product case study framework

Top 7 case interview frameworks (and how to create your own)

Today we're going to cover the top case interview frameworks, as well as how you can create your own custom frameworks. 

Understanding frameworks has always been critical for the 8,000+ candidates who we've helped with consulting interview preparation. 

And one of the first things you'll want to know is that you should AVOID using pre-made frameworks, like those recommended in Case in Point and in Victor Cheng's LOMS programme. But more on that later. 

Let's start with the list of top frameworks.

Top 7 frameworks for case interviews

• 1. Profitability
• 3. Porter's 5-forces
• 5. Market entry
• 7. Merger and acquisition

Don't reuse pre-existing frameworks

How to create custom frameworks, click here to practise 1-on-1 with mbb ex-interviewers, 1. profitability framework.

The   profitability framework   is the most basic framework in business analysis. It simply breaks down profit into its basic revenue and cost components and is commonly used to identify the root cause of profitability issues.

• Revenue   can simply be broken down into the Number of Units Sold x Price Per Unit.
• Costs   can be broken down into Variable and Fixed Costs. And Variable Costs can be further broken down into the Number of Units Produced x Cost Per Unit.

2. The 4Ps framework

The   4Ps framework   is widely used by company executives to design their marketing strategy. There are different variations of this framework, which is also sometimes referred to as the “Marketing mix” framework, but the 4Ps is the most common one.

This framework is commonly used when launching a new product or when reviewing the positioning of an existing product.

• Product : What are the key characteristics of the product sold? Key elements of the product definition could include: customer need fulfilled by product, product usage (E.g. who, where, how, etc.), good vs. service, product lifecycle (new vs. established), competing products and substitutes, etc.
• Price : At what price should the product be sold? Different considerations need to be taken into account here: the customer perceived value of the product, the price of competitive products, the customer price sensitivity, the cost of producing the product, etc.
• Promotion : Which promotion strategies should be used to sell the product? Key elements to consider include: promotion messages, media type (E.g. TV, social media, radio, etc.), best time to promote, competitors’ strategies, etc.
• Place : Through which channels should the product be distributed? Key elements to consider include: possible channels to distribute the product (E.g. in store, web, mail-to-order, etc.), customer expectations in terms of channel, requirement of a sales team or not, competitors’ strategies, etc.

3. Porter's 5 forces

Porter’s 5 forces  is a framework commonly used by CEOs to explore the competitive dynamics of industries. Indeed not all industries are structured the same way.

Some industries are really hard to get into (E.g. banking) while others have very low barriers to entry (E.g. newspapers).

Suppliers have strong bargaining power in some industries (E.g. high-end medical equipment) but little power in others (E.g. small milk producer), etc.

Understanding these dynamics is extremely important when you're considering entering a new industry or when assessing the competitive dynamics of the industry a company is already in.

• Bargaining power of customers : How much bargaining power do customers have? If there is only one buyer but multiple suppliers, then that buyer will be at a strong advantage. Key elements to consider here include: customer concentration (percentage of industry revenues from Top 3 buyers), customer price sensitivity, customer information availability, etc.
• Bargaining power of suppliers : How much bargaining power do suppliers have? Similarly to the previous point, if there is only one supplier but multiple buyers, then that supplier will be at a strong advantage. Key elements to consider include: concentration of suppliers (percentage of industry revenues to Top 3 suppliers), difficulty of switching from one supplier to another, differentiation between suppliers, etc.
• Threat of substitutes : What are the substitutes for the product and are they increasingly popular? As a reminder, water is a substitute for Coke while Pepsi is a competitive product for Coke. Key elements to consider here include: potential new substitutes, ease of substitution, evolution of customer propensity to substitute, etc.
• Threat of new entrants : How difficult is it to enter the industry for potential new players? Key elements to consider here include: regulation authorisations, capital requirements, economies of scale, network effects, etc.
• Existing rivals : How competitive are existing rivals in the industry? Key elements to consider include: number of competitors and their market shares, similarity between their products and products of the firm analysed, financial health of competitors, etc.

4. 3Cs framework

The   3Cs framework   is also commonly used to put together strategies for companies. As you will notice below, a lot of its components overlap with the Porter’s 5 forces.

• Customers : Who is the customer? Key elements to consider include: customer demographics (E.g. age, sex, income, etc.), customer needs, customer segments' size and growth rates, customer willingness to pay and price sensitivity, etc.
• Competition : What are the competitive dynamics? Key elements to consider include: competitors’ value proposition and brand, competitors’ market share and growth, competitors’ financial health, etc.
• Company : What defines the company? Key elements to consider include: product offering, profitability, core competencies, unique selling point, financial performance and resources, etc.

5. Market entry framework

The   market entry framework   is commonly used to make decisions on whether a company should enter a new market or not.

For instance, you could use it to decide if Starbucks should enter the Chinese market, or if Nike should enter the sports broadcasting business.

• Market : What are the characteristics of the market we are trying to enter? Key elements to consider include:   market size  and profitability, products already available in the market, intensity of the competition, heaviness of the regulation, etc.
• Client capabilities : Does the client have the right capabilities to enter that new market? Key elements to consider include: differences between the client's current market and the new one they are now targeting, number of times client has entered new markets and achieved success, other companies already in the new market, etc.
• Financials : Does it make financial sense to enter the new market? Key elements to consider include: current financial situation of the client, cost to enter the new market, ongoing costs once the market is entered, expected revenues and return on investment, etc.
• Entry strategy : How should the client go about entering the new market? Key elements to consider include: timing of market entry (now vs. delay), speed of market entry (test region vs. whole country), opportunity to buy competitor or do a JV, management approach (control from HQ vs. decentralise), etc.

6. Pricing case framework

Companies always face a difficult issue when launching a new product or service. What should its price be? The   pricing framework   is extremely helpful for answering that question.

• Cost-based : What price do we need to set to cover all our costs? Key elements to consider include: fixed costs and their allocation across products, variable costs and number of units produced / sold, profitability targeted, etc.
• Value-based : How much are customers willing to pay for our product? Key elements to consider include: price of the next best alternative to our product, features that make our product better than the next best alternative, value of these features, etc.
• Competitor-based : What is the competition charging for similar products? Key elements to consider include: available substitute products from the competition, price of these substitute products, value of our product vs. substitutes, etc.
• Overall strategy : Given the elements above, what should our pricing strategy be? Key elements to consider include: objective of the pricing strategy (E.g. high profitability or high market share), opportunities for upsell / cross-sell that should be taken into account (E.g. Kindle and ebooks), possibility to sell different versions of the same product (E.g. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro), etc.

7. Merger and acquisition framework

Finally, the   merger and acquisition framework   is used when companies are looking to acquire or merge with competitors.

These situations are not very frequent in a CEO's life, but they are highly stressful, which is one reason why consultants are often asked to support such initiatives.

• The market : What are the characteristics of the target company's market? Key elements to consider include:   market size  and growth, market profitability and intensity of the competition, market regulation, etc.
• The target : How attractive is the target to be acquired? Key elements to consider include: current and future financial position of the target, important assets or capabilities owned by the target, quality of the target's management team, target / buyer culture fit, etc.
• The buyer : What's driving the buyer to make the acquisition? Key elements to consider include: acquisition rationale (E.g. target undervalued, etc.), acquisition financing, buyer's acquisition experience, acquisition timing, etc.
• Synergies and risks : What are the acquisition synergies and risks? Key elements to consider include: value of individual and combined entities, cost synergies, revenue synergies, biggest risks of failure, etc.

Once you are generally familiar with frameworks, the question becomes: how do you actually use frameworks in case interviews?

There are a lot of opinions about how you should do this on the Internet. But the two main schools of thought are   Marc Cosentino’s Case In Point   and   Victor Cheng’s LOMS .

But both of these methods share the same flaw: they try to force pre-defined frameworks onto cases. In our experience, this is bound to produce average results because all cases are unique.

Not convinced? Let's cover each of these two popular methods in more detail. 

Why NOT to use the Case In Point frameworks

In Case In Point, Marc Cosentino attempts to classify case interviews into 10+ categories and then suggests that candidates should memorise a specific framework for each of them.

This is an interesting exercise as it exposes you to a range of business problems and helps you think about them in different ways. However, in our experience, learning 10+ frameworks is difficult and time consuming.

More importantly, in live case interviews, trying to recognise one of the 10+ case categories and then remembering the associated framework is a real nightmare!

Instead of focusing on solving the problem at hand, you end up trying to remember a framework that will not even perfectly fit the case you are solving. In our experience, the best candidates avoid this strategy.

Why NOT to use Victor Cheng's LOMS frameworks

In his LOMS programme, Victor Cheng advocates for a much simpler method and suggests you should only learn two frameworks: the profit framework for profitability cases, and a general framework for all other cases (Product, Consumer, Company, Competition).

The benefit of this approach is its simplicity. It gives you a starting point that’s easy to remember when you are putting a framework together.

However, in our experience, this approach has a fatal drawback. In practice, there aren’t that many profitability cases, and you basically always end up using the general framework.

Even if you adapt this general framework, it won't be perfectly tailored to the case you are trying to solve. More importantly, your interviewer will quickly realise that you are using a pre-made framework and that will reflect negatively on you.

Why to create custom frameworks instead

A good framework is a bit like a tailor-made suit: it is adapted to the problem you are trying to solve, the company, the industry, and it is also as   MECE   as possible.

If you use pre-existing frameworks, you run the risk of missing important elements of the specific problem you are trying to solve. In real life, consultants rarely use pre-defined frameworks. They are familiar with them, but they do not directly re-use them as-is on projects.

Instead, they create a customised framework or   issue tree  that addresses the specific details of each case.  To do so, they rely on conversations with their client as well as past experiences.

This might sound intimidating, but the good news is that creating custom frameworks is actually much simpler than you might think. 

Now, let's turn our attention to HOW you can create your own custom frameworks during case interviews. 

Here's a brief summary of the steps you'll need to take:

Summary - IGotAnOffer method (framework development questions)

• Step 1: Ask for time to gather your thoughts
• Step 2: Create the framework
• Extract the main elements from the case question
• Break down the main elements into components
• Step 3: Communicate the framework

Spin your paper around

• Begin with an overview

Highlight 3-5 considerations for each branch

Summarise your points, prioritise next steps.

Now let's cover these steps in more detail. We'll also be digging into a real case example below, in order to illustrate the framework creation process.

1. Ask for time to gather your thoughts

Regardless of the case you get, you should always ask your interviewer for some time to gather your thoughts, before you begin to develop the framework. 

This is a normal part of the interview process. Your interviewers will expect you to ask, and they'll almost always give you this time. 

But don't get carried away! 

For reference, you should only take 30-60 seconds to quietly think-through your framework. We recommend that you also sketch out your framework on a piece of paper during this time, as that will help you to organise your thoughts more clearly. 

Without practise, it's really difficult to estimate how long 30-60 seconds actually is, so we highly recommend that you practice this process with a stopwatch. This exercise will help you get a clear idea of how much time you're actually using. 

2. Create the framework

During that 30-60 second time window, you'll need to do the real work of crafting your framework. 

The essence of framework creation is actually quite simple. A framework takes the business situation presented in the case, and breaks it into smaller "bite size" pieces. 

By isolating the various components of a case, you'll be able to better identify the root cause of an issue, or find the best opportunities for improving the underlying business. 

And the best way to develop your framework creation skills is with practice on realistic case problems, so let's walk through an example together. 

Star Production case example

In this case we need to analyse the short-term profitability of a movie production company. So, you would begin crafting your framework by thinking about the different factors that would contribute to the company's overall profits.

The first two components of this framework are fairly straightforward: revenues and costs. That's because the profitability of any company is determined by a combination of their revenues and costs.

Then, we can further deconstruct both revenues and costs based on our knowledge (or perhaps some assumptions) of the movie production business. And as you break down the components further, it's important to consider the concept of MECE, which stands for Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive.

In simple terms, MECE means that you should aim to have a framework where the branches do NOT overlap with each other, and where the framework is comprehensive (i.e. no branches are missing). You can learn more about this in our separate   MECE guide . 

Now here's an example of what your draft framework might look like for the Star Production case: 

As you can see in the example above, we've broken down the revenues and costs into specific components that would make sense for a movie production business.

And we've used bullet points to highlight the information we would need in order to determine how each individual item contributes to the overall revenues or costs of the business.

For example, we would need to know the expected ticket sales, the average ticket price, and the share of the ticket revenue that Star Production would be entitled to, in order to calculate the total ticket revenue. 

Once you've drawn out a rough framework like the above example, your next task will be to explain your framework to your interviewer. 

3. Communicate the framework

Even if you created the world's best framework, it won't get you an offer if you're not able to explain it in a clear and structured way. 

Here's how we'd recommend you communicate your framework during your interviews:

Start by showing your interviewer the framework that you've drawn on paper. Having this visual structure will make it much easier to explain (and understand). 

Start with an overview

Before jumping into the details of your framework, you should start with an overview of the framework.

In our example above, you could simply explain that the profitability of Star Production will be determined by the expected revenues and costs of the business, which can be broken down into more specific categories. 

You should also tell your interviewer the order in which you plan to walk through each individual branch, so they'll know what to expect.  

Next, go through each branch of your framework and mention several considerations that came to mind while you were drafting the framework. 

For example, for the "upfront costs" branch of the Star Production case, you could explain that you'd want to find out what costs the company would incur before it can start releasing movies, like filming equipment, studio space, and post production expenses. 

And throughout your explanation of the framework, you should pause periodically to summarise your key points, and to check in with your interviewer. 

You're likely going to be covering a lot of ground in your framework, and you want to make sure that your logic doesn't get foggy in the details. 

For example, you could summarise the most important considerations that impact the revenues of Star Production, after you've walked through each individual sub-branch under revenues. 

Finally, after walking through your full framework, you should tell your interviewer the 2-3 next steps you would recommend, in priority order. 

There's a variety of ways you could rank next steps, but three good options would be based on importance, ease, or speed. 

Returning to the Star Production example, you could recommend the following next steps in priority order:

• Identify the biggest cost drivers.   Star Production's business model is focused on producing a high volume of low cost movies, so controlling costs will be essential to the profitability of the company. 
• Develop a production process that minimises costs.  Once the primary cost drivers are identified, we should develop a production process that keeps those costs as low as possible. 
• Look for opportunities to increase the hit rate.   Star Production is counting on a few box office hits to drive revenues. As a result, increasing the percentage of movies that succeed could be a big win.

Get MBB offers by mastering frameworks

To succeed in case interviews, you MUST be able to create and apply frameworks effectively. And i f you really want the best possible preparation for your case interview, you'll want to practise doing this in an interview situation, ideally with an expert consultant giving you feedback.

The IGotAnOffer team

Photo: Roberto Taddeo / IM

Table of Contents

How to solve a product manager case study in 4 simple steps.

• August 12, 2020

Richard Chen

We cannot emphasize the importance of Product Manager case studies in interviews enough. Companies rely heavily on this step to assess your critical thinking and problem-solving skills as it closely mirrors the day-to-day activities. However, you don’t have to be a Product Manager with years of experience to come up with impressive case studies that will get you hired. Like the job itself, a Product Manager case study should be situational and contextual—getting it right is about tailoring your answer to the company you are interviewing for and the context behind the question. 

So, how do you make sure you hit the nail on the head? There are four steps to solving the Product Manager case study. Our case study instructors recommend the following: 

• Evaluate the need 
• Validate the need 
• Set a goal for the feature
• Decision making

From startup case studies to whiteboarding questions, this guide will take you through everything you need to know about tackling the notorious product management case study using these simple steps. Practice this approach with the various examples we provide and you should be ready to ace your next Product Manager case study interview .

How to Approach the Product Manager Case Study 

Let’s say that an e-commerce furniture company wants to implement a feature: free returns. Take a minute to think about this case study question . How would you go about implementing this? What is your first step?

If there’s one thing we know from working with thousands of aspiring Product Managers, it’s that more than 90% of the candidates fail the product manager case study interview one way or another. And not because the candidates lacked the required skills! Like we mentioned above, a successful case study is tailored to the situation and context. 

Before we dive in, here are some pointers you should remember to get you into the right frame of mind as you tackle the case study assignment you are given. 

Ask Questions 

This is where to start: Always approach a case study assignment with the assumption that you know nothing. Never dive into solving the problem with little to no information on it. Don’t be afraid to ask your interviewer everything you need to: 

• Determine the user of the product 
• Narrow down and identify which problem to solve 
• Find out the specifics of the question to establish your edge cases 

Making assumptions could lead you down the wrong path, but on the other hand, remember that being a Product Manager involves solving ambiguous real-life issues. Keep calm and creatively and strategically acquire more information for clarity of the situation. You’ll be one step ahead of fellow candidates.

Prepare for Anything 

Many novice candidates believe that the case study round always involves a take-home assignment, which would allow them to do extensive research on the question at hand. But while take-home assignments do come up often enough, unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Prepare for your case study interview to involve on-the-go questions. You should also expect to whiteboard and solve problems on the fly during the interview. When that’s the case you’ll have only seconds — or minutes if you’re lucky — instead of days to tackle the problem.

There Is More Than One Correct Answer

The Product Manager case study interview is a way for companies to evaluate your problem-solving skills. They want to see how you identify product users, measure product performance, navigate technical aspects, and so on. You can demonstrate these competencies with a variety of answers.

Don’t Spend More Time Than You Need To

The take-home Product Manager case study can be especially time-consuming and you might spend all your time working on these assignments if you don’t have support . Remember that job hunting is a numbers game and allocate your time and effort accordingly.

Need more time to prepare for your next case study interview? Take your prep to the next level with this video by Product Gym co-founder Cody Chang:

How to Solve Any Product Manager Case Study in 4 Simple Steps

Without further ado, here are the four steps you need to follow to solve your Product Manager case study:

Step 1: Evaluate the Need

To understand the need in the Product Manager case study, you need to ask a series of questions. Here are a few of them to get you started:

• How did the company come up with this feature?
• Was it suggested by executives, or by customers?
• Is the goal of this feature to drive revenue or increase loyalty?
• Are we assuming that leadership has already signed on board to this feature?
• Or are we assuming that this is just a small product that we have been given to test?

Essentially, you need to figure out the bounds and constraints of this question.

You may not be an industry expert on the business that your interviewer is in, or you may lack that domain knowledge. So in order to create an informed answer, you have to know what your answer is not .

Step 2: Validate the Need

You have to start on the pre-question. Let’s take the example of a furniture e-commerce company.

Some of the questions you would ask yourself are: 

• What are your assumptions, knowns and unknowns, and where is the data? 
• Do we have data on this, and is the data right? 
• On free returns, do we know how many people already trying to return?
• Are there specific types of products that we know customers return? 
• Are there some parts of the world where customers expect free returns? Do we have data on that? (The company isn’t going to necessarily know that from the data because customers might not provide that feedback.)
• What do we not know? 

When you focus on these unknowns, what you’re really focusing on is time and resources. This gets into the business side of asking questions. If you are not a domain expert in furniture e-commerce or are not familiar with their business model to give a nuanced response, what are these Product Managers looking for in your answer?

The company you are interviewing with is likely operating in another domain that you are not familiar with. That’s okay. As long as you can lay out the roadmap for your product with sound reasoning, you’ll be good to go.

Step 3: Set a Goal for the Feature

In this specific example, you want to focus on time and resources, which is money. This means explicitly profitability . What are all the areas that might factor into profitability? Here are some questions to consider:

• How much is it going to cost, and how do you evaluate that cost?
• Will priorities in regards to other features change?
• Would we have to focus on other resources?
• Would we have to deal with interstate laws based on shipping?
• How about shipping internationally or shipping interstate? Will it be taxed?

Check out these guides to help you determine the essential metrics for your company’s business and the product you are developing:

• 16 Startup Metrics by Adresseen Horowitz
• Startup Metrics You Need to Monitor
• Facebook Metrics: Key Benchmarks for PM Interviews

Step 4: Decision-Making

Based on the business requirements, how do you want to evaluate these unknowns? The rabbit hole of questions can go on and on. You may need to spend these resources and push back the engineering deadline. Is the company okay with that?

It also depends on how you communicate “Yes” or “No” answers. If you say, “Yes, I want to prioritize this feature,” then know your reasons:

• The manager has signed off on the strategy .
• I know who the customers are.
• I have the data to back it up.
• I have the stakeholder consensus to do it.
• I have a timeline that I feel confident executing on.

Or, if you say “No,” have your reasons why to address the same areas:

• No, I don’t have a clear strategy from management.
• No, the manager wants me to validate this before we spend extra resources on it.
• No, we don’t have enough engineers or resources for this.
• No, we have to use the sales cycle for another feature — if we try to implement this now, we will lose the seasonal sales cycle.

These are all moving parts that you want to evaluate and then communicate to the PM interviewing you in the Product Manager case study. The best thing to do when you ask these questions is to get specific. Use examples of times when you had to make these decisions yourself based on these factors.

Remember to communicate competency on how you evaluate whether or not you implement a feature. Ask questions to create constraints and boundaries to the case study, and control its scope. Once you have this information, you will know how to best approach the questions based on the Product Management knowledge you possess.

BONUS Step: Get Your Case Study Presentation Reviewed by a Professional

You’ve worked through the case study and put your solution into a slide deck to present to a panel of interviewers: congratulations! But if you want to go above and beyond to impress the hiring team, take some time to get your case study solution reviewed by a professional.

A fresh set of eyes may catch typos and grammar errors, but will also be able to point out the areas where you can improve the solution overall. A Product Manager who’s gone through multiple case study interview rounds is going to be able to assess your solution from the perspective of the interviewer and use their experience to help you polish it.

At Product Gym, our interview coaches routinely check over members’ case study presentations, offering insight, constructive criticism, and tips on how to make their technical interview round a success. Solving case studies isn’t just a good practice for acing your interview — it’s also an excellent way to develop applicable Product Manager skills. That’s why we include classes on case studies in our program. Our case study curriculum was developed and continues to be taught by Senior Product Manager for Atlassian, Roman Kolosovskiy .

Because we’ve been working with Product Manager job hunters for the past five years, we’ve had ample opportunity to test and perfect the case study strategy we teach our members. We’ve even compiled a bank of case study prompts that aspiring Product Managers have received in their interviews so that members can exclusively access to hone their problem-solving and storytelling skills.

What to Expect from a Product Manager Case Study at a Startup 

The type of company you are interviewing for is a key consideration when determining the context for your case study. It’s highly likely that you will interview for a Product Manager position at a startup—there were 30.7 million startups in the US in 2019, and the numbers will only keep growing.

No doubt, the expectations, and responsibilities differ immensely in a startup role as compared to being an enterprise PM.

Here’s what you should keep in mind when interviewing for a PM position with a startup: 

• Product Managers are expected to wear multiple hats : Startups, especially early-stage ones, don’t have all the resources they need. Because of this, your responsibilities may include roles away from the standard PM job description. It’s also likely that you will be responsible for more than one product.
• Be ready for some confusion : Many of these companies don’t have a recruiting team or a full-fledged HR strategy, and therefore chances are they are also exploring interviewing as they go. 
• Prepare for niche markets : If the startup operates in a niche market, you might have little to no knowledge and resources for understanding the competitive landscape and creating a useful product. Our case study prep guide can help you sound like a seasoned expert no matter your background in such cases. 

So how do you show your interviewer that you are ready to take on the challenge?

1. Demonstrate Fast Execution

First and foremost, you should show that you are quick when making decisions and taking action. Unlike established companies, you will not have many tools or practices to help you make decisions and organize your and your team’s tasks. You should be comfortable with communicating decisions and last-minute action items with the rest of your team.

2. Be Ready to Take Risks

Executing decisions takes a sense of responsibility and ownership, which brings us to our second point. As a Product Manager, you should be a leader who isn’t afraid of taking risks. When needed, you should be ready to take the driver’s seat. There is no doubt that your responsibility will exceed a single product, and you will soon be expected to come up with ideas that will impact the whole company.

3. Prove You Can Multitask

Limited resources mean you may find yourself wearing different hats. For example, you might not have a UX designer and end up designing the wireframes yourself. Regardless of the situation, get ready to prove to them that you can multitask. How do you show this skill in your Product Manager case study? 

• By thinking about how this company can make money — or in Product Gym terms, by becoming a wartime Product Manager. Think about how the product in question will contribute to the company’s short-term and long-term goals. 
• Many startups are still in the funding stage, so any work you design should generate revenue with minimal costs. 
• Think about all the ways you can create a product that the market currently needs and lacks. 
• Include wireframes in your case study presentation to show them that you already thought about how the product should look. 
• In your documentation and presentation, describe the resources you will need and how you budget this product.

4. Learn About the Company

A case study assignment is a simulation of the real job, especially in startup interviews. Leverage it to learn as much about the company as possible. Assess how they treat you and try to figure out how the company culture is.

Are they ignoring your emails and acting like you don’t exist? Or are they making a genuine effort to make the interview work for you despite the lack of resources? Are you expected to solve a complex case study on the go during an interview?

Answering these questions can give you a good feel of your possible future employer.

5. Prioritize, Prioritize, and Prioritize

As we mentioned, startup companies operate with minimal resources and are under a lot of stress. So, remember to focus on the essential features needed to create a fully functional MVP ready for the market in the least amount of time.

Make some realistic estimations and come up with numbers to help your interviewers with the budget, resources, and time you need to create this product. Roadmap the steps required to get to the MVP and clearly define everybody’s responsibilities to build it.

How to Solve Whiteboarding Case Study Questions in 4 Steps

Along with the commonly assigned take-home assignment and the presentation that follows, the product management case study is notorious for its technical and whiteboarding interview questions. Here are four simple steps our instructors developed to help you master the dreaded whiteboarding interview questions in your case study round.

Step 1: Keep Calm and Embrace the Fact that You Know Nothing

Most aspiring PMs fail the Product Manager case study not because they do not have experience, but because they panic over a lack of information. 

In practice, Product Managers rarely have enough information about the problem they were asked to solve. Having seen many candidates interview, we can confirm that interviewees often disqualify themselves by showing the interviewer that they are not ready to tackle ambiguous real-life issues.

So, remember to keep calm and accept the fact that you have insufficient information about the problem that’s thrown at you.

Step 2: Try to Understand What the Question Wants You to Achieve

Companies ask whiteboarding interview questions to see if you can create or improve a product that can accomplish a specific goal. When you take on any product management case study question, start by taking a step back. Think about what the question wants you to accomplish.

In most cases, you should be able to divine the purpose of the question from how the interviewer forms it. Our case study instructors have identified four specific purposes: 

• Prioritization
• Product Design
• Target Market Identification
• Product Launch 

Determining the purpose behind vague questions and finding the right approach to address them requires a lot of focused practice with real case study questions.

Step 3: Nar row Down the Question as Much as Possible

You need to narrow down the case study questions as much as possible to come up with some real and data-driven conclusions. Given that you have little to no resources available to you, you have to make some realistic estimations. Accurate estimations are only possible if you get to the heart of the question.

Think it through and ask as many questions as you need.

Step 4: Keep the Conversation Alive

Communication is an essential part of the case study interview: you should keep your interviewer informed about every aspect of your thought process. After you identify the whiteboarding question’s purpose, clearly inform your interviewer what direction you want to take and your reasoning.

Check your reasoning with your interviewer by asking them if this is something on their mind or if this is something they would consider. In most cases, they would either have an answer key or a direction on their mind and would be able to help you.

Once you agree on the direction you take, ask more specific questions to extract as much information as possible and get a confidence vote from the interviewer that you are on the right track.

Last but not least, make your interviewer’s life easier by suggesting options and giving details while asking questions. See how we used these four steps to work through a Facebook Product Manager Case Study question: Should Facebook enter the dating market?

Product Manager Case Study Presentation Best Practices

You have worked hard and finally finished your Product Manager case study assignment, but that doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax—your case study presentation is as vital as solving the question.

Not only is it the time to demonstrate your excellent communication skills, but a good presentation shows your interviewers how you collaborate. Here’s a breakdown of how to give a winning presentation:

• Design and Brand Your Presentation Materials: The best way to prove that you are a big fan of the company and have the spirit to join the team is to use company colors, logos, and any media related to them. A good design always draws attention, and you want to grab as much attention as you can.
• Have the Right Amount of Content: Have just enough content to ensure that people know enough about your product to be convinced that it has potential. Include all the relevant details about the fundamental aspects of the product. But, leave them curious about the finer details. This will keep them engaged throughout the presentation.
• Include Visuals and Media to Spark Feedback from the Audience: Activating the brain’s visual cortex will keep your interviewers engaged throughout your presentation. The best way to ensure that everybody understands your product is to include wireframes and preliminary designs in your presentation.
• Make Sure Everyone Has a Positive Experience With Your Presentation: A good rule of thumb is to make sure you can explain your product to a five-year-old and a Ph.D. simultaneously. Start simple and allow the audience to ask questions as you progress. Allocate a considerable amount of time to go over your designs and ask the interviewer for feedback: Ask them questions, see what they think, and learn about the things they would have done differently. 
• Paint a Clear Picture of the Product With Your Wireframes: When you are sketching wireframes for your product management case study, be sure to include anything you can explain in terms of functionality. Given that many of the products are digital, it’s crucial to explain the transitions between one screen to another. For example, you should explain what happens when a user clicks on something and which screen comes next. If the next screen is an integral part of the feature, you should include it in your case study deliverables.

List of Product Manager Case Study Question Examples

Before we dive into the most common examples of Product Manager case study interview questions , let’s solve one together. Check out how our Case Study Instructor, Roman Kolosovski, tackles the popular FAANG case study question “How would you build a product for pet owners?”:

1. Product Design Case Study Questions

These are the most common types of questions. They range from designing a product from scratch to improving an existing product. Some questions will explicitly tell you to focus on a specific OKR, while others will leave everything ambiguous to challenge you to think more.

Product Design Question Examples

• Design a product to help users find doctors on Facebook . 
• How would you improve Google Maps? 
• You’re a part of the Google Search webspam team: How would you detect duplicate websites? 
• Name any product you love and any product you despise and explain your reasoning for both cases. ( Amazon )
• You’re the Product Manager of a team that focuses on financial products for our Uber drivers. You’re tasked with designing a financial product (or suite of products) that addresses our drivers’ needs in Brazil.

2. Product Strategy Questions 

Unlike product design questions, strategy questions require you to think about the bigger picture. You’ll either be asked to find ways to make a product better—and hence define success for the product, or to complete the overall organization more successfully. 

To solve these questions, you need to be well informed about the company and its products or services. Consider the company’s business model, competitors, and the recent developments in that industry. The essential skill you need to demonstrate here is analytical thinking.

Product Strategy Question Examples

• If you were Google’s CEO, would you be concerned about Microsoft? 
• How would you improve Google Maps? (Google)
• How would you set goals and measure success for Facebook notifications? 
• How would you monetize Facebook messenger? 
• How would you determine the right price and method to promote product XYZ, and why? (Amazon)

3. Estimation and Analysis Questions 

These are used by interviewers to measure how comfortable you are making decisions with limited data, so show them how you use data to derive the KPIs you need for your product. These questions are mostly asked during the interview. To solve them without internet access is only possible by learning the fundamental values of the company beforehand. This includes the revenue it makes or the approximate number of users it has. You should also be able to calculate their critical KPIs.

Estimation and Analysis Case Study Question Examples

• How many queries per second does Gmail get? 
• As the Product Manager for Google Glass ‘Enterprise Edition’, which metrics would you track? How do you know if the product is successful? 
• How much revenue does YouTube make per day?
• How would you go about estimating the number of gas stations in the USA? 
• How would you track user engagement in an app, and what KPIs would you use to improve it?

4. Scheduling/Operational Questions 

These types of case study interview questions are few and far between. Interviewers ask these questions to assess the candidates’ ability to turn ideas into deliverable tasks. Note that for most operational Product Manager case study questions, the interviewer will require you to write a detailed delivery schedule and write user stories and tasks.

Scheduling/Operational Case Study Question Examples

• Write the Jira ticket(s) for engineering for the idea you want to execute. (Upwork)
• Outline a brief (1-2 page) launch plan that would cover the activities and tasks needed to launch the feature successfully. Be sure to touch on both internal and external stakeholders, and include potential launch goals. (Stitch Data)

Product Manager Case Study FAQs

The short answer is yes. You should always have a couple of screen designs ready for your case study interview. Why? It’s probably the best way to spark any reaction from the interviewing committee. Plus, it’s also way more comfortable for your audience to understand what your product looks like with a solid prototype. 

Given that it’s not your job to develop the actual design, low fidelity seems more appropriate. That being said, the bar for low fidelity designs has been relatively high over the past couple of years. So, low fidelity designs are more than pen and paper sketches: they are expected to be digital.

Detail the solution you came up with a presentation that states:  Here is what the solution is. Here is what the solution looks like. Here is how a user would go through the process within this solution.

There are four common types of Product Manager case study questions:  Product design questions  Product strategy questions  Estimation and analysis questions Scheduling/operational questions

Unlike larger companies, startups do not have as many tools and resources at their disposal. This means that not many will have a recruiting team or a full-fledged HR strategy and are interviewing as they go. Many Product Gym members that have taken the startup route have noted how disorganized the Product Manager interview process can get at a startup, so prepare for some confusion. No matter the size of the company, be sure to assess how they treat you and try to figure out how the company culture is in the process.

Put Your Product Manager Case Study Skills to the Test

Put your case study skills to the test with our free online training course. Access to instructor-led whiteboarding sessions with real FAANG interview qu estions to take your prep to the next level.

Don’t forget to call us for free career coaching to learn more about how Product Gym can help you land the Product Manager job of your dreams!

The Only Leading Metric to Measure Product-Market Fit and How to Use It

Microsoft New Grad PM Interview Preparation and Experience: Spring 2022

Types of Product Managers: Which Specialization Will Ignite Your Career?

The One Thing I Wish More Candidates Asked in Their Product Management Interviews

1412 Broadway, New York City, NY, 10018 (800) 978-2719

Notice:  We do not currently accept members with Utah residency.

© 2023 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Terms of Service     Privacy Policy

A 6-Step Framework to Nail your Product Case Interview

Advice from a Sr. Product Manager

Book a coaching session today!

Don't leave your interview to chance.

We sat down with former Meta, Google, and Yahoo product manager Ridhima Kurana to get her tips and advice on product case interviews, a framework to prepare and the common mistakes to avoid. If you are someone who is a budding product manager and going in for an interview at a leading tech company, this article will take you through the steps to prepare for your interview

The following are the types of product case interviews that you can expect:

Product Design

These questions are usually asked to see if you can identify user persona and whether you can think extensively and innovatively. These questions look for inspiring solutions to categorizing and segmenting the audience. Questions could include: 

• Design Twitter for the blind
• Build a product podcast for Facebook
• Design a new elevator. 

The main point here is to define the user's needs and solutions

Product Strategy

Product strategy is your ability to understand and apply market dynamics, things happening worldwide, and industry trends. These questions are usually asked if you are interviewing for level 5 (at Meta) and above roles (not entry level), which are above associate product manager roles. 

These questions are open-ended and tend to be ambiguous problems. With questions like these, the world is your oyster; you can be as creative and particular as possible. These focus on your understanding of the world and your ability to apply concepts in a structured way. Examples of such questions are:

• Should Spotify increase its subscription cost?
• What should Zillow do next?

Product Improvement

These questions are about existing products and experiences, and the interviewer is looking for your take on how you can improve them. These focus on your ability to elevate the experience of people. The interviewer is looking for your ability to identify and prioritize user pain points, define creative solutions and measure success. Their primary focus is on your understanding of the metrics to consider while improving a product or experience. For instance, the interviewer might ask:

• How would you improve Google photos? 
• How would you improve your experience of finding a doctor on Google?

Product Growth

Product growth tests your business acumen, UX skills, and scrappiness. There are multiple ways to think about product growth. One way is to do conversion funnel optimization for an existing product to make it grow. The other is to diversify revenue streams, enter different markets, and partner upwards and downwards to get a broader market.

An interviewer might ask you:

• How would you grow a travel app without a marketing budget?
• How would you grow Twitter without ads?

A framework to answer Product case questions

Product design framework.

Ridhima shares the framework she developed after years of being a PM and coaching thousands of product managers. Let’s dive into her framework using an example. For instance, the interviewer asks you to design Twitter for the blind. To answer the question, here are the steps you can follow.

‍ Step 1: Clarify the Goals and assumptions

To identify the goals and assumptions, it’s essential to understand what the product is, how we use it today, and why we need it. For instance, Twitter is used in various aspects like a news medium, a medium to communicate, etc. You should also be able to identify if it ties into the company’s mission. For instance, if it is a product/service idea for an existing company, you might want to identify the company’s mission and whether or not your concept binds with the same.

Step 2: Identify Users:

TIP 1: Think beyond demographics into behavior and needs for user personas. It is crucial to go beyond demographic users and focus on psychographic segmentation. Try focusing on new mothers and people interested in music and writing. Doing psychographic profiles will ease the prioritization of needs. While thinking of user personas, go for psychographic sets.

TIP 2: To get real-world, “meaty” target groups, use a criterion to choose your target users.

Choose target users based on specific filters. For instance, on Twitter, you decide only to target celebrities. Remember, demographics come after psychographics for a better target filter.

Step 3: Report Needs: What are their needs and challenges?

After identifying a target segment, it will be easier for you to report the needs. Look at the customer journey to say requirements (user notices they are low on food, makes a list, chooses to go to the store or shop online, buys foods most suitable for a small household, samples new foods, checks out, chooses between paper and plastic bag, etc.) Take them through the user journey, and focus on the users' pain points. Prioritize the need you want to focus on and use the Five Whys to understand the needs more precisely.

Step 4: Summarize the goal and define Success Metrics:

To define success metrics, it is essential to prioritize the need. You can do need generation by going through the cycle of the condition or problem. Go back to the user persona, and identify where in the journey is the product requirement to summarize a success metric. It is crucial to define a counter metric to get a holistic picture of product success. For instance, you want to prioritize adoption by tracking daily active users with quality. Base your success metrics on facts and news. While giving out metrics, also give out counter metrics so that you can give a holistic picture and your metric is solid.

Your solutions will vary depending on the metric you align with the interviewer.

Step 5: Start brainstorming solutions and prioritize

Every time you are creating Twitter for the blind to post content, you know you are now going to trade off something. It is time to brainstorm solutions, directing towards your aligned metric, after you have finalized a graphic and problem statement. After prioritizing a solution, a trade-off is involved every time you decide.

Step 6: Summarize with an Imagine statement (something inspirational)

End your argument with an image statement. This will leave the interviewer inspired and make your interview memorable. Say you have developed a product solution for the blind; we will live in a world where everyone will have access to Twitter, and everyone will have a voice, and that is the sort of world you want to live in.

Product improvement framework

Following the same framework we used with the product designing, you just need to add another step: ‘what does improvement mean to you?’

After clarifying the goals and assumptions, identifying the users, and reporting the needs, you talk about what improvement means. Does improvement mean increasing the engagement of the product, the quality, or the revenue generation? Talking about progress will help you define your success metric in the case of product improvement. Talk about focusing on specific things in your improvement cycle. And just how you talk about design metrics, talk about your improvement metrics/success metrics.

Product strategy framework

To be able to answer these questions, you must have an understanding of the market trends and market dynamics, and the latest things in the industry. Questions like, ‘What should Zillow do next?’ Be prepared with these answers.

These are the following steps to follow while answering these questions.

• Identify the prompt , in this case, what is Zillow, and answer the whys and whats while dealing with these questions. Talk about the industry and market trends regarding the product or service. Further, discuss the company and the organization's mission, mentioning a few competitors.

Highlight the mission of the company. Spend the first 10-15 minutes clarifying the business goals, discussing the company's financier, business models, press releases, changing directives, etc. You should be aware of the valuations of big organizations.

These high-level points can lay a good base for your answer. Talk about the opportunities outside of the company’s boundaries. However, strengths and weaknesses should be more specific to the company. Product strategy questions focus on your understanding of the market dynamics.

The strategy can be as follows to determine what the company can do next.

• Diversify revenue sources
• Increase customers, enter a new market, customer stickiness
• Barrier to entry
• Being one-stop shop
• Low-cost leader
• Reduce reliance on essential buyer
• Test a new market

Present ideas refined, and ensure your ideas are strategic, not just minor feature enhancements.

Following similar steps to the product design framework, make sure to encapsulate your response and end it with an imagined statement. Choose this statement wisely to describe how you inspire leadership.

Product growth framework

The difference between product strategy and the product growth framework is the amount of time you spend on individual points. While responding to a product growth framework answer, spend time on how your ideas support and enhance the product strategy. For instance, if the interviewer says, out of all the users that end up on Shopify’s homepage, only 10% end up creating a store on the website, how can you improve the situation? In this example, the interviewer would want you to focus on conversion funnels, how to optimize the conversion funnel, and metrics to measure success. Additionally, you can talk about pricing and diversifying revenue streams.

How do you elevate your answers?

The premium skills lie in how you elevate your answers. 

Finally, here are a few tips to keep in mind while answering product case questions.

• Create a list of new technologies around you. For instance, AI, VR, ML. Read about these technologies and their current usage in various industries.
• Create a list of recent trends and changes in the market. For instance, the impact of the war, inflation, pandemic, supply chain issues, etc. These things highlight your capabilities as a product manager.
• Spend the time defining problems. Do not jump to the solutions. Defining the problem is 80% of the work done. Ensure that you direct the right situation.
• Ask questions and make the interview interactive. Do not treat it as an interrogation; make it flow like a conversation.
• The imagined statements are industry-kept secrets. A good PM will anchor your mission towards the problem. Using an imagined statement, highlight a point beyond your solution; this will elevate your answers.

Related articles

The #1 Tip to Make Your Google Job Application Stand Out

What are hiring managers really looking for?

A 9-step plan to approach the software engineer interview at Microsoft and other FAANGs

What does carrus offer.

• Certifications
• Our Instructors

What Are Product Management Case Study Interviews?

Author: Product School

Updated: April 25, 2024 - 10 min read

What is a product management case study interview?

A case study interview, also known as a case interview, is a tool used by many companies to assess a candidate’s analytical, creative, and problem-solving skills. Similar to coding interviews for engineers, they allow the interviewers to simulate a situation that allows your skills to be put into practice.

Quite simply, you’ll be given a situation, and asked to make suggestions or come up with a hypothetical solution or improvement.

In product management, this can be about any number of things. The realm of product managers is vast, and covers many different aspects of product development. As product managers sit at the intersection of business, technology, and design, you could be asked case questions under these umbrellas.

This means that you could be given a case question based on product design, monetization, market research, user segmentation, trends, data, technical development, go-to-market , prioritization…pretty much anything product managers are into!

Example case study interview questions

What’s your favorite product? How would you improve its design?

Which company do you think we should acquire next?

How would you go about launching our product in an emerging market, say, India?

What new feature would you build for Instagram?

How to ace a case study interview

The product design case interview

No, the interview isn't going to hand you a Wacom tablet and ask you to mock up an entire product on the spot! Instead, you’ll be asked to think through some solutions to pretty common design problems. Things like:

How would you improve our in-app messenger?

If we tasked you with making our user interface more inclusive of those with disabilities, how would you approach that?

How would you redesign our homepage to make it more appealing for X demographic?

We’re finding that X number of users don’t make it through the entire onboarding process. What would you do/design to fix that?

The key when being asked a question about how you’d improve the company’s product is not to insult it too heavily. Remember, the people who built it are in the room with you, so if you come in hot with “well, for starters, your homescreen is absolutely hideous and needs a complete do-over”, you’re not going to endear yourself to them. A product manager is a diplomat, so be as diplomatic as possible.

Instead of focusing on how you’d fix what you see as glaring problems, try to come up with something that adds to the product. “I think a chatbot in your user onboarding process would help people to navigate through the process. Here’s where I’d implement it…”

How to ace it

Give your hypothesis: Because everything in product starts with why .

Lay out your approach : Briefly summarize what your approach would be, given your hypothesis. Include things like the research you would need to do, and the preparation the team would need to make.

Identify the user: Companies want user-driven product managers, so definitely make sure you know which user you’re building for.

Describe the solution : How would you actually build the solution? No need to get too technical if that’s not where your skills lie. If that’s the case, talk about how you’d lead the engineering teams to build the solution.

Suggest testing: If you’ve got 2 ideas and you’re not sure which one is better, describe both and talk about the test you’d run to discover which one to roll with.

Prioritize features : Show off your prioritization skills if you’re suggesting more than one feature.

Suggest features for an MVP and plans for a V1 launch:

Finish off by helping the interviewers to visualize what the finished MVP would be like, as well as the plans you’d have for a full release later down the line.

The business-thinking case interview

Business thinking is vital for product managers, as you’re the person that ties what’s being built to the needs of the business. This is why you may be presented with a business problem, so that the interviewer can assess your thought process, and how you approach product strategy.

Business case questions may include things like:

Management wants to build X because a competitor has launched something similar. How would you respond?

If we wanted to move more into the B2B market by launching X, what would you do first?

How would you increase customer adoption for the feature we released last month?

We want to become more product-led in our growth strategy. What recommendations would you make in terms of pricing structure/increasing customer adoption?

Establish market characteristics : This is especially important if your case question is a go-to-market question. If you’re not sure what the market characteristics are, talk about what you would find out before starting the work.

Layout your approach: Briefly summarize what your approach would be.

Prioritize your actions: If you’ve been asked for a step-by-step approach, talk about why you’re doing things in that order.

Provide analysis : Business decisions require a heavy amount of analysis, so be sure to include some competitor/customer/market analysis.

Make recommendations: Talk about the end result in a business sense. Instead of getting into the weeds of feature building etc, give a step-by-step approach of how you’d take a new feature to market, or make business-oriented improvements to a product.

Remember that a business-thinking case question requires an answer that would make C-suite happy. Try to think through your answer for the eyes of management. Think about what brings most business value, and tailor your answer around that.

The technical interview

Here, by technical interview, we don’t necessarily mean the tech interviews that engineers can expect to go through. It’s very rare for product managers to be asked technical questions in an interview, unless they’re specifically applying for a technical product manager role. You’ll usually get some warning in advance that your technical prowess will be tested, either by the recruiter or a hiring manager.

The chances of being given an in-depth technical case interview (aka, a coding interview) are rare, so you’re more likely to be asked a few general questions to gauge your technical ability.

Things like:

What’s your experience with X or Y technology?

Do you feel comfortable managing a team of engineers?

Can you explain the most technical project you’ve worked on?

These are questions that you should be able to answer in the room, because they’re based on your direct experience. So you don’t need to put any special level of preparation into their answers.

You may also be asked some technical questions that allow you to show off your technical knowledge, but are open-ended enough that you can still answer even if you’re not very techy. The goal is to gauge how much technical know-how you already have, not to embarrass you and put you on the spot for not having a computer science degree.

These questions might include:

What feature do you think we should build next? How should we approach building it?

Would you build X solution in-house, or would you outsource development elsewhere?

What partners do you think we should integrate with next? (eg. Slack, Trello)

These are questions that you can approach in your own way, from a technical perspective if you come from that background, or from a people-management/design/business perspective if you don’t.

Product managers and tech skills…what’s the deal?

It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be asked to go through a technical interview, as product managers aren’t the ones who physically build the product. They provide the direction and the insights, and the engineers provide the solutions and the finished product. So what’s gained by seeing how well you can code?

Well, some roles are more technical than others, so obviously in these roles you’d need either a computer science degree or a proven record of technical work, like an engineering background.

But for a regular product manager, you’re less likely to be given a technical case interview, and more likely to just be asked a few very general questions to gauge your knowledge.

1. Give yourself time to think

The worst thing you can do is panic, and rush in with an answer. It’s OK to give yourself time to think. An interview is not a first date, and silences don’t have to be awkward! So pause, and give yourself time to consider your answer before you start.

That’s much better than giving a sub-standard answer that you can’t take back. The interviewer will expect you to need a moment to gather your thoughts, so don’t stress.

2. Hack: The McKinsey case study

Now, you’re bound to go off and do plenty more research on case study interviews, wanting to find out everything you can. So let us give you this secret hack: check out materials for McKinsey case interviews .

“But I want to work at Facebook/Google/Amazon!” we hear you say. “Why would I prep for McKinsey?”

McKinsey is one of the most difficult interviewers out there. Reviews by some previous interviewees makes it seem like the process was designed to help choose the next ruler of Westeros. Their standards are incredibly high, and their case interviews are something that people prep weeks, even months in advance for.

This has a double result for you. One, there are swathes of resources out there specifically to prep for this behemoth of a case interview. Two, if you can give a McKinsey-standard answer to a case interview, you’ll outshine the competition easily!

3. Practice ahead of time

While you can’t be totally sure what you’ll be asked in a case interview, you can still prepare.

The smart thing to do is to practice case interview questions ahead of time. The way to do this is to pick apart the job posting you’re interviewing for, and identify what the main responsibilities are.

Case interview preparation is absolutely essential for acing product manager interviews, as you’re bound to be asked a hypothetical question sooner or later in the interview process.

4. Don’t feel pressured to give a perfect answer

Companies know how much time, research, and information goes into making informed product decisions. So if they’ve asked you to propose a new feature for their product as part of your interview, they’re not looking for something they can actually implement from you. They just want to see how you think, and what your analytical and problem-solving skills are. It’s also a test of your communication skills, seeing how you present yourself and your ideas.

So don’t pressure yourself into giving an answer that’s on par with the work their existing product managers do. That’s like beating yourself up for not running as fast a Usain Bolt when you do your first ever 5K.

Prepping for product manager interviews?

We’ve got you covered! Check out these great resources:

Master The Product Manager Interview Playlist : We’ve collected together our best talks on acing the Product Management interview, from a look behind the scenes of recruitment, to how to break into the industry. Check out the entire playlist here , or enjoy this sample from Google’s Product Manager…

The Ultimate List of Product Manager Interview Questions: Prepare yourself for every kind of question you could ever hope to be asked in a product manager interview!

Product School resources: If you really want to deep-dive into the best interview techniques, and become the master of any interview you walk into, you should check out the resources we have in our community. We’ve got cheat sheets, templates, and more!

Hired — How to Get a Great Product Job: Tailored guide-to-go for product manager positions in top tech companies. As this book will show you,  some of the most successful product transitions originated from people in music production or finance, with full-time jobs or with no prior experience. The collection of stories of Product Management transition will show you how it’s done.

Updated: April 25, 2024

Subscribe to The Product Blog

Discover Where Product is Heading Next

Share this post

By sharing your email, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

Case Interview Frameworks: Important Tools to Ace the Case [2024]

• Last Updated January, 2024

Former McKinsey Engagement Manager

Common Case Interview Frameworks

Commonly Used Frameworks

Why Do Interviewers like them?

The Most Efficient Way to Learn Frameworks?

Frameworks Can Help Your Case Interview

How Should You Use Case Interview Frameworks?

2 Basic Frameworks You Need To Know

A case interview framework is a structured way of thinking about a particular type of business problem. It breaks a business problem into the component parts that need to be analyzed to identify the root cause of the problem and develop a solution.

Case interview frameworks are important because consulting interviewers don’t want a canned solution from the front page of the Wall Street Journal or a business school textbook. They  look for candidates who have a structured process for thinking through the key aspects of a business problem to find its solution.

This structured process is easy to show by using a case interview framework.

In this article we’ll discuss:

• Examples of case interview frameworks,
• Why consulting interviewers like case interview frameworks,
• How frameworks help ensure you’ll solve your case interview,
• 2 Basic frameworks to learn before you interview,
• Commonly used case interview frameworks,
• The most efficient way to learn frameworks, and 
• How you should use frameworks in your consulting interviews. 

Let’s get started!

Multiple different case frameworks exist because companies face many different types of problems. A case framework that will help a company think through the marketing approach needed to support a new product launch is not the same as the one it will use to decide if it wants to cut costs.

Commonly used case interview frameworks include:

• The BCG 2 x 2 Matrix
• The Profitability Formula
• The McKinsey’s 7S Framework
• Porter’s 5 Forces

Case interview frameworks can be tailored to the issues in a consulting case to highlight your structured problem-solving skill and ensure you solve the case.

Why Do Interviewers Like Case Interview Frameworks?

A consultant who has memorized a textbook solution to fixing a business problem will know what to do when they see a client with  that  particular problem.

But all clients—even ones in the same industry—are different. They might have different fixed and variable costs, sell to a market segment with unique requirements, have a different management structure, or use a different technology or production process to manufacture their product.

Because of this, even if they face a similar problem to the one in the textbook, the tools needed to solve the problem might be different.

Because all client problems are different, management consultants don’t memorize answers to business problems. They use a structured process that helps them find the solution, no matter what the client’s problem is.

The prospect of figuring out the solution to a business problem you’ve never seen before might sound intimidating. Luckily, case interview frameworks can help identify the key issues to be addressed. You can think of them as containing the building blocks you can use to solve a case study problem.

Once you’re familiar with common frameworks, you can use them to build your own case interview frameworks to analyze the issues specific to any consulting case you’re given.

Case Frameworks Can Help You Ace Your Interview

A list of commonly used business frameworks can look more like alphabet soup than something that can help you solve a consulting case study problem. Are they really worth learning?

Yes. Frameworks can help you make sure you don’t forget key aspects that need to be considered to address a particular type of business problem. Because of this, they’re valuable tools when you’re doing interview prep. Take one of the simplest business frameworks: Profitability.

If you are given a case study interview question that involves profitability, you’re going to want to be familiar with this formula. 

It’s not important that you use the exact same terms in precisely the same order. What’s important is that you remember the key components of profitability. If you examine each of these 4 key components, you’ll find out where to look more closely to find the answer to the client’s problem. 

If you forget one of these key components of profitability, you could spend the twenty-five minutes you have to solve the case study interview question probing the wrong areas and never find the solution.

Case frameworks are tools that ensure you look at all the key aspects of a business problem. From there, you still need to interpret the information you receive from your interviewer and use your findings to develop a solution.

But getting the key facts you need to solve the case is a critical first step in your consulting interview prep.

2 Basic Case Interview Frameworks to Help You Structure Any Case Question

If this is the first time you’ve even heard of a case interview framework, the best place to start your case interview prep is with 2 basic frameworks you can use to address any business problem. Continue reading this section to learn about them.

If you’ve studied business at the undergraduate or graduate level , the basic frameworks can still help you. But you may want to skip down to Commonly Used Business Frameworks to begin your consulting interview prep.

Profitability Framework

The most basic way of looking at a case is to consider whether it asks you to solve a profit and loss issue, or not. This is the most common case type you will encounter because as management consultants we are paid to grow businesses and growing businesses is measured in profits and revenue.

If the interview question addresses a business’s profits and losses (P&L), you can apply the profitability formula to solve the problem. If the question only addresses one component of profitability — either costs or revenues, you can use the relevant segment of the formula to address it.

As mentioned above, the profitability formula is:

Price – How much does the product sell for?

Units Sold – How many products were sold over the period being considered?

Fixed Costs – Costs that you incur just because you are in business regardless of how many units you sell. Examples: factory rent, equipment depreciation, compensation for salaried employees, and property taxes. A way to think about fixed costs is that a cost that does not change over the short-term, even if a business experiences increases or decreases in its sales volume.

Variable Costs – Costs that only incur when you begin to produce units (if you sell nothing you have no variable costs). Examples: sales commissions, credit card transaction costs, and sales taxes. A way to think about variable costs is that a cost that does change over the short-term. More sales volume will mean more variable costs.

The first thing you want to do in a profitability case study interview question is to understand which component of the profitability formula has the biggest impact on the client’s bottom line over the time period you’re considering. Go through each of the 4 parts of the formula to figure that out.

Next, you’ll want to look beyond the formula. If nothing internal to the client has caused the change in profitability, there must be an external factor affecting it. 

External factors that might affect a company’s profitability include a new product introduction, price change, or promotion made by a competitor. They could also include a change in the regulatory environment or in the level of demand from customers.

Example Using the Profitability Framework in a Case Interview

The manufacturer of fidget turners, a simple toy that allows children to expend their excess energy without getting out of their seat and disrupting their classroom, needs help with a profitability problem. 

While their toys are widely popular, the company is losing money. What is the source of their problem?

The consulting candidate asks questions and finds that:

• Price – There have been no recent changes in the price the fidget turner is sold for.
• Units sold – Demand for the product has risen substantially. It’s popular among children with attention deficit disorder. The market for the fun toy has expanded to other children and even adults.
• Fixed cost – There have been no recent changes in the company’s fixed costs.
• Variable cost – The cost of the underlying materials used to make the product have risen substantially. The product is comprised primarily of plastic and ball bearings. The cost of plastics has increased with an upward trend in the prices of petrochemical products.

As a result of this analysis, the candidate says that the change in the manufacturer’s profitability is driven by a change in their variable costs – specifically plastics. 

She recommends that the company either find a substitute material that it can use to manufacture its products at lower cost or increase the price of fidget turners.

Non-profit Case Framework

A non-profit question might have a charitable organization, an educational institution, or a government agency as the client. They might also have a business client, but address an issue that is not related to profit and loss such as employee retention or branding.

The key to answering a non-profit case study question is to understand the key performance index for the client. The key performance indicator, or KPI, is the measure the client is trying to improve or maximize. For example:

• A public school system might be trying to improve student scores on a state-wide standardized test.
• A government agency might be trying to increase the number of free lunches provided to children of families under a certain income threshold over the summer months.
• A fast-food chain might be trying to reduce employee turnover.

When addressing a non-profit case study interview question, first, determine what the client’s key performance indicator is. Once you’ve determined the KPI, break it down into relevant components that allow you to dive deeper into the problem and understand where the client is performing well and where things have taken a turn for the worse.

For example, if the client is a government agency trying to ensure that low-income children have enough to eat over the summer months when free school lunches aren’t available, the KPI might be the number of qualifying free lunches provided. These lunches could be further broken down geographically, by either town or county.

Because these lunches are often provided by schools, the KPI could also be broken down by the age of the child receiving the lunch (grammar-school-aged, middle-school-aged, and high-school-aged). 

These breakdowns would let you understand whether a decline in lunches was caused by an issue affecting one town, or an issue primarily affecting a particular age group. Or, perhaps the decline in free lunches served was consistent across the entire program area and target population.

As with a profitability case, you also want to consider both factors internal to your client and external factors that affect your client’s KPI. 

Benchmarking your client’s performance relative to similar agencies in other states, or relative to the results of groups that provide different types of assistance to the same target audience in the same geographic region can help.

Example Using the Non-Profitability Framework in a Case Interview

• A state agency that provides free lunches to low-income children found that the number of lunches served over the summer declined substantially from the prior year. The agency wanted to understand the root cause of this decline.

The candidate asked questions about the operations that the agency oversees. He found that:

• Overview – The agency spent 10% less on its summer lunch program this year than in prior years.
• KPI – That the agency’s key performance indicator is the number of lunches provided to low-income children.
• The overall economic health of the state had not changed substantially from the prior year.
• The decline in lunches was focused specifically in a couple of geographic regions – low-income cities where schools were closed over the summer for renovations and where lunches could not be served.

As a result of his analysis, the candidate concluded that while coming in below budget is usually a good thing, for this state agency, it was not. The agency’s KPI was the number of meals served to needy children and the savings came from not being able to provide services in a couple of cities. This meant that children were going hungry.

The candidate recommended that each year, the agency find out in advance if schools that serve the free lunches they fund will be closed over the summer. 

If they will be closed, the agency can look for an alternate location where they can provide lunches for children, such as a community center.

Practice using the profitability and non-profit frameworks to solve case study interview questions until you feel comfortable using them. You can find more about How to Practice Consulting Case Study Questions and find Examples of Consulting Case Study Questions on the My Consulting Offer website.

Commonly Used Case Interview Frameworks that Will Help You Ace Your Case

Once you have mastered the profitability and non-profit frameworks, you can add frameworks that have been developed to analyze specific types of business problems to your case study interview prep tool box.

While it is important to know these frameworks to build out your own business acumen, remember that coming in with a canned framework such as these will likely not get you the offer. So we recommend you become familiar with these frameworks but DON’T MEMORIZE THEM JUST TO USE THEM ON THE INTERVIEW.

Case Prep Tool 1: BCG 2 x 2 Matrix

This framework can be used to identify which business segments the company should continue to invest in, and which should not receive capital or should even be sold off. This framework is called a 2 x 2 it categorizes each segment by 2 different factors:

• Market growth and
• Market share relative to the competition.

This categorization puts each business segment into one of four buckets:

Star – A business segment that has high growth and high market share is often very profitable. These business segments should receive further investment so they can continue to grow.

Cow – A business segment with low growth but high market share is likely to be a stable, profitable business. The profits of this type of business can be reaped over time to invest in other, higher growth business segments.

Dog –  A business segment with low growth and low market share is often not profitable and not likely to improve without substantial investment. The company should consider divesting these business segments to free up cash for more profitable businesses.

? – A business segment with high market growth but low share requires further study. Is further investment likely to result in market share growth, allowing this business segment to become a star? Or is it likely to become a dog over time?

Case Prep Tool 2: SWOT Analysis — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

• Internal or external — Are they something the company has control over or not, and
• Helpful or Harmful.

This categorization puts each factor affecting the business into one of 4 buckets:

Strengths –  A factor that is internal to the organization and helps it to achieve its objectives is a strength that can be leveraged to improve performance over time. Example – strong engineering capabilities.

Weaknesses – A factor that is internal to an organization and harmful is a weakness. This is something the company will need to work to overcome. Example – weak brand awareness in the target market.

Opportunities – A factor that is external to the business that is helpful is an opportunity that can be leveraged to improve profitability. Example – a competitor experiencing production constraints.

Threats – A factor that is external to the business but harmful is something the business should seek to overcome or the limit risk of. Example – new government regulation in their market.

The SWOT Analysis framework can be used to identify actions that a company should take to capitalize on strengths and opportunities and minimize weaknesses and threats.

Case Prep Tool 3: 3 Cs Framework

The Customer – Questions to consider include: Who is the customer? What are their requirements for the product or service? What segments exist in the market? What does each segment look like in terms of growth rates, price sensitivity, etc.?

The Company – Questions to consider include: What is the company’s current product or service offering? How is it differentiated from that of the competition? Does the company have internal capabilities that they can use to create an advantage relative to competitors? What are the company’s current market share and growth rate? How strong is it financially?

The Competitors –  Questions to consider include: What competitive products or services are in the market and how do they compare to the company’s product? This analysis should include not only products that are directly competitive, but also substitutes for the company’s products. 

What internal capabilities do competitors have that could give them an advantage relative to the company’s product?  Are their barriers to entry into the market or is it easy for new competitors enter at any time?

The better a company understands its customers, develops a differentiated product to better serve their customers, and creates barriers that prevent competitors from bringing equivalent products to market, the better strategic position the company is in.

Case Prep Tool 4: 4 Ps Marketing Framework

The 4 Ps framework is a tool used in developing a marketing strategy that will help differentiate a company’s product from competitive products. The 4P framework breaks down the key components of analysis into:

Product – Whether the company is selling a tangible product or a service, they must be clear on what they are offering customers. Is their offering a bare-bones product or does it have a quality level or features that set it apart from alternatives?

Price – The price charged for a product can be set high or low, depending on what it will command in the marketplace. Price has an important impact on sales but also (and inversely) on the company’s bottom line.

Promotion – Potential customers must be made aware that the product exists, understand what distinguishes it from competitive products, and be encouraged to buy it. Promotion includes advertisements, public relations, social media, email marketing, discounts, etc.

Placement – Potential customers need to be able to purchase the product, either at a store or online. Placement can be prominent — at the front of a store or on an endcap — or not. Placement is about making the product easy to find and convenient to buy.

What Is the Most Efficient Way to Learn Frameworks?

The most efficient way to learn case interview frameworks is to first focus on the 2 that can help you analyze any case study interview question— the profitability and non-profit frameworks.  

You do not need a degree in business to be able to use these tools. Once you feel comfortable using the profitability and non-profit frameworks, you can add other business frameworks to your consulting interview prep.

Tailor Your Own Case Interview Frameworks

The most important thing to remember about frameworks is that no one expects you to present one straight from a business textbook and use it in a case interview. 

In fact, consultants prefer candidates to create their own case interview frameworks for analyzing a case rather than to use an off-the-shelf framework. 

Creating your own case interview frameworks shows that you’ve taken the time to consider the specific client problem you’ve been asked to address and have the capability to come up with the key elements of analysis on your own.

This is the secret to how many of our clients are able to gain their offers. They begin their consulting interview prep by learning what a framework is, then mastering the profitability and non-profitability frameworks, and finally learning to build their own case interview frameworks.

Congratulations on making it to the end of our crash course on case interview frameworks! 

We’ve covered:

• What case interview frameworks are,
• Why consulting interviewers love case interview frameworks,
• How to use frameworks help ensure you’ll solve your case,
• The 2 Basic frameworks to learn today,
• Commonly used frameworks,
• How to best use frameworks in your consulting interviews. 

Still have questions?

If you still have questions on how to develop your own case interview frameworks, leave them in the comments below. We’ll ask our My Consulting Offer coaches and get back to you with answers.

Also, we have tons of other articles diving into the things you need to know to get an offer from a top consulting firm, including:

• Our Ultimate Guide to Case Interview Prep ,
• MECE – Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhausting , and
• Tips on Case Interview Practice .

Help with Case Study Interview Preparation

Thanks for turning to My Consulting Offer for advice on case study interview prep. My Consulting Offer has helped almost 85% of the people we’ve worked with get a job in management consulting.

We’ve helped people who are just beginning the case interview process to people who only had less than 1 week to prepare including undergrads, MBAs, PhDs, and working professionals.

We want you to be successful in your consulting interviews too.

If you want a step-by-step solution to land more offers from consulting firms, then  grab the free video training series below.  It’s been created by former Bain, BCG, and McKinsey Consultants, Managers and Recruiters.

It contains the EXACT solution used by over 500 of our clients to land offers.

The best part?

It’s absolutely free. Just put your name and email address in and you’ll have instant access to the training series.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

© My CONSULTING Offer

3 Top Strategies to Master the Case Interview in Under a Week

We are sharing our powerful strategies to pass the case interview even if you have no business background, zero casing experience, or only have a week to prepare.

No thanks, I don't want free strategies to get into consulting.

We are excited to invite you to the online event., where should we send you the calendar invite and login information.

Hacking the Case Interview

Have an upcoming new product case interview and don’t know how to prepare? Don’t worry because we have you covered!

In this article, we’ll cover:

• What is a new product case interview?
• How to solve any new product case interview
• Essential new product case interview frameworks
• New product case interview example

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

What is a New Product Case Interview?

A new product case interview is a type of interview commonly used by consulting firms, particularly those that specialize in management consulting and strategy. This interview format assesses a candidate's ability to analyze and solve complex business problems related to the development and launch of a new product or service.

During a new product case interview, the candidate is presented with a hypothetical scenario involving a company that is considering introducing a new product or service to the market.

The candidate's task is to work through the case by asking relevant questions, gathering information, conducting analysis, and ultimately providing recommendations or solutions to the challenges posed in the case.

The interview is designed to evaluate several key skills and competencies:

Problem-solving: Candidates must demonstrate their ability to break down complex problems into manageable components and develop a structured approach to finding solutions.

• Business acumen : The interview assesses a candidate's understanding of business concepts, such as market analysis, competitive landscape, financial considerations, and customer needs
• Analytical thinking : Candidates are expected to analyze data and information to draw insights, identify trends, and make informed decisions
• Creativity and innovation : Since the case involves a new product or service, candidates are often required to think creatively and propose innovative ideas that can set the product apart in the market
• Communication skills : Effective communication is crucial as candidates need to explain their thought processes, assumptions, and conclusions clearly and succinctly to the interviewer
• Structured thinking : The interview evaluates how well candidates can structure their approach to problem-solving, often using frameworks to organize their analysis and recommendations

New product case interviews may cover a wide range of topics, including market research, pricing strategy, competitive analysis, distribution channels, financial projections, and risk assessment.

Candidates are encouraged to ask thoughtful questions to gather relevant information and make informed decisions.

How to Solve a New Product Case Interview

There are five steps to solve a new product case interview.

1. Understand the case

At the beginning of the case, thoroughly comprehend the details presented in the case prompt. You should be familiar with the context of the company, its industry, and the challenge it faces with the new product. 

Pay attention to any data, numbers, or specific information provided. This initial understanding will serve as the foundation for your analysis and recommendations. Jot down key points to ensure you remember crucial details as you progress.

2. Clarify the objectives

If any aspect of the case is ambiguous or unclear, seek clarification from the interviewer. Make sure you have a crystal-clear understanding of what the company aims to achieve with the new product launch.

This clarification is essential to focus your analysis and ensure you're addressing the right issues.

3. Structure your approach

Develop a well-organized framework to guide your analysis. 

Develop an appropriate framework that suits the case. Your chosen framework provides a structured roadmap that helps you break down the complexity of the case and ensures you cover all critical areas.

Some common elements that you may want to include in your framework are:

• Market : Who are the customers? How large is the market? How quickly is the market growing?
• Competition : What are competitors’ products? What are the strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ products?
• Product : What are the differentiating features of the product? 
• Pricing : How should the new product be priced? (e.g., what is the price point, subscription pricing, freemium model)
• Distribution channels : Through which channels should the new product be sold through? (e.g., online, retailers, direct-to-consumer)
• Promotion and marketing : How will you market the new product? (e.g., advertising, word of mouth, referrals)

For a complete guide on how to create tailored and unique frameworks for each case, check out our article on case interview frameworks .

4. Gather and analyze information

Begin by asking thoughtful and probing questions to gather essential information. Seek insights about the target audience, their needs and preferences, the market dynamics, and the competitive landscape. 

This information gathering phase is crucial, as the quality of your analysis depends on the data you collect.

In your new product case interview, you’ll likely cover a few of the topics below:

Analyze the market : Dive into a comprehensive analysis of the market. Examine its size, growth potential, and trends. Uncover data on customer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns. Assess how the new product aligns with these trends and whether there's a viable market for it.

Assess the competition : Conduct a thorough assessment of the competitive landscape. Identify key competitors in the market, their strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning. Analyze their product offerings, pricing strategies, and marketing tactics. This analysis will help you understand the competitive challenges the company might face and how the new product could differentiate itself.

Evaluate the product : Delve deeply into understanding the new product. Analyze its features, functionalities, and unique value proposition. Consider how it addresses customer pain points and stands out from existing solutions. This evaluation will help you determine the product's potential attractiveness to the target audience.

Develop a pricing strategy : Formulate a sound pricing strategy for the new product. Take into account production costs, competitor pricing, and perceived value by customers. Strive to find the optimal balance between affordability and the product's perceived worth.

Consider distribution channels : Devise a strategic approach to distribution. Determine which channels are best suited to reach the target customers effectively. Evaluate the pros and cons of options like direct sales, partnerships, online platforms, and retail outlets. Your choice of distribution channels should align with the company's resources and the preferences of your target audience.

Think through promotion and marketing : Craft a comprehensive marketing strategy that encompasses various tactics. Consider advertising, social media campaigns, influencer collaborations, and content marketing. Tailor your approach to create buzz, generate interest, and engage potential customers.

Project financials : Develop realistic financial projections for the new product. Estimate potential revenues based on market size and pricing, while considering associated costs such as production, marketing, and distribution. Calculate the expected return on investment (ROI) and determine when the product is likely to break even.

5. Propose a recommendation

Synthesize your analysis into clear and actionable recommendations. Based on your insights, propose strategies that address the challenges highlighted and leverage the opportunities identified. Your recommendations should align with the company's goals and be practical to implement.

Summarize the key takeaways from your analysis and recommendations. Emphasize the potential benefits of your proposed strategies and how they align with the company's objectives. Conclude by highlighting the value of your approach in successfully tackling the challenges of introducing the new product to the market.

In addition to new product case interviews, we also have additional step-by-step guides to: market entry case interviews , growth strategy case interviews , M&A case interviews , pricing case interviews , operations case interviews , and marketing case interviews .

Essential New Product Case Interview Frameworks

There are three new product case interview frameworks you should be familiar with. These are essential marketing concepts that go hand-in-hand with new product case interviews.

However, we do not recommend using these frameworks verbatim. You want to demonstrate to the interviewer that you can think critically for yourself instead of relying on memorized frameworks.

You should instead be creating your own unique and tailored framework for each new product case interview scenario.

Therefore, your framework may include parts and pieces of the frameworks below, but you should not just copy them.

The 5 C’s Framework

The 5 C's framework is a comprehensive approach used in strategic analysis and planning. It takes into account various internal and external factors that influence a company's success.

Here's a brief explanation of each of the 5 C's:

This refers to the internal assessment of the company itself. It involves analyzing the company's strengths, weaknesses, resources, capabilities, and overall strategic direction.

Understanding the company's core competencies and areas needing improvement is essential for effective strategic planning.

2. Collaborators (Partners)

Collaborators encompass the external entities that a company works with to achieve its goals. These can include suppliers, distributors, strategic partners, and other stakeholders.

Building strong relationships with collaborators can contribute to a company's competitive advantage by enhancing its capabilities and expanding its reach.

3. Customers

Understanding the needs, preferences, behaviors, and expectations of customers is crucial for success. Analyzing the customer segment, their demographics, psychographics, and buying patterns helps tailor products and services to their requirements.

A customer-focused approach ensures that offerings are relevant and appealing.

4. Competitors

Evaluating competitors involves understanding their strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market positioning. A thorough analysis of the competitive landscape helps identify opportunities for differentiation and highlights potential threats.

By understanding competitors, a company can make informed decisions to gain a competitive edge.

5. Context:

Context refers to the broader external environment in which the company operates. This includes economic, political, social, technological, and legal factors that impact business operations.

A clear understanding of the context helps anticipate trends, opportunities, and challenges that could influence the company's success.

The STP Framework

The STP framework, which stands for Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning, is a strategic approach used by businesses to effectively identify and address the needs and preferences of specific customer segments in the market.

Here's a brief explanation of each component of the framework:

1. Segmentation

Segmentation involves dividing a heterogeneous market into smaller, more homogeneous groups called segments. These segments share common characteristics, needs, and behaviors.

By segmenting the market, companies can better understand the diversity of their customer base and tailor their marketing efforts to cater to the unique preferences of each segment. Market segmentation can be based on factors such as demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and geographic locations.

2. Targeting

Targeting is the process of selecting one or more segments from the segmented market to focus the company's marketing efforts on. Not all segments may be equally attractive or viable for a business to target.

Companies analyze the potential of each segment, considering factors such as size, growth potential, profitability, and alignment with the company's resources and capabilities.

Targeting enables companies to allocate resources more efficiently and create tailored marketing strategies for the chosen segments.

3. Positioning

Positioning involves defining how a company's product or service is perceived by the target customers in comparison to competitors' offerings. It's about creating a unique and compelling brand image in the minds of consumers.

Companies use positioning strategies to highlight their products' distinctive features, benefits, and value propositions that address the specific needs and preferences of the chosen target segments.

Effective positioning helps differentiate a company's offerings and establishes a competitive advantage in the market.

The Four P’s Framework

The 4 Ps, also known as the Marketing Mix, are a set of key elements that businesses use to formulate their marketing strategies. These elements represent different aspects of a product or service that a company offers.

Here's a brief explanation of each of the 4 Ps:

This refers to the tangible good or intangible service that a company offers to meet customer needs or wants. It includes features, design, quality, branding, and packaging.

Companies must carefully consider what features and benefits their product provides to differentiate it from competitors and address customer needs effectively.

Price refers to the amount of money customers need to pay to acquire the product or service.

Pricing strategies can vary widely, including options like cost-plus pricing, value-based pricing, and competitive pricing.

The price needs to align with the perceived value of the product, the target market's willingness to pay, and the company's overall financial goals.

3. Place (Distribution)

Place involves decisions related to how the product will be distributed and made available to customers. This includes selecting distribution channels such as direct sales, retail stores, online platforms, or partnerships with other businesses.

The goal is to ensure that the product reaches the target customers in the most efficient and convenient way.

4. Promotion

Promotion encompasses all the activities a company undertakes to communicate and market its product to the target audience. This includes advertising, public relations, sales promotions, social media marketing, and other promotional strategies.

The objective is to create awareness, generate interest, and persuade potential customers to choose the company's product over competitors'.

New Product Case Interview Example

Case Background

You are a consultant working with a leading technology company that is considering launching a new product – a smart fitness tracker.

The company believes there's a growing market for wearable fitness devices that can track health metrics and provide personalized insights. They want to assess the feasibility and potential success of this new product in the market.

How to Solve

Write down and summarize the major case details about launching a smart fitness tracker. The main point of the case is that the company wants to assess the feasibility of introducing this new product to the market.

Confirm your understanding with the interviewer. Make sure you're clear on what the company is looking to achieve with the smart fitness tracker launch.

Develop a framework. This will help you systematically analyze the situation.

A potential framework may look like the following:

What is the attractiveness of the smart fitness tracker market?

• What is the market size?
• What is the market growth rate?
• What are average profit margins in the market?

How strong is our product?

• How do customers like our product?
• Does our product solve a pain point for customers?
• What is our product’s differentiating features?

How does our product compare to competitors’ products?

• What are some competing products?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of these competing products?

What are the financial implications?

• How much market share can we capture?
• What are expected revenues?
• What are expected costs?

4. Gather and analyze Information

Start by asking questions to gather information. This new product case interview may dive deeper into any of the following topics:

Analyze the market

• Determine the size and growth rate of the wearable fitness device market
• Identify trends, such as increasing interest in health monitoring
• Analyze demographics of potential users (age, fitness levels, etc.)

Assess the competition

• Identify existing players in the smart fitness tracker market
• Evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, and product offerings
• Determine if there's a gap in the market that the new product could fill

Evaluate the product

• Examine its features and capabilities
• Identify its unique selling points (water resistance, advanced tracking, etc.)
• Consider how these features address customer needs better than existing trackers

Set a pricing strategy

• Analyze the cost of production and technology
• Research the pricing of similar products in the market
• Decide on a pricing strategy that reflects the product's value proposition

Consider distribution channels

• Consider online sales, retail partnerships, and direct sales
• Assess which channels would reach the target audience most effectively

Think through promotion and marketing

• Identify potential channels for promotion (social media, health magazines, etc.)
• Create an advertising plan to highlight unique features
• Develop partnerships with fitness influencers for endorsements

Project financials

• Calculate potential revenue based on pricing and market size
• Factor in production costs, marketing expenses, and distribution expenses
• Calculate the expected return on investment and break-even point

Based on your analysis, summarize your findings and recommendations. Highlight how the proposed strategies leverage market trends, address customer needs, and differentiate the smart fitness tracker in a competitive market.

Another New Product Case Interview Example

Below is another new product case interview. This case focuses on pricing and comes from BCG.

For more practice, check out our article on 23 MBA consulting casebooks with 700+ free practice cases .

Recommended New Product Case Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to learn the most robust, effective case interview strategies in the least time-consuming way:

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with former consulting interviewers
• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer
• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple interviews

Land Multiple Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. 30,000+ happy customers.

Press Enter to search

50 Product Management Case Studies

We often wonder what kind of process other product teams have created, planned, and most importantly, how they have implemented it. That is why we at Producter have compiled 50 different case studies for you.

a year ago   •   4 min read

We often wonder what kind of process other product teams have created, planned, and most importantly, how they have implemented it.

That is why we at Producter have compiled 50 different case studies for you.

Brought to you by Roadmape

1- Rules of Flow for Product Management: an AirBnB Case Study

“Engagement” is a term that is so overused in product management that it has almost lost its meaning. So often I’ve heard from teams, “We’ll measure the success of this test with engagement,” which could mean anything from feature click-through to bounce to we-aren’t-really-sure-this-will-drive-conversion-so-we’re-hedging-our-bet. Underneath, the reason this term has been co-opted and jargonized is that genuine, productive engagement can be ramped toward long-term customer loyalty. And loyalty pays off: a loyalty increase of 7% can boost lifetime profits per customer by as much as 85%, and a loyalty increase of 3% can correlate to a 10% cost reduction ( Brand Keys ).

2- The Psychology of Clubhouse’s User Retention (...and churn)

3- Netflix Q1 ’21 Subscriber Growth Miss: Can We Avoid Another One?

As a data analyst supporting a mobile subscription business , Netflix’s Q1 ’21 subscriber growth miss is a classic example of when I would get called for recommendations to prevent a miss in the future. I thought this would make an interesting case study to discuss my approach to finding insights to drive subscriber growth. Sadly I’m not a Netflix employee and will be limited to publicly available data but the wealth of information on the Internet about Netflix is sufficient to generate insights for this case study.

4- Amazon Go Green

As part of the Design Challenge from productdesign.tips, our team came together to find ways for Amazon to encourage more sustainability on their e-commerce platform. As with any unsolicited design project, the challenge comes with a lack of access to application analytics and technical feasibilities. Nonetheless, the question remains: How might we design checkout screens for an e-commerce app to help people recycle the goods they buy?

5- Quora Case Study – The Wonderful World of Quora

Quora has become a substantive resource for millions of entrepreneurs and one of the best sources for Business to Business market. Majorly used by writers, scholars, bloggers, investors, consultants, students this Q/A site has much to offer in terms of knowledge sharing, connection building and information gathering.

6- Building a product without any full-time product managers

Jambb is an emerging social platform where creators grow their communities by recognizing and rewarding fans for their support. Currently, creators monetize fan engagement through advertisements, merchandise, and subscriptions, to name a few. However, this only represents 1% of fans, leaving the other 99% (who contribute in non-monetary ways) without the same content, access, and recognition that they deserve.

8- What if you can create Listening Sessions on Spotify

Summary: The project was done as a part of a user experience design challenge given to me by a company. I was given the brief by them to work on a feature of Spotify and I spent around 25–30 hours on the challenge in which I went through the entire process, from the research to testing.

9- Redesigned Apple Maps and replicated an Apple product launch for it

Quick-fire question; what is the single most important and widely used feature in a phone — asides from texting and instant messaging friends, coworkers and family? Maybe you guessed right, perhaps this feature is so integrated into your life that you didn’t even think about it — either way, it is your phone’s GPS. It is reasonable to say that GPS technology has changed society’s lives in ways we never could’ve imagined. Gone are the days of using physically printed maps and almanacks, when we now have smartphones with navigation apps. Since the launch of the iPhone and the App Store, consumers have been able to use different apps for their personal navigation needs. Everyone has a preference, and apps have come out to try and address every need.

10- Intuitive design and product-led growth

In 2018, Miro was hardly a blip on the radar in the Design world. Fast forward two years, and suddenly Miro is solidly the number one tool for brainstorming and ideation.

Click below to see the complete list 👇

Producter is a product management tool designed to become customer-driven.

It helps you collect feedback , manage tasks , sharing product updates , creating product docs , and tracking roadmap .

Spread the word

What is customer segmentation, learnings about product development strategy in 2022, keep reading, boost product management with slack: a comprehensive guide to producter's slack integration, mastering the art of product management: 10 essential strategies for success, what is user research.

Market Entry Framework: How to Apply in Case Interviews

The market entry framework is a tool to assess whether a company should enter a particular market or introduce new products in existing markets by assessing growth opportunities, capabilities, and challenges. In case interviews , these frameworks are useful templates for market entry cases.

In this article, I will explain how you can apply market entry frameworks in market entry cases using a four-step guide and case examples. Let’s get started!

Market entry cases in case interview

A market entry is a type of case interview that asks candidates to evaluate and decide whether a client company should enter a particular market. The market entry case is one of the most common types of cases in consulting interviews since, in practice, consultants frequently deal with this type of cases 

Among MBB (Big 3) firms , market entry cases are more common at BCG and Bain than McKinsey.

Our Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program assembled everything you need to know about consulting case interviews and how to pass them, so that’s the best place to go if you have general questions.

Types of market entry cases

There are three commonly encountered market entry cases: New geographic market case, New product category case, and New customer segment case. 

However, you also need to be aware that there are countless types of market entry cases and you can face any type of case in your case interview. Each case you receive has certain differences and comes with a different breakdown and solution.

Type 1: New geographic market case

Geographic market entry cases ask candidates to assess whether the business should expand to a new geographical market , for example, if Amazon Go should enter the UK or if Mercy Meats should enter South America.

Type 2: New product category case

On the other hand, product expansion cases ask candidates to assess whether the business should launch new business lines into their existing market , for example, if Disney should launch their own streaming service, or if Walmart should start selling meal kits from its service partners.

Type 3: New customer segment case

Lastly, targeting different customer segment cases ask candidates to assess whether the company ought to consider offering a version of an existing product to a new customer segment , for example, if KFC should serve premium fried chicken for the wealthy or if Gucci should target working class people. 

Examples of market entry cases

A French soft drink company, Le Seine, is looking to diversify its holdings by investing in a new fast food chain in the US. You are hired to determine whether they should pursue this path and, if so, how they should go about execution (HBS Case Interview Guide).

The client is a grocery store chain considering whether they should enter the emerging Internet-based grocery shopping/delivery market in the Boston area. This regional chain is currently one of the leaders in northern New England's traditional grocery store market.

In their core market, two competitors have emerged in the Internet/at-home grocery shopping business and are rapidly gaining market share. Should the client enter the market?

Apple, a technology company renowned for its premium smartphones and computers, has predominantly focused on individual consumers and creative professionals. Apple is now contemplating the prospect of expanding its market by targeting the corporate sector. Should Apple venture into the corporate market? If so, how should they do it?

Case interview frameworks – Definition & characteristics

Understanding what a framework is, the characteristics of good frameworks, and how to apply them in case interviews is essential to sounding structured and methodical – two main consulting traits interviewers look for.

What is a case interview framework? 

The most important thing to remember when using frameworks to solve a problem is to be FLEXIBLE. Consulting problems are complex and usually, there are no clear-cut, ready-to-use frameworks to solve them. The interviewer looks for context-relevant frameworks, not complicated but inappropriate ones.

Hence, the more you master the “building-blocks” frameworks, the better you can draw specific frameworks suitable to each context. Learn more about frameworks here .

Characteristics of a good framework

When building a framework, you should keep these three priorities in mind:

A good framework is top-down: The problem must be broken down from the generic to the specific, with each hypothesis staying on one level of the issue tree .

A good framework is MECE: MECE is extremely important in problem-solving because it ensures complete coverage of the problem while preventing effort duplications.

A good framework is geared toward isolating the root cause: To isolate the root cause, your framework must strictly follow the problem-solving methodology .

The MConsultingPrep market entry framework

In a market entry case interview , you are expected to evaluate an expansion opportunity (entry into new markets, new segments or new product lines in existing markets), decide whether the client company should pursue it , and, if yes, suggest an entry strategy . The underlying principle of the market entry framework is based on this process.

A market entry framework answers three questions, in order: “Should I enter?”, “Can I enter?”, “How to enter?” .

These ordered questions make up the  three steps of a market entry framework: Assessment, Feasibility, and Implementation.

Step 1: Assessment – Should I enter?

The first step is to justify WHY the company should pursue a particular expansion opportunity. To answer “Should I enter?”, you have to make two assessments – market assessment and company assessment . 

Company assessment will reveal the company’s internal motivations to expand, whereas market assessment shows the external motivations driving expansion decisions.

Company assessment

The first step after receiving a case is to ask for more information about your client company. Use that data to understand if there are internal motivations driving expansion decisions.

For example, let’s say you asked about revenue and were informed of a declining trend. You know this is a market entry case, so you might hypothesize that the client company’s revenue is declining because their product is at the mature stage of the product life cycle.

If the hypothesis is confirmed, this implies an internal motivation for the company’s expansion to other markets to capture new market shares or introduce new products to capture more revenues from their early life cycles.

Market assessment

The next step is to inquire into the market of interest to pinpoint the external motivations that can justify the need to expand. What is attractive about this market? Is it the market size, or the potential market demand? 

If information about the market size is available in the case, this implies that you need to first estimate it .

Sometimes, markets are attractive because of their location advantage , which can save transport costs or enable the client company to obtain cheap inputs . 

The open trade environment of a market might also help firms jump trade barriers. Finally, political stability is also attractive for minimizing risks and conducting business sustainably in the long run.

Other information to ask for:

What is the current product portfolio? What is the life cycle of each product? How closely related are the current products?

Who are the customers? How are they segmented?

What are the company’s key strengths and weaknesses?

What are the current distribution channels?

Who are the key suppliers and partners?

Regardless, the most important information to ask for are:

What geographical area will I serve, and how much demand will there be in the market?

What is the market’s growth rate? What are the current trends in the industry?

At what stage of the life cycle is it? Emerging, Mature, Declining?

Who are the existing competitors in the market?

Are there substitute products or potential entrants?

Are there any location-specific advantages that can save transport/ input costs?

Are there any macroeconomic, social, or geopolitical factors to consider?

Is there a key technology involved? How fast are technologies changing in the industry?

After gathering information about the company and market opportunities, do your cost-benefit analysis. By then, you can decide if the company SHOULD enter a new market or not. 

If you decide that the company should not enter , you no longer need to answer the other two questions. If you decide that it should enter , move on with the next step. 

Part 2: Feasibility – Can I enter?

Remember, only move on with this step if you’ve decided that the estimated benefit of this market entry outweighs the estimated cost. 

At this point, you need to assess the FEASIBILITY of entering a new market – does the client company have the financial capacities and capabilities to adapt to and profit from the new market?

Financial feasibility

Figure out whether the client company’s financial situation can cover investment costs . To do this, you first need to estimate the amount of investment required.

You can follow these questions, in order:

What investments are required for this market entry? (R&D, warehouse rent, factory rent, marketing, distribution, etc)

What is the current financial situation of the company?

Can the company fund these investments itself or can it raise the required capital?

Capability feasibility

The company’s capabilities help it secure market share by differentiating it from other competitors in the market. 

Examples of capabilities are firm-specific competitive advantages such as patented technologies, efficient logistics & production capacities, local knowledge, a low-cost structure, etc.

Important information to ask for:

Does the company have efficient distribution channels/ logistics?

Does the company have efficient production capacities?

Does the company have a patented technology/design that makes room for no substitution of its products?

Can the company obtain the capabilities it currently lacks?

Step 3: Implementation – How to enter?

This step will be applied if it’s feasible for the client to enter this new market and you must next suggest an entry strategy or an implementation plan. This plan must be specific in terms of timeline, modes of expansion, and execution details.

However, there are some market entry scenarios where the project may just require the first two components, which entails responding to the customer's inquiry regarding whether or not they should enter the market they desire. 

Propose a timeframe

Propose a time frame for your expansion strategy. When is the right time for the client company to enter the market? Is there a first-mover advantage at present? 

Don’t forget to refer back to the above information about the company’s situation and market opportunities to support your decision.

Propose a method of expansion

Regarding modes of expansion, there are three common strategies:

Partnership: Partnership entry modes are those wherein two (bilateral partnership) or more (network partnership) firms co-join their finance, skills, information and/or other resources to minimize risks. These are joint ventures , licensing , or joint distribution networks .

Organic: Organic entry modes involve those that increase the company’s sales using only internal resources. In other words, they are trade-based entry modes, such as exporting.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A): M&A generally occurs when one company directly purchases another company. Together, they form a new legal entity under one mother corporation.

Again, evaluate the information about the company and carefully compare that with the risks of each entry mode to decide on a suitable one. For example, if the client company has a patented technology, choosing a partnership entry mode runs the risk of technological theft.

You should also consider the commitment factor – how much control does the company want over the new market, and how much investment is it willing to make? 

With a simple strategy like exporting, you can exit easily but have less control. Meanwhile, with a wholly-owned subsidiary, investment costs are high but you also have more control.

Finalize your execution plan

The final step is to specify your execution plan, containing the key objectives to be implemented. The plan will also need to specify what tasks to be completed, who is in charge of each task, and how they should be carried out. 

The final plan will be the final deliverable to the client. The client can then choose to implement it themselves or sign another implementation contract.

The market entry framework – Sample case

Now, let’s apply the framework to a sample case so you can see the flow.

Situation: 

Your client company is Mercy Meats, an international plant-based meat producer in the US. The main ingredients in their products are soy protein and heme – a genetically modified ingredient extracted from soy roots that makes their products look and taste identical to animal meat.

Mercy Meats is considering an expansion in South American countries, Brazil in particular, after major successes in the US, Hong Kong, and Canada. Our client would like your help in deciding whether or not to pursue this growth opportunity, and if so, what their entry strategy should be.

We’ll begin by assessing the company – Mercy Meats, and Brazil’s market, to make an entry decision.

Company Assessment

For company assessment, we want to find out if there are any internal motivations specific to Mercy Meats regarding this entry decision. We are told that the only motivation is to satisfy its stakeholders’ expectations, profitability-wise and mission-wise.

Profitability-wise, shareholders want to scale up production to capitalize on economies of scale, thereby maximizing profits.

Mission-wise, the CEO and investors want to reduce the environmental footprint of the factory farming industry, by competing with conventional meat producers and making more consumers cut back on animal meat consumption.

Market Assessment

For market assessment, we will look at external motivations that Mercy Meats seek to justify its entry decision – attractive characteristics of Brazil’s alternative protein market.

What is the market’s size, growth rate, trends, and industry life cycle?

First, we’ll want to know the life cycle of plant-based meat, its market size in Brazil, the market’s growth rate, and trends. The plant-based industry is in its growth stage, with an annual average compound growth rate of 8% globally and 20% in Brazil’s market.

Meanwhile, we’re told that Brazil’s plant protein market size is predicted to reach $30.2 billion by 2023. This is mainly attributable to a strong shift in attitude towards vegetarianism among young Brazilian consumers. With a strong growth rate driven by positive attitude shifts, this market is an attractive place to be.

Who are the customers? What are their needs and preferences?

We can broadly construct a portfolio of our customers: people who are health-conscious, high-income, concerned about animal welfare, would buy plant-based protein as a substitution for animal protein, and enjoy similar tastes of real meat.

The interviewer might also inform us that our customers could be swayed by lab-grown meat for its real taste and “real meat” brand, although this technology is yet to be marketable due to its high price and environmental concerns.

The competitors of Mercy Meats will consist of any businesses meeting the same customer demand mentioned above. We’re told that direct competitors in the market are local plant-based brands, however, the tough competition will be posed by conventional meat players (such as Marfrig or JBS), who are starting to develop their own plant-based products.

Here, we should talk about events that can broadly affect our entry strategy. For example, we might point out that complex bureaucracy and lack of transparency are the two biggest barriers to doing business in Brazil.

As a response, the interviewer might say that Brazilian governments are committed to reducing bureaucracy by simplifying their tax structure and investing in public services digitalization (such as digitized tax fillings). This is a positive improvement, making Brazil a more attractive place to do business. You can raise other concerning issues in a similar manner if needed.

To summarize, we have sufficient reasons to decide that Mercy Meats should enter Brazil . Brazil’s plant-based protein market is overall attractive, with a strong predicted growth rate and, as a leading soy producer, can create a cost-saving advantage for the company.

The biggest concern so far is competition from well-established meat players, and lab-grown meat competitors in the near future. 

Step 2: Feasibility – Can I enter?

Now that we’ve decided that entering Brazil is beneficial for Mercy Meats, we need to see whether the client company is equipped with what’s required to do so, capability-wise and finance-wise.

First, we need to understand whether Mercy Meats has the capabilities (competitive advantages), to sustainably compete in the new market. 

In the US, Canada, and Singapore, Mercy Meats have very efficient logistical channels, with low warehouse capacity, minimal shipping time, low inventory turnover rate, and a high number of orders relative to all of its major competitors. The company definitely has the required capability to replicate another efficient logistical channel in Brazil.

Can the company produce premium quality products at a lower cost than its competitors?

Mercy Meats products, Mercy Burger, Mercy Sausage, and Mercy Pork, are much more expensive compared to animal meat products in Brazil. For example, one Impossible Burger pack weighing 1.4kg is currently priced at around $30, nearly 4 times higher than the same amount of beef (around $8 per 1.4kg) in Brazil. 

However, Brazil is the leading exporter of soybean in quantity due to its low price and premium quality. Hence, if the company can take advantage of the low soybean input in Brazil and can scale up its production, a more reasonable product pricing can be achieved. 

Does the company have a patented technology/design that distinguishes it from other competitors?

Mercy Meats owns a patented technology over its heme ingredient, a soy root-extracted ingredient that makes its products taste and look almost identical to animal meat. In fact, Burger Queen, a major fast food chain, chose to partner with Mercy Meats in the US because its products taste much more like real meat than that of Beyond Meat, Mercy Meats’ biggest competitor in the plant-based industry. 

What is the current financial situation of the company? Can the company fund the investments itself or can it raise the required capital?

Next, we will look at how much investment is required and whether the company can financially cover it. The total investment cost is estimated at $80 million, while the expected return is over $180 million in 2 years. 

Finance-wise, the company is doing really well, with average yearly revenue of $151 million. Mercy Meats also attracted many investors in the past, with $1.4 billion in total funding, of which $200 million was acquired in 2020. These figures exhibit investor confidence in the company, which implies a high chance of getting more funding in the near future.

After analyzing the facts and evidence, we can conclude that Mercy Meats clearly has the finance and capability to enter Brazil . Hence, we proceed with the decision to advise the client to say “Yes” to the entry decision.

The final step is to formulate an entry strategy, which includes deciding the implementation timeline, choosing the methods of expansion, and drafting an execution plan. We will examine each aspect, in the above order.

When is the best time to enter Brazil’s market?

The best time to enter Brazil is right now. We’ve observed that our major competitors, such as Marfrig, have started developing their own lines of plant-based meat. These competitors have better local knowledge than our client company and an already widely-recognized brand name in Brazil. Mercy Meats needs to move fast if it wants to secure a fair share of the plant-based meat market. 

Which method of expansion is the most suitable?

To effectively gauge demand, Mercy Meats should consider expanding under trade-based modes, exporting in particular, and growing organically first. After that, it is recommended that Mercy Meats establish its own subsidiary, to have better control of two aspects: technology and market. 

First, partnership modes are risky due to the potential of technological theft, subsidiaries or M&A modes can eliminate this risk, although they require more investment. Second, establishing a production subsidiary will enable the company to exert more control over the target market, by quickly adjusting production to customers’ needs and reducing logistic costs to be more cost-competitive . 

What is the execution plan?

Finally, we need to develop an execution plan.

What: The breakdown of tasks in the overall implementation plan, for example, establishing partnerships for exporting, marketing the product, setting up the factory, etc.

Who: Who will be in charge of the aforementioned tasks? What are their deliverables?

How: What are the targets for each task, what are the expected quality standards that align with the key objectives?

Market entry case: examples & guidelines 

Case 1: medicare plus.

Our client, MediCare Plus, is considering opening a new medical clinic in the affluent Riverside neighborhood of Los Angeles. Riverside is known for its high-income residents, including individuals from various socio-economic segments. 

The client aims to diversify their healthcare services and tap into the lucrative Riverside market that aligns with their expertise. They seek your guidance on whether to proceed with this investment.

Should MediCare Plus open a new medical clinic in Riverside, Los Angeles?

Step 1: Assessment - Should I Enter?

Current Capability: Can MediCare Plus handle this expansion given its current resources and expertise?

Strategic Alignment: Does this expansion align with MediCare Plus' long-term goals?

Market Size: How big is the Riverside healthcare market?

Market Growth: Is the Riverside healthcare market expected to grow?

Competitors: Who are the competitors in Riverside's healthcare market?

Step 2: Feasibility - Can I Enter?

Financial Feasibility

Initial Investment: What's the cost to set up the new clinic?

Operating Costs: What are the ongoing expenses, including salaries, maintenance, and utilities?

Revenue Projection: How much revenue can we expect from different patient segments and specialties?

Capability Assessment

• Facilities: Can MediCare Plus handle clinic setup and management in Riverside?
• Financing: How can we finance this expansion?
• Doctor and Patient Attraction: Can we attract top doctors and patients to Riverside?

Step 3: Implementation - How I Enter?

Key Milestones: What are the critical milestones and deadlines for the expansion?

Responsibility: Who is responsible for each task?

Tasks: What specific activities are needed for a successful launch?

Methods: How will we execute each task effectively?

Approaches: What strategies and methods will we use for marketing, patient acquisition, and operations?

Case 2: TechGizmo Inc .

Our client, TechGizmo Inc., is a leading manufacturer of smartphones and consumer electronics. They have been experiencing steady growth, with revenues of $500 million last year and a healthy profit margin of 15%. However, they are concerned about the cyclical nature of the consumer electronics industry, which can lead to fluctuations in their business.

The CEO is considering entering the market for smart home devices. They want your opinion on whether this would be a good strategic move for TechGizmo Inc.?

Current Capability: Can TechGizmo handle this expansion with its existing resources and expertise?

Strategic Alignment: Does this expansion align with TechGizmo's long-term goals and expertise in consumer electronics?

Market Size: How big is the smart home devices market in Westwood?

Market Growth: Is the smart home devices market in Westwood expected to grow?

Competitors: Who are the competitors in Westwood's smart home devices market?

Initial Investment: What's the cost to develop and launch the new line of smart home devices?

Operating Costs: What are the ongoing expenses, including production, marketing, and distribution?

Revenue Projection: How much revenue can we expect from different customer segments and product lines?

Product Development: Can TechGizmo efficiently develop and manufacture smart home devices?

Financing: What are the financing options available for this expansion?

Customer and Retailer Attraction: Can TechGizmo attract both customers and retailers to sell their smart home devices in Westwood?

Step 3: Implementation

Key Milestones: What are the critical milestones and deadlines for launching the new line of smart home devices?

Responsibility: Who is responsible for each task, from product development to marketing?

Tasks: What specific activities are needed for a successful product launch?

Methods: How will we execute each task effectively, from marketing strategies to distribution?

Approaches: What marketing strategies and distribution methods will we use to promote and sell our smart home devices in Westwood?

What do you think about the market entry framework sample presented above? It’s super detailed, isn’t it? Even so, it’s just theory. 

The only way to master the market entry framework is to practice. You need to learn and understand the fundamentals of market entry cases.

And it would be best if you had any consulting experts review your performance. Reach out to our ex-consultants , who can give you concrete feedback on your answer to a specific market entry framework case. 

Meet your coach today to start sharpening your skills! They’ll help you determine your weak areas and suggest effective improvement methods. 

Scoring in the McKinsey PSG/Digital Assessment

The scoring mechanism in the McKinsey Digital Assessment

Related product

Case Interview End-to-End Secrets Program

Elevate your case interview skills with a well-rounded preparation package

A case interview is where candidates is asked to solve a business problem. They are used by consulting firms to evaluate problem-solving skill & soft skills

Case interview frameworks are methods for addressing and solving business cases.  A framework can be extensively customized or off-the-shelf for specific cases.

6 Product Management Case Studies You Can't Miss

Associate Product Marketer at Zeda.io.

Mahima Arora

Created on:

March 18, 2024

Updated on:

8 mins read

Transform Insights into Impact

Build Products That Drive Revenue and Delight Customers!

Product management case studies are detailed analyses of how a product was conceptualized, developed, and marketed. A typical product management case study contains the following:

• The pain points and expectations of the user
• Competing products in the market
• Development , delivery, and iteration methods
• Marketing strategies implemented to relay the product’s value proposition
• How the product was received
• Lessons for the product team

So, why should you learn about the development of a product in so much detail? The answer lies in the sixth bullet.

Let’s look at how reading case studies related to product management can help you.

How product management case studies help you

Here’s why reading product management case studies is a worthwhile investment of your time. A well-written case study:

• Gives you an in-depth understanding of real product problems : Meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customers is always challenging. Whether it is technical complexities, budget limitations, or organizational miscommunication, a case study helps you recognize the source of the problem which led to the development of a less-desirable product.
• Contains practical insights outside of the theory : Even a layman can learn the steps of SaaS product management . However, seasoned product managers know that developing a successful product takes more than learning the development steps. These case studies contain tons of real-life scenarios and the lessons that come with them.
• Educates you and makes you a better product manager: Product management case study examples take you through the journey of developing a product, which helps you improve your existing approach toward product development. You will also learn better ways to manage your team and resources.

In simple terms, a product management case study helps teams learn lessons that they can emulate to develop a more profitable product.

In this article, let’s look at six product management case studies that are a must-read for every product manager.

1. Slack: Initial product launch strategy

Stewart Butterfield started a gaming company called Tiny Speck to change the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). Him and his team created Glitch which was quite different from other games in that genre such as World of Warcraft.

Glitch was a 2D game that did not have the violent aspects that typical MMORPG games had at the time. It allowed extensive character personalization and Butterfield described it as “Monty Python crossed with Dr. Seuss on acid”.

While building Glitch, Butterfield and his team used the Internet Relay Chat (IRC), an online chat tool popular in the 80s and 90s. However, it fell short as the team found it difficult to keep track of past conversations, which motivated them to build their own communication tool.

As they developed Glitch, their internal chat tool gained more features based on their needs.

Despite lots of support from investors, Glitch was unable to attract enough players to keep running profitably and Butterfield eventually shut it down in 2012 .

After six months, in early 2013, Butterfield renamed their internal communication tool Slack - acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge and requested his friends and colleagues to try it out and give feedback — they all loved it.

By May 2013, Slack was ready for the big reveal which posed a new challenge — executing the perfect launch strategy to drive demand.

Slack’s Challenge: Nailing the initial product launch

While launching an app that can have such an impact on how organizations work, it is crucial to get it right. At the time, there weren’t many team messaging apps and most teams had conversations via email.

Slack needed a significant number of early adopters to validate their hypotheses about team collaboration and collect data that will help them improve its services further. Consequently, this increased the stakes for the first launch.

How did Slack do it

CEO Stewart Butterfield revealed that on the first day of the launch, Slack welcomed 8000 new users which rose to 15000 at the end of the second week. The credit for this initial success, he explains, went primarily to social media.

Social media helped Slack deliver its PR pieces through its genuine users. This led to a snowballing effect because people interacted with people.

Slack recorded over 18 million active users in 2020.

Although the impact of social media-based word-of-mouth marketing will have different levels of success as it depends on factors such as the type of product and its use cases, you should have a social media marketing strategy to spread the word.

Suggested Read: Leveraging VoC-driven AI Insights to Build Revenue-generating Products

2. Superhuman: Finding product-market fit

‍ Superhuman is a premium email service for busy teams and professionals who need more of everything; speed, usability, and personalization. Apart from superb design, Superhuman processes and executes any request within 100ms.

Rahul Vohra built Rapportive in 2010 — a plugin that adds social profiles to Gmail which was later acquired by LinkedIn . This gave Vohra an intimate view of email and quickly realized that things will progressively get worse.

In his words, “I could see Gmail getting worse every single year, becoming more cluttered, using more memory, consuming more CPU, slowing down your machine, and still not working properly offline.” 

He also brought attention to the number of plugins people used, “And on top of that, people were installing plugins like ours, Rapportive, but also Boomerang, Mixmax, Clearbit, you name it, they had it. And each plugin took those problems of clutter, memory, CPU, performance offline, and made all of them dramatically worse.”

Vohra had one question in his mind — how different would the email experience be if it was designed today instead of 12 years ago?

‍ Superhuman was born to give professionals the email experience that they have been long waiting for. Smooth, easy on the eyes, and most importantly, blazingly fast.

But, there was one elephant in the room.

The idea of building a better email service than the existing players sounded great. However, going against some of the biggest brands of Silicon Valley required more than a bad personal experience with Gmail. 

The Superhuman team needed evidence that such a product is actually desirable.

Superhuman’s Challenge: Establishing product-market fit

The team at Superhuman was competing against the email services of Apple, Google, and Microsoft which made the product-market fit quite crucial.

But how do you know whether you have achieved product-market fit?

How did Superhuman do it

Vohra and his team came up with an innovative idea to measure product-market fit by testing crucial hypotheses and focusing on the right target audience.

Superhuman had two hypotheses :

• People are dissatisfied with Gmail and how slow it is.
• People are also dissatisfied with third-party email clients and how buggy they were.

In a product management case study , Vohra explained how to find the right audience — the users who would be ‘very disappointed’ if they could no longer use your product. After identifying them, all you have to do is build the product as they want it.

3. Medium: “Highlights” feature

Evan Williams co-founded Blogger and Twitter which has helped millions of people share their thoughts with the world. Although both platforms became quite popular, they still couldn’t deliver the best reading experience to their users. Blogger allowed readers to browse topics by authors only and Twitter made it difficult for authors to aptly describe themselves.

He quickly recognized the need for a publishing platform that delivers a diverse experience for the readers and allows the authors to speak their hearts.

That’s how Medium was born. It enabled readers to browse articles by topics and authors, helping them to gain different perspectives on any particular subject. It also allowed everyone from professional programmers to amateur chefs to share their insights with the world as they wanted it.

The developers slowly added more features to Medium such as tags, linked images, social cards, and sharing drafts as it evolved through the years.

One of the many notable features of the platform is the “Highlight” feature — where you can select any particular post section and treat it as a mini-post. You can comment on the Highlight or tweet it, which is handy for both personal revision and sharing interesting snippets with others.

Suggested Read: Want to become a Product Coach?

Medium’s Challenge: Determining whether “Highlights” added value

Medium faced a challenge while determining a metric that can give them an accurate assessment of the desirability of this feature. In other words, they needed a metric that would tell them whether the “Highlights” feature made user interactions better and more rewarding.

How did Medium do it

The team at Medium solved the challenge by shifting their focus to one crucial metric rather than multiple vanity metrics such as organic visits and retention time which signifies how much value your users are getting out of your product based on retention rate. 

For Medium, it was Total Time Reading (TTR) . It is calculated by estimating the average read time which is the number of words divided by the average reading speed (about 265 WPM) and adding the time spent by the reader lingering over good paragraphs by tracking scrolling speed.

4. Ipsy: Managing distribution 

Michelle Phan started her journey as a YouTuber who recognized the importance of makeup in someone’s self-expression. She has been sharing beauty tips and makeup tutorials with her audience since 2007. 

While on a trip to Thailand, she observed how little girls scrambled to pay for makeup samples in front of vending machines. Five years later, she launched a subscription-based Glam Bag program — where the customers will receive 4-5 deluxe-sized samples of makeup products.

MyGlam, as it was known back then, quickly gained over half-a-million monthly subscribers which created one of the biggest online beauty communities.

Phan quickly realized what she wanted to do — to build a brand for women who wanted to share their perspectives on beauty and meet like-minded people with similar interests and styles.

Ipsy , which comes from the Latin root “ipse” meaning “self”, was created by Phan, Marcelo Camberos, Jennifer Goldfarb, and Richard Frias to expand the user experience.

Although Phan knew how to convert viewers into paying customers, executing a marketing strategy by scaling it up was challenging.

Ipsy’s Challenge: Managing a content distribution strategy

The first makeup tutorial by Michelle Phan has now over 12 million views. Videos like that helped Phan get her first subscribers on her MyGlam program.

This shows the importance and impact of influencer-led content on revenue for businesses in the beauty industry.

However, running an influencer content distribution strategy involves collaborating with multiple passionate influencers. It was challenging to find like-minded influencers who will promote only one brand. Moreover, when working with influencers, it's important to implement effective content moderation to make sure the posted content aligns with your goals.

Phan and her team had a simple solution for this.

How did Ipsy do it

Phan and Spencer McClung, EVP of Media and Partnerships at Ipsy, partnered with beauty influencers like Bethany Mota, Promise Phan, Jessica Harlow, and Andrea Brooks who were already subscribed to MyGlam to create content exclusively for Ipsy.

In a case study analysis, McClung revealed that it put Ipsy on a content-based growth loop where the content was created by both the influencers and customers for the beauty community.

Sponsored content for products by influencers helped them increase their reach and helped Ipsy get more loyal customers. This growth loop gained Ipsy over 3 million monthly subscribers .

Suggested Read: Pivoting equals failure?🤯

5. Stitch Fix: Mastering personalization

Katrina Lake, the founder of Stitch Fix , realized back in 2011 that apparel shopping needed an upgrade. eCommerce failed to meet the expectations of the shoppers and retail shops were falling short in terms of options.

In an interview with The Cut , she revealed "Searching online for jeans is a ridiculously bad experience. And I realized that if I imagined a different future, I could create it."

After realizing that no one has merged data and fashion shopping, she set out to make a difference. She started a personal styling service out of her apartment in 2011 when she was pursuing her MBA from Harvard.

Lake relied on SurveyMonkey to keep track of her customer’s preferences and charged $20 as a styling fee. In late 2012 Eric Colson, then the VP of data science and engineering at Netflix, joined Lake on her journey of crafting the future of retail.

Lake and Colson wanted to give their customers much more than just personalized recommendations.

Stitch Fix’s Challenge: Building a personalized store

Stitch Fix wanted to give their customers more than just personalized recommendations — they wanted to build a personalized store for them where everything they look at, from clothes to accessories, matches their flavor.

But everyone’s body dimensions, preferences, budgets, and past choices are unique which can make building a personalized store difficult.

The team at Stitch Fix found a simple yet effective solution for this challenge.

How did Stitch Fix do it

Katrina Lake, CEO of Stitch Fix, revealed in a case study that personalization is crucial for the onboarding, retention, and monetization of customers.

When signing up, Stitch Fix asks you a few questions about your fashion choices and picks clothes that look the best on you. Furthermore, the collections in your personal store will keep improving as it continuously learns more about your personal preferences.

Also, there is no subscription fee which makes Stitch Fix a great option for occasional shoppers. Suggested Read: Canva’s Success Tale in the World of Design

6. Pinterest: User retention

Ben Silbermann started his tech career at Google’s customer support department. Although he loved the company and believed in its vision, he quickly became frustrated as he wasn’t allowed to build products.

With support from his girlfriend (now wife) Divya and a college friend Paul Sciarra (co-founder), Ben created an app called “Tote” in 2009 which was described as a “catalog for the phone”. Tote allowed users to catalog their favorite items and will be alerted whenever they were on sale so they can make a purchase.

However, the users used it to share their collections with each other instead. Ben recalled how he collected insects as a kid and loved sharing his collection with others. He recognized how people, in general, love to do that.

And, just like that, Pinterest was born where users can “pin” whatever they are interested in and add it to their personal collections.

Pinterest quickly became a hit and entered the global market.

Despite huge success within the US, Pinterest struggled to retain users globally. The team realized that the primary reason users churned is that something stopped them from getting the product’s core value — building personal collections.

Pinterest’s Challenge: Helping customers quickly realize the core value

There are many things that can prevent a user from accessing a product’s core value and one of them is internal friction within the product.

Pinterest’s product folks zeroed in on the one feature that was the gateway to the product’s core value — the “Pin It” feature.

Users outside the US simply couldn’t relate to the term, even though all it did was save the item they like to their personal collection.

How did Pinterest do it

The “Pin It” feature of Pinterest is linked directly to its brand identity. Casey Winters, former growth product lead at Pinterest, suggested changing it to “Save”, particularly in areas outside of the US.

As of the third quarter of 2022, it has over 445 million monthly users all over the world exploring various “ideas” to build collections for sharing with their friends.

Casey concludes in the product management case study that checking whether the users are getting your product’s core value is pivotal in solving most of your growth challenges.

Key Takeaways

Case studies for product management contain in-depth insights that help product teams improve their approach toward their product’s ideation, analysis , development, and commercialization.

The six product management case study examples we reviewed above give these crucial insights:

• Slack : Don’t forget to use social media for marketing your product before its launch.
• Superhuman : Focus on the users that will be “very disappointed” if they can’t use your product anymore to achieve product-market fit.
• Medium : Track the one metric that tells you whether your users are getting value from your product rather than vanity metrics such as organic traffic.
• Ipsy : Partner with influencers to educate your target audience on how to get the most out of your product.
• Stitch Fix : Learn about what your users want and recommend them just that.
• Pinterest : Continuously experiment by changing multiple variables to uncover new growth opportunities.

To put these lessons into practice, you need to provide your team with the right tools that help them interact with your users, learn about their preferences, monitor their usage data, plan the next steps, and manage product development effectively.

Zeda.io is a product management super-app that allows you to do just that. You can run your entire product management process , from ideation to delivery, in one place. Zeda.io comes with over 5000 integrations with Zapier, enabling you to hit the ground running in no time.

Start your free trial today . Also, looking for the latest trends in AI, UX, product management, and startups? Join our biweekly newsletter now! We distill complex topics into actionable insights just for you. Hit the 'Subscribe' button and never miss out on these valuable updates. Act now – because in the fast-paced world of tech, staying ahead matters! Subscribe here.

• What is a product management case study?

Answer: A product management case study is a detailed analysis of how a product was developed and iterated over time for maximum success. These studies help product managers learn from others and improve their own approach toward product management.

• How do you prepare a product management case?

Answer: You can prepare a product management case study in four steps — understand customer needs, monitor the stages of development, identify the factors that affected the course of product development, and extract takeaways.

• What are the 3 major areas of product management?

Answer: Discovery — recognizing the need for a product, planning — creating a roadmap to plan the product’s development, and development — the various sprints through which a product is developed are three major areas of product management.

• What are the 7 steps of product planning?

Answer: Concept development, competitive analysis, market research, MVP development, introduction, product lifecycle, and sunset are the seven steps of product planning.

• What are the 5 dimensions of product management?

Answer: Reliability, usability, functionality, maintainability, and efficiency are the five dimensions of product management.

• What are the 4 P's of product management?

Answer: Product, price, place, and promotion are the 4Ps of product management which represent four crucial aspects product teams should simultaneously focus on while developing a product. 

• What are the 5 phases of the product management process?

Answer: Idea generation, screening, concept development, product development, and commercialization are the five phases of the product management process .

Join Product Café Newsletter!

Sip on the freshest insights in Product Management, UX, and AI — straight to your inbox.

By subscribing, I agree to receive communications by Zeda.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

Latest articles

Everything you need to create a product development roadmap.

Unlock the secrets to crafting a product development roadmap with our comprehensive guide and discover how Zeda.io can help you.

The Ultimate Guide to Managing Feature Requests

Feature requests come from senior management, external stakeholders, users, and internal product team. Here is how you can manage them to build a great product.

Here's How You Build Products Users Use Everyday

The Hook Model offers a robust framework for product managers and designers aiming to create habit-forming products. Read the article to understand what the Hook Model is and why it is important to integrate it into your product development strategy.

Decide what to build next with AI-powered Insights

• What are product discovery techniques?
• 8 key product discovery techniques link

Top AI Product Management Courses for 2024

Take a deep dive into the Top AI Product Management courses that you can learn from and devise how AI can help you in different ways to enhance your product manager journey.

Market Opportunity Analysis: A Complete Guide (With Examples)

Find out how to perform a market opportunity analysis to make sure your business idea will bring you the results you're looking for.

Product Validation Process & Testing: a Step-by-step Guide (+examples)

Everything you need to know about product validation process and testing: your personal roadmap for creating market-ready products.

Download a resourse

Non tincidunt amet justo ante imperdiet massa adipiscing.

App Sign Up

Subscribe to newsletter, book a demo, ai-powered product discovery for customer-focused teams.

Product Management Case Studies

Explore Product Management Case Studies

Featured Case Studies

Get the latest product case studies in your inbox.

All Product Management Case Studies

Come For the Content ‍ Stay For the Community

Try for free

7 Product Management Case Studies To Live and Learn By

Product strategy case study

Product manager interview case study examples, bonus: two more resources you didn’t know you needed.

You will have some successes and make some mistakes. That is ok. The point is to learn from your mistakes, adapt and continuously improve.

For any product manager working in an Agile environment, this philosophy works pretty well with the iterative approach that Scrum and its related methodologies encourage. But, it is also worth learning from others who have been ‘doing’ in environments similar to yours. 

Why make avoidable mistakes when you can learn from what’s worked well for other product managers?

To help out with that, we’ve put together a collection of product management case studies. 

Want to learn from other product managers with remote teams? Looking for tips on the best way to prioritize ? Then we have you covered.

Get started with product management templates

.css-uphcpb{position:absolute;left:0;top:-87px;} 7 product management case studies and examples of product management in action

Roadmaps and prioritization case studies.

Where better place to start than the holy grail of product management excellence, roadmaps and prioritization techniques?

Prioritization and roadmapping may be interdependent, but they still serve very different functions. Your roadmap is ‘when you will build’ and your prioritization list tends to be ‘what you will build’ within that time frame. These two product management case studies focus on how teams used airfocus to improve their processes and productivity.

Aligning your roadmap and agreeing to your prioritizations is a mission-critical component of successful product teams. Our client, Mirrorweb , is an archiving solution provider that assists its clients with compliance requirements — and is a fantastic case study of how roadmapping and prioritization can make a product team more effective. 

Jamie Hoyle, the VP of Product needed to achieve two key objectives:

Visualize project management trade-offs and effort.

Make quantitative product decisions collectively and collaboratively.

Jamie chose airfocus based on a few stand-out features:

Easy to update and share roadmaps . This was an improvement from their previous situation, where their roadmap was updated monthly. 

Scoring matrix. This ranks features by relative effort and customer value. Bonus: It works in real-time, and you can customize your settings based on feedback loops.

New features, technical debt and client requests can be attributed to the roadmap to easily measure impact.

With airfocus, the Mirrorweb team was able to work with greater clarity and communication, despite moving into a fully remote set-up.

Then there’s NAMOA Digital , an end-to-end process management software solutions provider. NAMOA Digital’s team faced similar challenges related to roadmaps and prioritization. André Cardoso and the rest of his business solutions team knew that they had to solve a few key issues, including:

Lack of a strategically structured and prioritized request list.

No process for deciding where to invest the team’s resources. 

Missing an efficient and collaborative prioritization process.

No easy method to share roadmap decisions or align the whole organization with an agreed product strategy .

Andre was using excel formulas to create his prioritization criteria and kanban boards for workflows. By switching to airfocus , he was able to simplify and optimize the product management process with these key features:

Consolidated roadmap and prioritization list in an easy-to-access tool.

Customizable prioritization. Set your own total priority calculation with adjustable criteria, making deciding what to build next a breeze. Teams can contribute to the business goals or criteria.

Ask any world-class PM , and they’ll tell you that product strategies are a framework , not a ‘vision’. Frameworks are more useful when they are tangible and that’s why your product strategy should work to inform your roadmap, objectives, key results ( OKR ) and ultimately your backlog too.

Tech travel company, Almundo, transformed into a product-driven company with product-led growth by defining its strategy first. Their Head of Product, Franco Fagioli, approached setting the product strategy in a pragmatic way by asking the right questions: 

What is our organization’s purpose?

Where is our playground? Think segment, vertical, and channels.

How will we succeed? Define your approach by picking your Porter strategy . Will lower cost, differentiation, or focus be more valuable for your product, for example?

What capabilities do we need now? What skills will be required to deliver against the strategy and who do you know you can provide them?

What systems do we need? Are you going with Slack or Teams? What will be your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system?

An insight for Almundo’s team was to recognize that the answers to these questions existed at different levels within their organization. Almundo's three levels needed to be merged into one framework. 

Corporate level

Strategic Group level

Individual Business level

Your team can tweak this approach according to the complexity of your set-up. In Almundo’s case, the team chose an iterative approach that combined the inputs into one roadmap. The roadmap covered their objectives, key results (OKR) and backlog.

So what does this product management case study teach us about product strategy?

Define your North Star . Start at the top and go through each level.

Prioritize and define . Keep OKRs minimal. A good guide is to stick to three objectives for the next quarter. Don’t add any KRs that you don't really need. Think like Mari Kondo.

Quarterly planning meetings . To start, these will cover future plans. Once you have the first quarter behind you, you can include learnings and results.

When you have a clear strategy in place, take a look at the elements related to delivering on that strategy . As you probably noticed, having good tools can make or break the creation and implementation of your strategic goals.

Cut through the clutter of PM Content with our bi-weekly digest

Remote product management case study.

Oriflame is a long-standing airfocus client . They are a remote-working beauty brand with a presence in 60 countries. Although this global spread can add value in some ways, Product Managing Director, Joakim Wissing, was struggling to communicate his product strategy across a business that was divided into silos.

By implementing airfocus, he solved his two key issues:

A lack of cohesion and inconsistent understanding of the product strategy .

A reactive approach to project prioritization.

airfocus offered Joakim and his team solutions they couldn't get from their existing software.

Setting business values. Leaders can compare the value and costs of projects.

Strategic remote collaboration. Teams can think ahead by planning the year’s priorities with remote games of Priority Poker . The results are integrated into one system that makes them easy to share, access and update.

Integration. airfocus has two-way Azure DevOps integration. This means that features, epics and stories are continuously synced and remotely accessible.

Increased transparency. Agile methodologies tend to function best in organizations that have a culture of transparency and good communication. Great tools will help your organization increase these critical components.

Product prototyping case study

Whether you are doing your first prototype to test market fit or using prototypes to test out new features, it is worth checking in on how other teams approach this phase.

For Agile teams, one of the best product management case studies is the prototyping method used by the team working on a prototype for the Barbican, a highly-regarded arts and culture center in London.

The team worked over one sprint of two weeks to produce a prototype that combined the Barbican’s scattered ecosystem of various event advertising apps and a booking website . Their objective was to solve existing problems by creating one native app/website with all event information and ticket booking.

While the team had no distinct role definitions, Emily Peta, a UX designer , managed the workflow and the process stages. With one sprint to work with, the team still made sure to follow a comprehensive process that covered a number of crucial stages:

Competitor analysis

First, Emily’s team explored existing solutions that they could adapt for quick wins.

Keep your product strategy in mind, however, and remember what your brand stands for.

Remember Instagram trying to be TikTok? That was not a good look (and it wasn’t well received).

Product and user definition

The team then conducted ten user interviews and screening surveys to get an understanding of what people wanted from an exhibition app. Their affinity diagram highlighted three distinct phases:

Before: Users want to look for interesting exhibitions and book to see them.

During: Everything users want to do once they arrive at the exhibition.

After: Users want to share photos and leave reviews.

Considering their time constraints, they wisely focused on the ‘during’ phase and chose to answer one question: ‘How can we improve the experience of the user during an exhibition?’

To start finding solutions to this question, Emily and her team created:

One user persona (and while this is a good start, depending on your audience, you will likely need more than one).

Outcome statement. A good outcome statement should provide answers to these loose categories:

Next up, the team mapped out the user flow for the persona. This is an important high-level flow, so don’t skip it out. This user flow was used to plan the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) features along with a few other inputs and prioritization games like Crazy Eights. The outcome here was a focused list of features to start prototyping.

Technical requirements

Before moving into prototyping, it helps to consider the technical requirements that might affect your product. In this case, to meet the Barbican’s ‘during’ requirements, the solution needed to use Bluetooth and GPS for people on the go, so the decision was made to build an app and not a website.

Speeding through this stage — or worse, not doing it at all — can quickly send the development process off course.

Prototyping and testing

Finally, Emily and her team were ready to create low-fidelity mockups, testing them with users and then iterating based on the feedback. This is not a purely linear process, so look at it as a feedback loop: iterate, iterate, iterate but know when to stop.

Once the team was satisfied that the lo-fi prototype was good to go as an MVP, they mocked it up in InVision as a high-fidelity, interactive prototype that could be used for further testing and briefing build teams.

This is probably one of the best times to embrace the ‘fail fast’ philosophy. Being precious about prototypes defeats the purpose. Be ready to make mistakes and improve based on your learnings.

Customer/user feedback case study

It’s never too early to start listening to customers and/or users, and there are a whole bunch of ways to do this at different stages. For any team that has a product in the market already, real-time user analytics is super important to feedback into your decision-making processes.

Gumtree, an established trading website, has a wide range of products and customers. They needed a robust, real-time reporting tool to help them understand the requirements of so many different user types.

Sax Cucvara, Gumtree’s analytics manager chose Qualaroo based on the tool's ability to provide:

Segmentation . Gumtree was able to segment users by category, location and interest.

Easy implementation. The team could set up granular surveys in no time, getting real-time results to feedback back into feature iterations.

Customer feedback is important, so make sure you are getting quality feedback regularly. Tools like airfocus Portal and AI Assist , can make collecting and analyzing feedback much easier and less time-consuming.

Backlog prioritization case study

Rounding off our list of product management case studies, we’re back to the story of an airfocus client and what other teams can learn from them.

As any product manager knows, prioritizing your backlog is just as important as prioritizing your roadmap. Getting these aligned and in an easy-to-share format can save your team time and effort.

Our client, Flowe, is a digital bank subsidiary of Italy’s Banca Mediolanum. Marco Santoni is the data product manager on their Data Platform team and manages the internal product from features to analytics.

One of Flowe’s key challenges came from the Azure DevOps system's inability to prioritize their backlog. They frequently had over 150 ‘new’ items at any given time and no objective way to prioritize the tickets. After looking into a few tools, Marco went with airfocus because it offered:

Seamless integration with Azure DevOps. You can import existing roadmaps.

Priority Poker . Teams and stakeholders can collaboratively prioritize their backlog against three KPIs: development effort, business value, and productivity.

Real-Time results for ‘quick wins’ and ‘don't dos’ are based on prioritized scoring.

By implementing airfocus, the Flowe team can present their roadmap to the entire company weekly. This aligns everyone against a common goal and ensures increased transparency.

Product management is a team game. Having a transparent and collaborative approach is even more important in the current remote working era. airfocus facilitates easy and open collaboration across teams and geographies.

Interested in streamlining your processes and turning objective prioritization into a company-wide goal? Chat to our team for a demo.

When interviewing for a product manager position , you'll often be asked about various case studies you were involved in. Of course, it's good to have a few stories on hand and to know what kinds of questions to anticipate during these interviews. 

Here are a few product manager interview case study questions you might get.

How would you prioritize these features for this product?

You may be asked how you would prioritize certain features for an imagined or real product. For example, say a new smartphone is coming out, and the goal is to launch with three new features. 

How do you determine which feature to complete first, second, and third, and which can be sacrificed to finish the others? 

If you run into this sort of question, it's important to ensure you have all of the relevant information, such as the target demographic, what has made the product successful in the past, etc. So ask questions, or imply that you would collect the answers to these questions and then work from there. 

How would you suggest we launch this product in a new region?

Another question you might be asked during a product management case study for PM interview is how you would launch a product in a new region . Again, this question pertains to a real-world example, so it's important to have a solid answer prepared. 

It can be helpful to start by collecting more information from the interviewer or explaining what information you would collect. Then, formulate a strategy . That strategy could include specific features you would introduce, marketing campaigns you would engage in, and more. 

How would you improve our in-app messenger?

Sometimes, you may be asked something very specific, like how you would improve an in-app feature that already exists. As you may have guessed, you want to glean as much information from the interviewer as possible or state which information you would collect. 

Then, list some potential strategies based on your experience. What kinds of features would you launch or remove ? Would you prioritize performance, response times, etc.? How would you manage a budget? Lean on your past knowledge and experience to help you answer the specific question at hand.

Want to know about solutions to future problems that you didn’t even know exist yet? We can help you out with even more product management case studies for that. Dig in here.

Starting a new product management job and wondering how to approach your first few months?

Then check out our 30-60-90 day guide today.

Tomas Prochazka

Experience the new way of doing product management

Book a demo

Instant tour