Case Interviews
What changes when a case interview is about the public sector or an NGO?
I'm preparing for MBB interviews in the Middle East and want to practise public-sector and NGO cases. Do I need a completely different way of approaching them, or do the usual case skills still apply? What should I pay attention to beyond the normal business considerations?
Ian’s Answer
Approach / Case Types
Public sector cases are tricky because they can feasibly be any case type (Product Launch - new service for citizens; M&A - merging two departments; even Profitability - cost cutting mandate). For any public sector case, I recommend:
First identifying the type of case it is.
Second, leverage your knowledge of the public sector as constraints/considerations.
Considerations/Constraints
Regards #2, you know that public perception is particularly important to consider in any public sector move. Additionally, you can count on bureacracy/slowness in implementation. You should identify the goal/mission of the organisation as well and keep this top of mind (if it loses money, but achieves it's goal of helping the poor, no problem). Howvever, just because the government sector doesn't have profit as a target, doesn't mean you should ignore the profit tree altogether - governments are still obliged to take into costs (and sometimes revneues) in decisions (example: setting up a public transport initiative). Don't get tricked into thinking you can't consider the economics of the case!
Other items to consider include, but are not limited to:
Politlcal landscape (i.e. upcoming elections, special interest groups)
Sustainability
Private-public partnerships
International vs governmental vs state vs local partnerships/alignment
Income = taxes/budgetary landscape
Digitialization of government