Foundations
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Questions about the company
Pick the few that matter for this case — asking all of them wastes time.
- Results: how have revenue and profit moved over the last few years?
- Revenue: what are the main streams and their shares? Which cost lines are largest?
- Customers: who are they, how are they segmented, which segments are most profitable?
- Products: what is the mix, how do margins differ, do products cannibalise each other?
- Capabilities: capacity, channels, brand strength.
- Success: which metric, over which period, will the client use to judge the outcome?
Elements:
Questions about the market
Market questions tell you whether the client's problem is shared by everyone — which changes what you recommend.
- Size, growth and stage: is the market growing, mature or shrinking?
- Drivers: what decides who wins — price, quality, brand, convenience, technology?
- Players: who leads, with what share, and is anyone new entering?
- Change: new regulation, technology, mergers, shifts in customer behaviour?
- Barriers: what makes it hard to enter — or to leave?
- Substitutes and suppliers: what else could customers use, and who controls key inputs?
Elements: