PWC普华永道面试案例case整理(两个案例)

PricewaterhouseCoopers
CASE DISCUSSION
BUSINESS CASE
Interview Case Study #1
Roane & Hickey, Inc.
You have been recently hired into the Strategic Change (SC) group, a business unit of PricwaterhouseCoopers. SC is the strategy thought leader in PwC. The engagement partner in Consumer Products has come to SC to help develop a strategy for Roane & Hickey, Inc. (R&H). This engagement has the potential of positioning PwC to R&H and its parent conglomerate for the next five, possible ten years.
Company Background
R&H is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a multi-national conglomerate. The conglomerate owns ten companies operating in the U.S. R&H is the largest of the ten. R&H is a consumer goods company distributing well-known branded products through grocery, drug, mass merchant and club channels. With $4 billion in revenues in the U.S., R&H is one of the top three players in the consumer goods industry. The company has been marginally profitable over the past ten years. Last year the company made a profit due largely to an accounting change.
Although R&H only operates in the U.S., it owns several manufacturing and distribution facilities around the world to support its production and distribution systems. R&H takes advantage of lower labor costs in Mexico, Canada and Southeast Asia to lower its manufacturing costs. R&H still maintains three plants in the U.S. Because of the over-capacity that R&H
has experienced, R&H has negotiated deals with sister companies overseas to manufacture and direct-ship product.
R&H has four market segments that operate as profit centers. The market segments are: Personal Hygiene, Consumer Tissue, Soaps and Detergents and Personal Care. Even though the revenues are roughly evenly divided among all four market segments, Personal Care contributes 90% of the company's profits. In Personal Care, R&H owns the two top branded products, in the other categories the company has the number two brand, and in one segment, number three. R&H has committed to building a consumer franchise through aggressive advertising and in-store merchandising support.
Industry Trends
In the U.S., brands are under attack from private labels, who are now competing on both price and quality. Brands are looking to justify their price premiums. The value of being the number one brand cannot be taken lightly. The return on sales of the top brand is almost twice that of the number two brand. The return on sales for the number two brand is twice that of the number three brand.
The power of the retail industry in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the past five years. The retailers are driving additional costs upon manufacturers. With established products, retailers are demanding a minimal level of turns per year. With new products, retailers are demanding slotting fees and ever-increasing promotional support. Product managers are forced to achieve current product revenue and market share goals while stimulating demand for new products. Many industry experts feel that there will be consolidation of brands within many of the market segments in which R&H competes and, as a result of this brand consolidation, that R&H will lose critical sales mass and become a major casualty.
In the last two years the allocation of marketing dollars has changed dramatically; trade promotion has risen to 40% of total marketing spending, consumer promotion has climbed slightly and advertising has declined. Industry analysts have pointed to R&H's trade promotion strategy as being the catalyst for the growth in trade promotion in the industry as competitors have been forced to respond.
R&H is widely regarded as a retail-oriented company. With a sales force that is twice the size of anyone else's in the industry, R&H has forged great retail
relationships over the years. R&H traditionally had the best order fill rate in the business; however, recently some of the efforts to reduce inventory has caused shortages in key promoted products.
R&H Organization
There are six Executive Vice Presidents (EVPs) in R&H responsible for functional areas. All the EVPs report to the President, who is also CEO. The Executive Vice Presidents represent Marketing, Sales, Finance, Manufacturing, Engineering and Human Resources. The EVP of Finance has responsibility for financial reporting and analyses as well as managing Procurement, Deployment, Scheduling and Logistics. All the market segment managers report directly to the Executive Vice President of Marketing.
Much of the blame for the performance of the company over the last ten years fell on the shoulders of the former president. It was whispered that he was from the "old school" and could not change his ways. The new president of R&H, an American, joined the company six months ago. He was the Executive Vice President of an important European division of a sister company. The conglomerate has always prided itself on being able to leverage its
multi-national resources.
Current Situation
Venn Teldren, the Executive Vice President of Finance, is considered to be a brilliant man by many in the industry. Born and raised in Europe, Mr. Teldren rose quickly through the organization. However, because of his outspoken nature, he angered enough senior level executives ("showed up" as Mr. Teldren would say) that he has never received a position of president, even though his name is mentioned every time an opening appears.
Recently the vice chairperson of the conglomerate responsible for the group in which R&H is a member, sat down with the R&H President and EVPs. The vice chairperson stated that the company needed to improve performance within one year. He offered a couple of scenarios of what the conglomerate was considering in the event that the management failed to improve profitability.
Scenario 1: Drop unprofitable brands and reduce the size of the company
Scenario 2: Merge the company with a sister company that has similar
distribution requirements and have proven profitability
Recent Initiatives
R&H has recently taken part in an industry-wide study called Efficient Customer Response or ECR. The study found that an industry-wide effort to develop more efficient trade practices and delivery systems could save an aggregated $30 billion dollars a year. PwC assisted R&H in this study. All the EVPs agree that there are huge dollar savings that can be achieved with efficiency improvements.
Venn believes that the supply chain (i.e., Procurement, Manufacturing, Deployment, Scheduling, Logistics, and Warehousing) can become a strategic advantage for the company if it can outperform its competitors. PwC studies have shown that improvements cannot be made without the input or the support of all the functional areas of the company, especially Marketing and Sales. The EVPs from Marketing and Sales do not always see the Supply Chain as key players; in fact, the EVPs of Marketing and Sales see the Supply Chain as only a vendor to them.
Venn knows that the results of the ECR initiative may not be enough to rally support among the EVPs. Venn knows that whatever strategy is accepted needs to define the roles of each of the EVPs and to provide an outlet for each EVP to demonstrate his and her skills. He is also aware that the other EVPs are very conscious of the growth of Venn's power. Each EVP will initiate a project with the assumption that the architect of the solution to R&H's current situation will be in position for the next presidency.
The EVP of Human Resource has championed the need to implement a whole new way of envisioning the company working together. She has envisioned a flatter organization and has spent years developing studies with another leading consultancy to support her vision. She has a strong supporter in the EVP of Sales. The present EVP of Sales was originally from Human Resources. Her vision has always entailed an extensive re-structuring and re-training effort.
The EVP of Engineering feels that the company needs to invest in its new product capability. The strategy is to acquire smaller, regional companies that are producing differentiated products. "We can absorb them into us and stimulate our new product pipeline," he stated. "With these new, regionally proven products, we can fill capacity and leverage our distribution and sales
strength. I can also energize my area with fresh ideas. It's win-win, no doubt about it."
The EVP of Manufacturing is sick and tired of hearing that manufacturing is the problem. He points to the fact that they re producing and shipping three times the product they were five years ago with the same number of people they had eight years ago. If things don't change in other areas, then things won't change in Manufacturing, other than the inability to support the orders coming in.
The EVP of Marketing believes that a combination of re-structuring and acquisition is needed. He wants to reduce the salesperson's role with the retailer and focus on consumer spending behind a "high quality" message grounded in tangible product benefits across all product segments. He wants to broaden the product mix with new products from acquisition.
The Engagement
Venn has mentioned to Gary Forstman, the PwC engagement partner, that he is willing to devote the necessary resources in his functional areas to prove out the right strategy to the other EVPs. Venn has also indicated that the company is willing to devote significant resources and capabilities to the right effort. "All the EVPs know," he said, "that there will be whole-scale changes if the company doesn't turn itself about."
Mr. Forstman has called Grady Means, ISS SBU leader and partner, and said, "This is PricewaterhouseCoopers’ first major engagement with R&H after several years of smaller engagements where we were able to demonstrate our ability to implement solutions. Now we have an opportunity to really shine. The company is re-evaluating its strategic position and has asked several consulting firms to talk to them." Grady discussed the situation with ISS partner, Michael Hanley, and they agreed that you would be a great person to work on this project. You receive a call from Grady. Hello, How are you doing? After exchanging pleasantries, Grady explains the situation to you. "We need some dynamic thinking on this one. I know Venn Teldren from years ago. Venn is going to be all over us if we don't get this right. What's important is that we show Venn that we have a vision of where the company needs to go, how the parts fit together and how they are going to get there. What is important is that our analysis is fact-based. We need to be ready to say to Venn, "This is the situation, this is the problem, this is the solution and this is step one, step two, step three on what you need to do
tomorrow." This is a big opportunity for us and I'm counting on you. See what you can come up with by this time next week. Feel free to call Michael or myself with any questions. Okay, talk to you soon.
Questions
1. What is your assessment of the present situation?
2. What are the key areas for change? Why do you believe so?
3. What do you envision your product to be in a week?
4. What type of additional information would you want?
5. What type of analysis do you believe needs to be performed?
6. Do you have an idea concerning the analytical structure?
7. What type of framework might you envision for this strategy?
8. What are the key elements you would include in designing a strategy?
9. What are the key elements you would include in implementing a strategy?
10. What is your assessment concerning R&H's ability to implement a strategy?
11. What are some key performance indicators that you would suggest?
12. What are the key issues between the Supply Chain and other areas of the company
(such as Marketing and Sales) that must be addressed?
13. What are some ways that improvements in the Supply Chain will impact
the other areas of the company, especially Marketing and Sales?
14. How does Supply Chain effect the value of the company's brands?
15. What are the risks that the PwC team faces in this engagement?
PricwaterhouseCoopers
CASE DISCUSSION
BUSINESS/STRATEGY
Interview Case Study #2
Telekenesis Inc.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has recently proposed on, and appears to have won, a major engagement to create an information technology strategy for Telekenesis. PricwaterhouseCoopers has worked for Telekenesis in the past, but has not done any significant work for over a year and a half. This is PricwaterhouseCoopers' first substantial engagement with the company.
Company Background
Telekenesis was formed in 1992 by executives from four former Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) and two principals in Silicon Valley technology start-ups. One of the principals is from a start-up company that pioneered a new kind of wireless propagation technology.
Telekenesis was founded on the principle that the current telecommunications industry is populated with companies who are almost congenitally incapable of optimizing their form of organization and culture to meet the competitive challenges of the 1990s. The founders believe that local loop technology, which relies on communication devices which are peers in a large technology community, where every device has a permanent and unchangeable identification, is the silver bullet of the telecommunications industry, and that the RBOCs are not ready or willing to exploit it. Local loop technology (LLT) is considered by RBOC management to be radical, unproven and unreliable.
Telekenesis Inc. is modestly profitable, with $131,000,000 in sales and approximately 200,000 customers spread out over four adjacent, mostly rural geographies. Approximately 90% of its sales come from four small local telephone companies. The company's strategy is to use the operating experience and customer positioning of the four local telephone companies to develop and implement local loop wireless service or LLWS (often pronounced "laws"). The concept behind this service is based on the fact that the current phone companies control wiring to and from a central office facility. This facility is in effect a big switching box. The central office acts like a big hub with many spokes radiating from it. LLWS eliminates the central office and substitutes simple, unobtrusive, premises wireless relay equipment. There is at least one local loop server facility that is somewhat analogous to a central office but not needed to maintain service. The server facility is used to monitor quality and provide a trap for billing.
Local loop wireless services are fully integrated. They include telephonic communication as well as cellular, pager, on-demand video, and "highway" services. Highway services permit companies within the local loop to communicate with each other as if they were on a large universal local area network. Computers located in both home and office are immediately interconnected by the local loop. Importantly, there are literally no wires involved in
any of these services (except of course for plugging into the wall to get electricity). Physical customer hook-ups are non-existent. Customers are granted access, and services and information are secured through software interfaces in LLWS devices, such as television sets, laptop computers, pagers, etc. Telekenesis has a number of arrangements with software and hardware vendors to create LLWS devices.
Understandably, the industry discounts LLWS as another "high tech California fantasy." Bell Core engineers, while acknowledging the future potential of local loop technology, dispute Telekenesis's claims that the bandwidth and quality is actually present in production, commercially available products to be installed in the real world.
Telekenesis' doctrine is to completely convert all 200,000 current subscribers of the four local phone companies at once, with no phase in. Each of the four local companies will be converted separately.
Telekenesis bought the four local phone companies in order to have large scale pilot sites for local loop wireless services. Telekenesis' fundamental business proposition is that the changing regulatory landscape will allow it to compete with local Bell telephone companies, providing a higher performance, lower cost alternative to the existing local phone companies for local and long-distance telephone service, paging, cable t.v., and cellular phones.
Industry Trends
The early 1980s were a time of turmoil for the telecommunications industry. For the first time in history, AT&T was deregulated and lost its monopoly status. This meant competition for AT&T where none had existed before. Long-distance was the arena of competition.
"Telecommunications" includes much more than simply making a phone-call. It encompasses cable television service and network connectivity which brings interactive television, shopping forums, education and information services into the home. The phone lines that the telecommunications companies control enable computers to communicate from remote locations, and can gather information from databases and news services around the world within seconds.
The possibilities for profits in this arena are practically limitless, and the sphere of competition is expanding. Up to 1994, only long-distance carriers were in competition, but local calling areas are going to be opened up for competition in the late 1990s.
Telekenesis Organization
There are currently three business units: 1) residential, which is divided into the "plain vanilla" customers that have only one phone line into the house and no add-ons such as cellular phones, pagers, additional lines, etc. and 2) residential customers who have add-on services and are good candidates for taking advantage of the new technology; and 3) small business. Each of Telekenesis's business units has a President who reports to the CEO. In addition, R&D and Technology Assurance, essentially a quality management program, also
report directly to the CEO. Telekenesis is tightly controlled by the principals who founded the company and all the senior positions just described are held by the founders.
There are really no Corporate functional areas such as Finance, Purchasing, Distribution, and Human Resources. These functions exist in the original phone companies as they did before the companies were acquired. An outsider with the title of Chief Financial Officer runs the Corporate functional area. She had a brief tenure as the CFO of an RBOC. The Technology Assurance Group helps support the existing communications and networking infrastructure.
Telekenesis Current Situation
PricewaterhouseCoopers was retained because of their knowledge of the RBOCs and an audit relationship with the four local phone companies. They were retained by Telekenesis for special start-up services, legal and regulatory counsel and assistance in dealing with obtaining additional venture capital financing. Because of the technology nature of Telekenesis, the PricwaterhouseCoopers Financial Advisory Services partner contacted IT Strategic Services. The Firm has now been asked to deal with the operational dimensions of Telekenesis as it commences detailed tactical planning for LLWS activation. Another management consulting firm is providing some business strategy consulting to Telekenesis.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has been asked to propose on three major stages of work: 1) process vision; 2) tactical doctrine; 3) infrastructure and value. These are meant to give Telekenesis "process efficacy." This is their language.
The current company is, in effect, the combination of the four small southern telephone companies that were acquired and are now operated by Telekenesis. However, except for top management, the vast majority of employees of the telephone companies were retained, as were the administrative and operational support systems. Some of those employees are very excited to be able to participate in this opportunity, but a lot of the old timers are dubious and apprehensive.
All telephone company processes and functions are essentially the same as before the acquisition by Telekenesis. Telekenesis concentrated on establishing a simple, "no frills" system for collecting financial and operating information on the telephone companies but did virtually nothing to change the actual operations of the companies.
Marley and Cratchet (the two silicon valley entrepreneurs) expect that the consultant selected will be able to bring fresh creative ideas to the process of what they term is "...creating a 21st Century company for a 21st Century business." Included in their definition of process efficacy is the notion of "enterprise extensibility," or put more simply put the capability to seamless team with external suppliers in a variety of value-adding, integrative relationships that can be episodic or persistent. Particularly important is the aspect of Telekenesis strategy in which vendors will provide LLWS compatible devices to customers who will pay a one-time $15 fee for the equipment.
All four Telekenesis executives expect that the process efficacy initiatives will include information systems and technology strategy and planning. They want the consultant to
provide a guaranteed "operational profile" that states that the recommended configuration of hardware and software, costing $xx and operational by 19yy will be able to support the local loop wireless service business.
There are four distinct flavours of legacy systems across the four companies. Hardware and software is different, with three of the companies having an IBM mainframe in addition to other computers. Telekenesis installed IMRS on a high end x486 computer to provide financial consolidation and reporting of the four companies. Spreadsheet disks prepared at month end are FedExed to Telekenesis home office in Bernardsville, New Jersey and loaded into IMRS.
Questions
Do you believe you have enough information to develop an Business/IT strategy for this client? If no, what additional information would you require?
What skills would the consulting team need to successfully complete this engagement? How would you structure the work for this engagement?
What are the risks that Telekenesis faces?
Should PwC guarantee an "operational profile"? If so, should there be any caveats included in the guarantee?
What types of business processes will be needed?
How would you integrate the processes of the four existing local phone companies and Telekenesis?
What kinds of information systems will the company require?
Where can PwC add the most value in the engagement? (i.e., of all the items that Telekenesis requested assistance with, where should we focus?)。