Case interview examples › Growth strategy
Growth strategy case interviews
A client wants to grow, has stopped growing or is losing ground to a rival. You find where the next growth comes from and which option to back.
How a growth strategy case runs
These cases are open on purpose: “how can the client double revenue in five years?” or “a new competitor is taking share, what should we do?”. The interviewer is testing whether you can lay out the options without missing a large one, then narrow them with data rather than opinion.
Expect a brainstorm early and, later, a comparison of two or three options with figures for each. The recommendation names one option, the size of the prize and the first step. Competitive-response cases sit here too: before choosing a response, size the threat.
A structure to start from
Where does growth come from?
- The core business
- More customers
- More from each customer
- Keeping customers longer
- Next to the core
- New products for current customers
- Current products for new customers or regions
- New businesses
- Diversify
- Acquire or partner
- Defending what it has
- Answer a competitor
- Change the business model
Work from the core outwards. Growth close to what the client already does is cheaper and more likely to succeed, so a good answer exhausts the core before reaching for something new. Then test each option on three things: how big it is, how likely the client is to win it, and how fast it pays.
The maths it tests
- Compound annual growth rate
- Doubling in five years needs about 15% a year; in seven, about 10%.
- Revenue gap = target − current path
- Size what the current business delivers on its own, then how much each option must add.
- Return on investment and payback
- Compare options on the same basis, over the same years.
- Share lost to a competitor × margin
- The size of the threat, before you choose how hard to respond.
Where candidates lose marks
- A brainstorm with no structure, which reads as a list of ideas rather than a set of options.
- Picking the most exciting option instead of the largest or most likely.
- Leaving options unsized, so the recommendation rests on opinion.
- Ignoring whether the client has the people, money and capabilities the option needs.
Growth strategy cases to practise
- AquaFresh Foundation AquaFresh, an established laundry chain, is losing ground to new market entrants — where should it look for its next stage of growth?
- Harborgate Works Foundation Harborgate Works must redeploy the fifth of its converted-warehouse office portfolio left empty by the hybrid-work shift — and find the growth plan again.
- Pacific Ridge Cable Foundation Pacific Ridge Cable is reviewing whether to remain in or exit one of its Taiwanese cable TV markets.
- Petrolia Fuels Foundation Petrolia Fuels is responding to BigCart, a grocery chain that just opened six fuel stations with discounted fuel for big spenders — quantify the damage and decide the response.
- Northline Fiber Intermediate NorthLine Fiber, a regional fiber-to-the-home broadband operator, must decide how to spend its next capital cycle: deepen penetration in wired towns, build into three new corridor towns, or open new revenue platforms on the network.
- SynergyHealth Intermediate A private health insurance administrator in a developing country is adopting Synergy Health’s digital tool to improve claims data quality and cut processing times — how should adoption grow?
- CobaltDesk Intermediate CobaltDesk, a mid-market IT service-management suite, is losing head-to-head deals to an AI-native helpdesk entrant for the first time — size the threat and pick the response.
- Aurora Energy Initiative Intermediate Aurora, a developing economy, wants to establish a green hydrogen manufacturing sector from almost nothing — what would it take, and where should it start?
- SwiftCart Advanced SwiftCart focuses on helping an ecommerce company improve its return on its digital marketing investments.
Other case types
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