Frank’s Cheese Company

Bain Case Study Prompt

Frank’s cheese company has been producing very high quality cheese for distribution and sales in the upper east coast for over thirty years. Their main competition over these thirty years comes from Joe’s cheese company, which also produces very high quality cheese.

These two competitors have had a friendly rivalry over time and each holds about 30% share of market. Recently, Frank and Joe have seen their profits drop. Frank blames the decline in profits on increased advertising and promotional spending.

You have just a few minutes to determine if Frank is correct and suggest solutions.

How do you proceed?

Bain Case Study Overview

This Bain case study is a back-of-the-envelope style case. You’ve been asked to take a quick look at a cheese company’s declining profitability to determine the cause(s) of the decline.

The Profitability Framework is a good starting point for your structure. However, the best case interview candidates combine their knowledge of the basic frameworks and their business acumen to create a custom structure.

The case contains no math exhibits. With a qualitative difficulty score of 2/4, this Bain case study will set you up for a Bain first round.

Interview Tips at Bain

Bain is looking for practicality in its case interview candidates. The firm wants to see how you would react to and navigate complex business problems on the job. Are able to take a step back from the case, and into the real world?

In this case, keep the real-world application in mind when creating a structure – is it translatable to a real-world environment? Would you assign a team of analysts to the work-streams you created in your structure?

In addition, find 1 or 2 areas where you have room to grow in your casing skills. Work on those gap areas starting today.

Need some expert insight into your prep process? Schedule a session with an ex-MBB coach today.