Session 17: Deregulation Cases

If consulting cases would be grouped into seasons, deregulation cases would be Halloween – they scare everyone!

We use deregulation cases to show candidates that just because something appears intimidating, it does not mean it should always have fancy structures or approaches. Logic dictates that the best approach be used to solve a case, even when that structure is really simple.

Deregulation cases can cover a wide range of sectors so they make for very interesting, and challenging, discussions: telecoms, water, electricity, gas, banking, aviation, rail, and media etc.

In fact just about every sector has been regulated at some point and therefore had to undergo deregulation. A deregulation case is very simple as long as we understand that the entire market is going to be affected, and the deregulation is going to force a few pivotal changes. The candidate’s job is to identify those changes, understand the impact of the changes on the clients business, and ultimately generate a list of options to respond to the deregulation.

Concluding cases is easy. At this point we teach Samantha how to generate options for the client once she has identified the problem. She needs to, thereafter, develop criteria to evaluate the options and finally give a recommendation while paying careful attention to implementation challenges. The latter is poorly done by most candidates and visibly taken for granted.

In the session descriptions which follow, we are using one description for 4 different candidates. Yet candidates do not perform the same, and while the descriptions are mostly accurate, there will be some differences as a few cases are brought forward, others moved back or candidates fail to prepare adequately. While these differences are minor, they sometimes occur.

Cases questions taught in the session:

Felix’s cases recorded in the session; Education trend hypotheses development, Brainstorm options available to the executive in the previous case, Asian auto deregulation case, Pharmaceutical contraceptives pricing case, BCG healthcare sector data interpretation & one-Sentence test.

Sanjeev’s cases recorded in the session; Telecoms trend hypotheses development, Brainstorm how a Telco can sweat its assets more aggressively, Brainstorm why a Telco would want to sweat its assets more aggressively, Estimate the volume of data AT&T transmits per day/iPhone in the USA, Oil & Gas article discussion, US Telecom’s deregulation case, BCG Telco sector data interpretation & One-sentence test.