Case types
Cases repeat in shapes. Each guide here takes one shape, works a full example end to end with the arithmetic shown, and names the step where the answer usually goes wrong. The numbers are recomputed by hand rather than asserted, and where a published case from a firm is used, both its figures and our recalculation appear side by side when they disagree.
43 guides.
Analytics Cases 2026: Why Precision Decides the Money
A churn model at 60 percent recall and 20 percent precision loses $2.916 million. Recall sets the size of a program and precision decides whether it pays.
Finance Cases in Consulting Interviews: The But-For Number
Three firms publish finance cases and none of them is a valuation. All three ask what would have happened otherwise, and that is where the arithmetic lives.
Growth Strategy Framework 2026: Direction, Then Route
The growth strategy framework in three decisions: the market test, the four direction cells, and the build, buy or partner route priced on capital per dollar.
Guesstimate Interview Questions: Count the Right Unit
Guesstimate questions fail on the unit and the geometry, never the arithmetic. A worked volume problem, a firm's own unit error, and a prompt that cannot close.
Pricing Strategy Cases 2026: Recomputed From Two Firms
Oliver Wyman publishes a pricing case with a range of one to seven. Bain compares a discount to a loyalty program. We recompute both and find where each flips.
Airline Cases 2026: Break-Even Load Factor, Worked
A route pair worked in seat kilometers, the two points of load factor that shift profit by 34 percent, and why a break-even load factor needs its yield.
Automotive Cases 2026: Plant Utilization Arithmetic
One assembly plant costed at five utilization rates the Federal Reserve publishes, plus the total cost of ownership ceiling McKinsey asks for in Talbot Trucks.
Banking Cases 2026: Two Rates and a Capital Ceiling
A retail bank case worked in basis points, where the profit is a spread between two published rates and the size of the balance sheet is capped by capital.
What Is a Break-Even Analysis? Three Firms Disagree
What is a break-even analysis? Fixed cost over contribution per unit gives a volume, and three published firm cases put different things above that line.
Marketing Cases 2026: Blended CAC Hides the Real Cost
A blended acquisition cost of $25 conceals a paid cost of $39.47, and an unmeasured retention rate decides whether either figure is affordable at all.
Operations Cases 2026: Find the Bottleneck, Then Size It
A three station line where a 20 percent gain at the wrong post buys nothing, the same gain at the constraint lifts profit 120 percent, and a second buys 1.9.
Software Cases 2026: Churn Sets the Ceiling, in Numbers
Two percent monthly churn caps this business at 10,000 customers and $90 million of ARR, whatever the sales team does. The arithmetic behind that ceiling.
Clarifying Questions 2026: The Test That Filters Them
L.E.K. puts clarifying questions first on all three prompts it publishes. The test for which ones earn the time, and a market sized twice to show the cost.
Consumer Goods Cases 2026: The Promotion Arithmetic
A 20 percent trade promotion on a 30 percent margin needs volume to triple before it pays, worked through with the published consumer goods case from ZS.
Cost Reduction Cases 2026: Find the Addressable Base
Why a 5 percent savings target is really a 6.7 percent cut, the Deloitte step that doubles your answer if you skip it, and a case that does not reconcile.
Customer Profitability: Cost to Serve Decides the Ranking
Customer profitability ranked two ways on one book of business: cost to serve, a cumulative profit curve that peaks at 114 percent, and four moves that work.
Digital Transformation Cases 2026: Payback in Year 5
A digital transformation case sold as a 24 percent cost cut pays back in 4.2 years once adoption is applied, against the 1.5 years its headline implies.
Energy Cases 2026: Spark Spread and Capacity Factor
A 500 MW gas plant worked in cents per kilowatt hour, the rate class that doubles the price, and why the capacity factor a plant needs can exceed 100 percent.
ESG Case Interviews 2026: Cost Per Metric Ton Avoided
An ESG prompt sets a tonnage target, so the metric is cost per metric ton avoided. Three levers priced from EPA and EIA data, and the ranking inverts.
Financial Services Cases 2026: Basis Points on a Stock
A wealth manager case where revenue is a fee on an asset stock, ten basis points of pricing decides the margin, and the cash sweep is a second business.
Fintech Cases 2026: A Take Rate Set by the Regulator
A debit program worked cent by cent from the Federal Reserve's own figures, where the revenue ceiling is written in a rule and a bigger basket adds nothing.
First Round vs Final Round 2026: What Is Published
One firm publishes a round structure and it is regional. Six eliminatory stages compound to 26 percent at a 0.8 pass rate, and that sets the priority.
Market Sizing Questions: What the Four Dimensions Score
Market sizing questions are graded on scope, assumption chain, arithmetic and sanity check. What each asks for, which one candidates lose, and a case rebuilt.
NPV in Case Interviews: The Discount Rate Decides It
Discount the same five cash flows at 7, 12 and 20 percent and the answer runs from plus 23 to minus 10. Worked factors, and the one published rate we found.
Economies of Scale 2026: The Ceiling on Margin Gains
Economies of scale defined, then the single formula that caps how far growth can lift margin, worked on two published cases with opposite cost structures.
Healthcare Cases 2026: The Per Member Per Month Trap
A health plan worked per member per month, where utilization is counted per thousand members a year and the loss ratio has a floor that punishes cutting cost.
Insurance Cases 2026: The Combined Ratio and the Float
A homeowners insurer worked from claim frequency up to a combined ratio of 98.2, then the float that keeps it earning at 104, and the price of ceded limit.
Life Sciences Cases 2026: An Installed Base and a Test
A diagnostics case priced per test rather than per instrument, against a Medicare fee schedule that can fall fifteen percent a year for three years running.
Non-Profit Cases 2026: Cost Per Beneficiary, Worked
McKinsey publishes a case whose client is a foundation. We work the benefit to 546 million pesos, then show why overhead ratio ranks two charities backwards.
Pharma Cases 2026: Doses, Patients and the Net Price
ZS's published SINHA pricing case recomputed, where price is quoted per dose, the payer counts patients, and the factor between the two units is twenty six.
Private Equity Cases 2026: Does the Asking Price Hold
Oliver Wyman's published dairy farm diligence, computed to the dollar, then priced over a five year hold to find the multiple a fund can actually pay.
Product Launch Case Interview 2026: Cannibalization
The product launch case interview branch candidates drop is a subtraction, and here it costs $5.32 million. The rate that kills the launch is 52.6 percent.
Public Sector Cases 2026: Cost Per Unit Of Output, Worked
A public agency has no price lever, so the metric is cost per unit delivered. Worked from the IRS Data Book: 70 dollars a filing and 56 cents per 100 collected.
Real Estate Cases 2026: The Cap Rate Does the Work
Deloitte's 45,000 square foot warehouse case valued three ways, why 100 basis points of cap rate matches a 10 percent rent rise, and what lease expiry costs.
Restructuring Cases 2026: The Thirteen Week Cash View
A weekly cash view where the average runway says 16 weeks and the real wall is week 10, plus the filing data showing liquidation outnumbers reorganization.
Retail Case Interview 2026: Three Ratios, One Call
An apparel chain case worked to the unit: markdown mix priced at 15 million dollars, the Census stock benchmark, and the sell-through the recommendation needs.
Revenue Decline Cases 2026: Market First, Then Price
An $18 million fall splits into a $62.4 million price gain, a $70 million volume loss and a $10.4 million cross term. The decomposition nobody writes out.
Revenue Growth Cases 2026: Three Levers, Three Prices
Ten percent on customers, frequency and price each adds $18.72 million of revenue at wildly different cost. The arithmetic that ranks them, worked by hand.
ROI and Payback Period in Consulting Case Interviews
A published firm case asks for both, computes only payback, and rejects a profitable venture. We finish the arithmetic and show where the two disagree.
Structured Thinking 2026: Three Firms, Three Rules
Kearney says do not force a framework, Simon-Kucher says frameworks help, L.E.K. contradicts itself in seven steps. What survives, with worked numbers.
Supply Chain Cases 2026: Costing by Driver, Worked
Oliver Wyman's Urban Grocers case recomputed line by line, the 9.4 percent cost rise that eats a 10 percent volume gain, and the unit label that slips in it.
TMT Cases 2026: Three Letters, Three Opposite Trends
Census data puts software up 14.7 percent and wired telecom down 2.5 percent in one quarter. A TMT prompt is three case types, each with its own denominator.
Unstructured Cases 2026: The L.E.K. Airplane Prompt
One firm publishes a case with no business in it and no answer. We count the airplanes, show why the count is 9 or 11, and give the rule that replaces it.