Formal Meeting Two

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Boston University Management Consulting
Association
Formal Meeting Two 9/28/09
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Agenda

• BUMCA team
• Upcoming events
• Job resources
• Company profile
• Brain teaser
• Case practice and framework
• Question and answer

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• Officers
• Ashish Chopra- ashish16_at_bu.edu
• Ethan Delano- ejdelano_at_bu.edu
• David Frank- djfrank_at_bu.edu
• Natasha Mehta- natasham88_at_gmail.com
• Daniel Nickerson- daniel_at_hillary.com
• Website bumca.org

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• Upcoming events
• Marc Consentinos Case in Point
• School of communication auditorium
• Wed. 4-6 pm
• Author of Case in Point Complete Case Interview
  Preparation
• Give an inside look at case questions and share a
  system to answer the most sophisticated case
  questions

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Job Resources

• MiTRAC carrer services
• Events
• Campus interviews
• Jobs
• Career fair
• Vault
• Company profiles
• Industry information
• Employee surveys
• Salary information
• Hiring process
• Recruitment areas
• Career advice

• FCC
• Online
• Industry reports
• Job search help
• Amanda Peters
• Jane Outer
• Professor Molander
• BUMCA faculty advisor

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Cambridge Associates LLC

• Overview
• Headquarters Boston, MA
• Private company
• CEO Sandra A. Urie
• 7 offices
• Boston, MA (headquarters)
• Arlington, VA
• Dallas, TX
• London, England
• Menlo Park, CA
• Singapore
• Sydney, Australia
• 2008 employees 850

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Cambridge Associates LLC

• Range of work
• Investment Consultants
• Non-marketable alternative assets
• Marketable alternative assets
• Marketable manager research
• Consulting associates

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Cambridge Associates LLC

• Hiring
• Service 850 clients
• Boast a 51, client consultant ratio
• Currently hiring
• 3 rounds of interviews
• Include phone interviews
• Range of behavioral questions
• Young age of employees

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• Brain teaser
• How many golf balls can fit inside a school bus?

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• Answer
• Doesnt matter its the thought process behind
  the answer
• Ex. Length X width X height of bus (unit golf
  balls)- length can be determined by selecting a
  reasonable number of seats on bus (say 15),
  length seat would need to be to seat someone (3
  feet 15 seats 45 ft), diameter of golf ball
  about 2 inches, 6 golf balls per foot (45 ft X 6
  balls/foot 270 golf ball length.
• 270 golf balls width of bus, one seat can sit 3
  kids plus an aisle adult can walk down plus
  another seat across. Three kids equal about 6
  feet wide 3 foot aisle plus 6 feet seat 15
  feet X 6 balls/foot 90 golf ball width
• Height of bus about 9 feet (6 foot tall person
  stand and touch ceiling with hand up, 3 foot long
  arm 9 ft.) 9 ft. X 6 balls/foot 54 balls
  high, well say 50.
• 50 X 270 X 90 1,215,00 golf balls, adjust for
  stair way, space for seats, bus driver area

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• Case Practice

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PORTERS FIVE FORCE ANALYSIS
The factors listed on this sheet may be helpful
in thinking about the extent to which each of the
Five Forces is able to apply downward pressure on
industry average profits!

• Threat of Entry
• Factors that might matter include
• economies of scale
• lack of differentiation
• capital requirements
• cost to access distribution
• other cost disadvantages
• government policy
• break even point
• threat of retaliation

• Extent of Rivalry
• Factors that might matter include
• industry growth
• demand conditions (overcapacity)
• extent of exit barriers
• product differentiation
• brand identity
• industry concentration
• note you can measure industry concentration!

• Power of Suppliers
• Factors that might matter include
• supplier concentration (i.e. , is there a small
  of large suppliers?)
• differentiation of product (inputs)
• high switching costs
• few substitute inputs
• importance volume of supplier
• relative ability of suppliers to integrate
  forwards vs. ability of industry firms to
  integrate backwards

• Power of Buyers
• Factors that might matter include
• price sensitivity
• bargaining leverage
• buyer concentration vs. industry concentration
• buyer volume
• buyer switching costs
• price/total purchases
• product differences
• brand identity
• switching costs
• relative ability of buyers to backwards integrate
  vs. ability of industry firms to forward
  integrate

• Threat of Substitutes
• Factors that might matter include
• relative price performance of substitutes
• relative value of substitutes
• similarity of substitutes to industry products
• improvements in substitutes technology
• switching costs
• number of substitutes
• ability to access customers / distributors
• competitive conditions in substitutes industries