive growth of doubling revenue? [00:00:22] Speaker 2: This BCG Style case interview was recorded in front of a live audience that's a real candidate, a real interviewer, real feedback, no edits. The interviewer is Ish, a former BCGer and a management consultant coach. He walks a candidate through a non-traditional case in the energy sector and then breaks down exactly what the candidate did right and where he left points on the table. If you want that kind of detailed expert coaching, book a free 15-minute call with Katie at the link in the show notes. She'll tell you where you stand and whether our Black Belt Coaching Program is right for you. Now let's get into this case. [00:00:58] Speaker 1: All right, let's get started. All right, Aditya, here's going to be the prompt in just a moment. But before we begin, I know this is a really intimidating thing to do in front of 100-plus people. So please, everyone in your chat, please show your words of encouragement for Aditya here. And we will get started right now. So here is the prompt for you. So your client is called Solar Grid Co., a provider of residential rooftop solar panel systems in a large emerging market. The company designs, installs, and services solar systems for homeowners and small apartment buildings. So for many years, Solar Grid Co. experienced rapid growth as electricity prices increased and governments promoted renewable energy adoption. And this was primarily done through subsidies and tax incentives. Because access to reliable electricity varied significantly across the country, demand for home solar solutions grew quickly with little competitive pressure. However, over the past decade, the market has changed substantially. So Solar Grid Co.'s revenues have started to decline, particularly in the residential segment. That's what we'll be focusing on today. At the same time, overall household energy consumption has continued to grow and the broader clean energy industry has expanded rapidly. So the CEO has engaged your team to understand the root causes of revenue decline and recommend ways to restore growth and profitability. [00:02:50] Speaker 3: Great. [00:02:51] Aditya: Yeah, thank you so much for all this information. I think slowly the world is becoming a bit more and more reliant on renewable energy, which is really good. However, there's obviously a few risks such as the ones mentioned here that I'd love to really delve a little bit deeper on. At first, I'd like to recap the case prompt just to make sure that I've understood everything correctly. So our client is Solar Grid Co. They're a provider of solar panels on roof tops, residential roof tops. They produce and install these solar panel grids on top of roof tops for small apartments. Yeah, they've seen sustained growth. This is mainly due to tax incentives, subsidies from the government. However, yeah, recently the market has changed and they have seen a decline in their revenue, whereas the household consumption as well as the overall renewable energy market has remained growing. And the client is wondering what is causing this and as well, how can we actually solve this profit and revenue issue? Did I get everything correct here? Yep, that's right. Awesome. Cool. Yeah, I would love to ask a few more specific questions here. Yeah, I know that the clients would like to increase their revenues and their profit again. Is there a specific quantifiable objective or target that we're looking for here? [00:04:10] Speaker 1: Not necessarily. [00:04:11] Speaker 3: We can dive into that during the case. Okay. Great. Thanks for that. [00:04:23] Aditya: Yeah, I'd also like to know a little bit more about some of our clients' revenue streams. I know that they produce and install these rooftop solar panels. I was wondering how this transaction actually takes place. Does the customer pay beforehand, afterhand, and do they have any other revenue streams that we can consider here as well? [00:04:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a B2C business, and it's by packages that are purchased by customers. Directly, and the tax incentives that I mentioned, the subsidies, are done afterwards through tax filings and other methods. And this is from the government. In terms of the product. Subsidy from the government. Exactly. In terms of the products that they're offering, they have three packages. One is called premium. The other one is called standard. The third one is called basic. They vary by price point, and also they're offering of coverage and rates. [00:05:21] Speaker 3: Great. Awesome. That's really good to know. [00:05:31] Aditya: I'm also wondering a little bit about the geographical scope that our clients operating in. Do they operate mainly in one state? Do they have multiple, you know, different types of households that they cater to? Yeah. How does their business operate geographically? [00:05:45] Speaker 1: Yeah. So it says a large emerging market, so we can think of a developing nation in this case. Right. So think of any hypothetical developing nation [00:05:56] Speaker 3: for this particular case. Great. Great. [00:06:07] Aditya: Yeah, and my final question here. So we know that the revenues have dropped. Do we have any specific quantifiable data to how much they have dropped or at least how much we have to bring them up by? I know you mentioned we don't have a specific goal. [00:06:20] Speaker 3: We'll look at that during the case. Okay, great. Great. Awesome. [00:06:27] Aditya: I think I have all the information that I need. Love to take some time, structure my thoughts of how we can actually improve our company's revenue as well as their profits and take some time to structure my thoughts if that's okay. Sounds good. [00:06:40] Speaker 5: A free management consulted account comes with countless benefits that others charge you hundreds for. Inside of your account, you get access to our Case Foundations course, helping you get your case prep started on the right foot. You also get access to our latest market insights, research reports, job board, and more. If you're not already signed up, use the link in the description to register today and get started. [00:07:05] Speaker 1: All right. Let's hear what you have. [00:07:10] Aditya: Great. Yeah. Thanks so much for the time. So, yeah, in order to tackle this issue of decreasing profits and decreasing revenue and to fix this, I'd love to firstly identify the root cause of this, what is specifically driving the problem. And then secondly, I'd like to propose specific solutions to the problems that we have identified. So I'd like to start off with firstly identifying the main profit drivers that have decreased. And in order to do this, I'd like to first look at the revenue side. So splitting this into revenues and costs. I'd like to first start with the revenue side. So splitting this further into the number of customers as well as the revenue per customer. Starting with the number of customers, I'd like to benchmark across the last few years if the number of customers have actually decreased and also brainstorm why this is. Could it be that other companies in the market have been offering better value or could it be that it's easier to install and therefore we've also lost a little bit of market share? I think this is quite interesting to look at. And at the same time, I'd like to look at the exact process of production and installation just to see what are the risks and what are the negatives that our customers may be facing if that is a driver for our decreasing number of customers. I'd now like to take a look at the second bucket here within revenue drop. So maybe we have seen a decrease in the revenue per customer. Specifically, I'd like to look at if there's been a switch in our product value or offerings and the ratios. We know that there's three main offerings that we have, the premium, standard and basic. Could it be that more and more customers are switching over to the basic and standard, which has led to a decrease in revenue per customer? This could very well be the case, especially as we're dealing with an emerging market where we know that they might be quite price sensitive. So this is something I'd like to definitely look at. And secondly, could it also be that we're offering too many discounts if that is a thing within this sector and thereby losing out on revenue? This is the revenue side of things. I would also now like to look at the cost side of things. I'd like to start with looking at the variable costs first. So with the variable costs, one thing I can imagine is the fuel costs and the electrification costs. We know that most of these companies, they operate with actually burning fuel and thereby converting that into electricity. Could it be that these costs have increased? Another variable cost we have here is actually the gas prices. I'm sure they have to transport these solar panels from their company to the houses for insulation. Could it be that these have also increased? So I'd like to benchmark against the last few years as well as benchmarking against our competitors just to see how we do there. And then finally, we can look at our fixed costs and to see how that's increased. So I'd love to take a look at general utilities as well as overhead marketing if these have increased and identify where the problem really lies. After we've identified the cause, then we can move on to the second part which is really brainstorming specific solutions. So let's talk on solutions a little later. [00:10:15] Speaker 1: We're going to touch on solutions a little later. But off the root cause, where would you like to get started? [00:10:22] Aditya: Great. Yeah, I think I'd like to take a look at the revenue side first. I'd like to prioritize that just knowing that this number of subsidies have dropped as well. It's one thing I forgot to mention. And I think I'd like to look at the pricing mix and to see how that's changed across the last few years. If we have... So pricing mix [00:10:38] Speaker 1: in particular and your hypothesis pricing is the one that's been affected the most. [00:10:45] Aditya: Yes, I think this could be one of the sectors. I think especially as we're working in emerging markets, if other competitors are pricing lower and lower, we might be in a pricing war. So I'd just like to see how pricing has changed in the last few years if you have any data for me on this. [00:11:01] Speaker 1: Okay. What is your hypothesis here? Like, why could price be decreased, let's say? [00:11:09] Aditya: Yeah. My hypothesis is that price could be decreased due to working in emerging markets. We know that these customers are already price sensitive to begin with. So if one competitor drops their price, it may be that we've also had to drop our prices just to fight for market share. So that's my initial hypothesis here and my second my second hypothesis is that our our product mix has changed so that more customers have now gone to basic at the same time. But I'd love to verify this with some further data. Okay. If you have this one. [00:11:40] Speaker 1: Sounds good. Let's look at some exhibits here. [00:11:47] Speaker 3: Great. Yeah, I'll just take a second just to internalize all that information here. [00:11:56] Speaker ?: Great. [00:11:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much for your time. [00:12:01] Aditya: So yeah, here I see exhibits three and four. In the first exhibit, I see a bar chart showing the average revenue per installation with on the x-axis the years 2016 to 2026, so in the last 10 years, as well as the y-axis, the revenue that we actually get for installation. On the second exhibit, I see the installation mix by geography, again, split across the years and into urbanization and rural. Great. Yeah, I think I understand and actually on the y-axis we'll see the percentage of installation. Great. I think I understand these quite well. I'd love to take a moment to structure my thoughts and then get back to you. [00:12:40] Speaker 1: Just walk me through it. Like, what are your thoughts from here? Like, where do you want to go? [00:12:45] Aditya: Yeah, yeah, sure. So yeah, starting with the first exhibit, we've seen quite a big drop in the average revenue per installation. Yeah, by at least, I think, by at least 20%, 30% drop, which is quite significant across the 10 years. So we know that part of the profit issue is actually part on the revenue side. Now going to the second exhibit, the actual installation mix by geography, we see from 2016 to 2026, our proportion of customers have severely dropped from urbanization. And this could also be where most of our clients actually pick for the more premium options and where we can price higher. So we've actually lost a lot of these potential customers, whereas, you know, we've gained a little bit more in towards the rural side in 2026. So as a next step, I'd like to look at the specific drivers as to why this occurred, as well as, you know, the pricing for urbanization and rural, just to confirm my hypothesis that it really is due to this urbanization rural shift. Do you have any data? [00:13:53] Speaker 3: Let's also look at these things. [00:13:57] Aditya: Oh, yeah, great. I see another exhibit now, exhibits one and two. Yeah, on the first axis, I mean, first exhibit, I see the annual installations. And yeah, this has just dropped in general for us. So this could either be we're losing market share just internally or just the entire market is dropping, although our market share has remained constant. So I think this is another thing that is worth looking at a bit further, how our competitors are doing. Going now to our second exhibit, so the insulation mix by package type. Yeah, we see the three specific product mixes. So again, the premium, standard and basic. And yeah, looking at the data, I think we see a little bit more of the problem here. The premium and the standards have both dropped in the last 10 years severely, whereas, you know, most of those customers have shifted over to the basic plan. And my hypothesis about this is this could be to the two main reasons. Firstly, it could be a global trend within all the customers that they're just able to have less disposable income and therefore cannot afford these standard and these basic packages anymore, thereby losing out on our revenue and our profits. But secondly, it could also be that perhaps we've improved the basic value offerings of the basic package that customers don't find it worthy enough to get actually the premium and the standard models. Yeah, and as a next step, I'd like to sort of verify the qualitative reasons as to why this shift may have occurred to better understand the problem. [00:15:31] Speaker 1: Okay. So question for you is, let's say that we can't modify our price, right? So that's, let's say, driven more so by the market. We're pricing based on best pricing available in the market based on competitive analysis. If we were to now increase our volume to go back to our revenue in 2016, [00:15:55] Speaker 3: how many units would we need to install? Great. Awesome. Yeah, thanks for the question. [00:16:12] Aditya: I'm just going to repeat that just to make sure that I've understood correctly. So currently, right now, we don't have any control over the price. However, we do want to see what would happen if we increase volume. And the question is, in order to return to the 2026 levels of revenue, how many units would it take to actually install? How much units do we have to install? If I... [00:16:35] Speaker 1: No, in order to get back to 2016 levels, not 2026 levels. [00:16:39] Aditya: Oh, sorry. Yeah. In order to return to the 2016 levels of revenue, how many units would we have to install? Exactly. Great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just have a few questions regarding this. For this, could I assume that we still have the same average revenue per installation in 2026? Well, you have the data [00:17:02] Speaker 1: in front of you, right? Like, you have the pieces of data in front of you. [00:17:07] Speaker 3: Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can figure that out. [00:17:11] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:17:13] Speaker 3: Great. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. And would you also like me [00:17:19] Aditya: to focus a bit more on the breakdown of the installations or just pure, absolute value and how many installations do we require? [00:17:25] Speaker 1: Let's focus on absolute values first. [00:17:31] Speaker 3: Great. Awesome. Yeah, I'd love to take [00:17:35] Aditya: a moment, just structure how I would approach this and then I can get back to you in a quick moment if that's fair with you. [00:17:39] Speaker 1: Okay, just walk me through it. [00:17:42] Aditya: Okay, sure. Yeah, so the question is, yeah, if we increase our volume, how much volume, like how many annual installations do we actually have to do to return to the 2016 levels of revenue? Yeah, in order to structure this equation, this would be yeah, this would be the number of or this, rather, this would be we know that revenue can be composed into yeah, number of customers as well as revenue per installation. So I'd like to use some of the exhibits and try and piece together how much of that we would require to then calculate the 2016 levels of revenue [00:18:28] Speaker 3: solving for that. [00:18:30] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:18:30] Speaker 3: Okay. [00:18:31] Speaker ?: Okay. [00:18:31] Aditya: let me just quickly see about that. I think the first step for this is that we need to actually calculate the 2016 levels of revenue. I think in one of the exhibits this was shown, I only see one page in front of me here. yeah, so we can actually calculate the total revenue from in 2016 by taking the average revenue [00:19:04] Speaker 3: per installation and then multiplying this by the number of installations in 2016 and this would [00:19:13] Speaker ?: and this would [00:19:13] Speaker 3: give us a number to work towards. Sure. Great. And then, yeah, [00:19:24] Aditya: once we have this revenue, we can divide it by the revenue we get per installation to then calculate what is the number of installations that we need. yeah, however, yeah, I'd like to prioritize using prioritizing using our 2026 revenue per installation as we know that there's been significant changes in the market and so on. So I think using that current data point [00:19:50] Speaker 3: is a bit better. Great. Yeah, if that sounds okay with you, I'd love to start with this calculation. [00:20:00] Aditya: Okay, go ahead. Great. So, yeah, let's go ahead and calculate the revenue for 2016 that we're actually working towards. So, yeah, we can take the average revenue per installation for 2016, which is approximately 8,000 USD and then multiply this by the installations in 2016, which I think was given in the other exhibit, yes, which is [00:20:26] Speaker 3: 120K installations and just quickly do the math on this. So I know 12 times 8, that's just 96. And then we can go ahead and put 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 0s. Yeah, and this should give us a revenue of 960 million in 2016. [00:21:05] Aditya: And now we can divide this revenue by the revenue per installation in 2026 to calculate the total number of [00:21:12] Speaker 3: installations required. So that number is given by, I think if I'm reading that right, it's around 5,000. Let's do 6,000. 6,000. Okay. Yeah. Great. So I'm just going to quickly do this problem. [00:21:56] Speaker ?: great. [00:21:57] Speaker 3: And I think I've come out to be approximately 160,000 installations [00:22:07] Aditya: that we have to do in order to come back to our original levels of revenue. And looking at the chart, we can actually see the annual installations currently which is a lot lower than our number of 160,000. Which is currently at Oh, sorry. [00:22:31] Speaker 1: By how much is this lower? [00:22:33] Aditya: Yeah, it's approximately 50% lower. So I'd like to, as a next step, I'd like to take a look at qualitatively why we've dropped the total number of installations, whether it's an internal or external issue driven by either the market forces or just supply chain internal capabilities and thereby try and increase our total number of installations. [00:22:53] Speaker 1: So it's a tall order to double your volume, right? So you're going from 80,000 to 160,000. That's what your math showed. [00:23:03] Speaker 5: Consulting prep can be ambiguous and frustrating. Blockbelt exists to help solve that. In Blockbelt, you work with a dedicated advisor who helps you come up with a personalized plan, which are the right firms for you, how best to position yourself, and how best to prepare for case interviews. Blockbelt is end-to-end support to help you get the interview, ace the interview, and land the job of your dreams. Click the link in the description to learn more and join today. [00:23:31] Speaker 1: Can you brainstorm some really broad creative ways in which you can potentially achieve a very aggressive growth of doubling revenue? Great. [00:23:45] Aditya: Yeah, and just to clarify, would this be focused on the number of installations or just broadly ways to grow revenue? [00:23:53] Speaker 1: I mean, price will be the same, right? We established that. The only way you can grow is by revenue. So, of course, that's the only way you can grow revenue. So, now, I'm having you brainstorm how you would go about doing that. [00:24:05] Aditya: Great. Yeah, awesome. [00:24:07] Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, I'd love to take a moment, just structure my thoughts, and then can get back to you. Okay, just feel free to walk me through it, whatever you have. [00:24:46] Aditya: Yeah, so, yeah, there's a few ways that we can actually approach this revenue growth problem. Yeah, I'd like to split this up into one, sources from, or actually, I'd like to start off with looking at it really based on installation standpoint as well as government standpoint. So, starting with the installation standpoint, I'd like to further break this down into the number of customers as well as looking at ways to grow the revenue that we receive per customer non-pricing still. In order to grow the number of customers, I think I'd firstly like to look at the value that our packages provide. Do they actually provide the minimum value that other competitors do? Can we increase the value as well? Perhaps can we have some type of smartphone connection where users can marketing and I think with this it's a bit more about reaching our specific target audience. We know we're in an emerging market and we're also targeting small apartment homes. Can we somehow make some partnerships with some people that sell houses to sort of include this within their pitch to actually sell the house. I think that would be a great way to actually sell our product and market it further. I'd now like to look at thirdly again to increase the number of customers can we offer different types of products can we offer not only solar panels but can we offer some type of panels or let me rephrase that actually can we target other types of customers so not just small apartment homes but can we also move to larger houses maybe some restaurants maybe start offering B2B services to further increase our revenue and our approach and finally can we also look into expanding geographically so currently we're only looking at this emerging market can we look at entering another country or maybe different cities different states within the same country that we operate in to again stand out to more types of customers [00:27:00] Speaker 1: let's let's close out the case here can you give me your final recommendation [00:27:05] Aditya: great love to [00:27:06] Speaker 3: take a moment just structure my thoughts and get back to you all right just walk me through what do you have [00:27:53] Aditya: great sounds good yeah so today we've been helping our clients identify what are the main sources for their dropping revenues as well as decreasing profits what we've actually found is that a lot of this drop in profitability is driven by this drop in revenue growth my recommendation would be to increase the number of installations as well as try to shift the mix more towards the premium and standard models this is due to two main reasons firstly we've seen that the actual number of installations has dropped by approximately 50% and secondly that losing customers from the premium and standard there are however some risks to this if we do go ahead and change the value of our products how will this actually influence existing customers and as a next step I'd actually like to look a little bit more into that so about the values of each of these tiers and check if our customers would indeed be willing to upgrade or if we can actually change something and how they feel about this change all [00:28:58] Speaker 1: right you are done Aditya congrats on finishing this everyone please virtual applause for doing this remarkably so as we go into kind of the feedback and then the Q&A portion first of all how did you feel about this case can you kind of do a self reflection on your performance [00:29:19] Aditya: yeah sure yeah I think overall it I think I touched upon quite a few things and I was trying to be structured throughout I think one thing or a few things I could definitely do a bit better is first of all think a little bit more quickly or on my feet maybe not asking for time every single question but just being a little bit more in the moment and just being a bit more conversational based on what I see and secondly I think being a little bit more concise especially in the brainstorming I think I had quite a few ideas but maybe just elaborate less on each idea so I can get through the individual ideas a bit quicker yep [00:30:01] Speaker 1: okay fantastic let me kind of give you my feedback overall great job good performance looks like you've clearly done a good number of cases which is great let me start section by section so starting off with the case opening you gave kind of a summary of the prompt as you heard it I wouldn't necessarily repeat back the prompt I would rather give a one sentence synopsis of it so something like okay looks like our client is solar panel company is really struggling with residential segment of their business and wants to turn this around in terms of revenue so that's kind of a one sentence synopsis I would just do that keeps it short it also shows the interviewer that you've really digested the prompt as opposed to just regurgitating back information in terms of your clarifying questions you asked about what is the quantifiable objective that's a good one any kind of information on products that was also a good one of course helped you with your framework geographical reach that is also good helped you with your framework as well the last one is quantifiable measures of revenue I wouldn't ask that one because think about it right you're going to be asked to do that calculation during the case so anything that you can predict you're going to be asked to do I wouldn't do that as ask that as a question another piece of information related to clarifying questions that for folks in audience may or may not be obvious clarifying questions are not there for you to just understand the prompt but also to really digest the case prompt and build a stellar framework it's really to get information to help you with your framework okay let's move on to the framework portion so you notice that I kind of like stopped you and just said let's hear what you have and I did that throughout the case I'll touch on those things that was primarily because you're taking more than two minutes on the framework that's too long right think about a BCG case you will only have 25 minutes right so like I'm talking about the United States where an interview is 45 minutes and 15 minutes in the beginning are fit questions 25 minutes for the case and 5 minutes for Q&A so that's not a lot of time you can't afford to have more than two minutes so that's why I stopped you and you will see interviewers do this as well if it's taking too long and they'll stop you and just ask you to deliver whatever you have so I would look at shortcuts in and speed up once you've gotten to a place where you're really good in terms of skill and content I in terms of the framework itself you also noticed that I paused you right there once you went to solutions so one piece of advice frameworks generally in like 95% of cases do not have solutions in them unless the case is very much oriented towards solutions let me tell you why because you have a set of root causes each of those root causes will have a set of solutions do you see how this can really amplify you will never be comprehensive solutions guess when solutions come later on in the case when you are doing kind of creative brainstorming that's when solution comes okay so I would not build a framework around solutions [00:33:36] Aditya: okay even if the prompt mentions that they would like to turn this around or ways to turn it around you would still focus [00:33:43] Speaker 1: on really diagnosis most cases are even in consulting any MBB firm most of the project is spent on diagnostics figuring out what the root cause is you will get to touch on that that's later on right that's later on during solutions right so I asked you remember okay now that we have this target aggressively doubling our volume how should we achieve that right that's your solutions so that does come but later on in the case in terms of the content of your framework I think generally you had good ideas I really liked a lot of them my issue was I had difficulty keeping track of them unless your interviewer is in person I would really make sure that the person sitting in front of you virtually keeps track of it so even you might do pedantic things like number one number two number three just so example kind of framework here just so that you can take a look at like one example there's many possible examples of frameworks but this is one that looks at of course the market not like different types of metrics around the market around customer acquisition since sales tends to be something that was mentioned in the prompt revenue is an issue so I would really focus on that pricing and mix is something else that you can focus on and lastly competitive dynamics because the case also says that they were one of the first entrants and then later on other folks entered the market and kind of maybe led to pricing pressures that reduced the overall pricing so I would kind of follow a framework of this manner okay moving along with the case so I as and again as you noticed I paused I didn't necessarily give you time every single time sometimes I just allowed you to take a second but I also don't think you should be asking for time every single time use it as more of a of course you get it during the framework but the rest of the times use it more like a lifeline whenever you need it right when you really like struggling that's when you should ask for it because otherwise you're not going to have time right and be very comfortable with that process I interrupted you and this can 100% happen especially if you're practicing with peers you'll notice that peers are generally nicer to you and won't be stopping you or will allow you to do a 45 minute long case so just be aware of that okay great yeah that's that's um in terms of the exhibits I think you navigated them pretty well just to quickly flash through the exhibits so the main problem that was going on here is installations were going down average revenue was going down and the mix was changing both by the package and geography right so we kind of focused honed in on if the to increase installations you need to double it to 160,000 which is a remarkable feat right I would have liked for you to come up with that conclusion on your own as opposed to me kind of prompting you what do you think of this number 160,000 right and then we kind of went into brainstorming brainstorming some ideas on how to grow one thing I noticed you did have things do something out of the ordinary so what like so I like to ideas around selling other products maybe even like expanding the packages that's kind of an aggressive move other countries that's a good one right so think about like bold moves that can really and you don't have to be correct these ideas can like I just ask for ideas of course more feasible the better but of course you're [00:37:50] Aditya: any specific ideas or like if you had any other ideas that I could have mentioned [00:37:55] Speaker 1: really out like think outside of the box right so like if you have solar panels in like residential areas okay so like can you now do like have a partnership with the government where they increase the subsidies that's a massive thing right so if someone gives you like increases tax incentives by like 20-30% Tesla for example where people who buy EVs can also have a Tesla branded solar like roof panel where they can inevitably charge their car but also get a lot of incense of bundling with other kinds of like and partnering with other kinds of companies like car companies or EV right so like there is a lot of different ideas that you can explore there awesome yeah thank you yeah and then the last thing is around recommendation I think generally you did a good job on recommendation but here is kind of my my blueprint of how you should do recommendation and this is also for the audience here so four steps first is a punch line tell me what you did or what is your main recommendation so something like we should move forward with XYZ or we should do XYZ and then process is the next step where you talk about what you actually did during the case so I calculated XYZ and figured out this and that in order to get to my conclusion then you come to next steps and then finally risks okay and next steps and risks can be interchanged in my opinion depending on the case and the scenario great but I think you generally so overall good really good any questions on my feedback [00:39:38] Aditya: yeah great I think it makes perfect sense I think there's a lot of great feedback and I really appreciate you being very direct and very constructive as well yeah I think the only question I have here is yeah sort of the balance between finding the driver of the problem you know with the exhibits versus figuring out if figure out versus figuring out the next steps I'm wondering how do you draw the balance between that and what should you generally focus a bit more [00:40:14] Speaker 1: on like you should not skip an exhibit you should not gloss over an exhibit to go to the next step I see that candidates do that quite a bit where they get an exhibit and they're so aggressive about moving to the next step and driving any math that might be necessary from the exhibit that's in front of you then you can move on to the next exhibit or next step [00:40:43] Aditya: right yeah which could be like the qualitative reasons for why this has been happening right or would you be quantitative [00:40:50] Speaker 1: could be could be anything right so I would be flexible in how you think about that [00:40:55] Aditya: great yeah yeah awesome thank you [00:40:57] Speaker 2: that's a wrap on this case if you're thinking right now that I need someone to do that for me that's exactly what our coaches do ish has helped hundreds of candidates land MVP offers if you want that kind of expert feedback on your own cases the first step is a 15 minute call with Katie she'll look at where you are in your prep look at your timeline and help you decide if black belt is the right fit for you no pressure just clarity you can book that call at the link in show notes thanks again for tuning in strategy simplified We'll catch you on the next episode.