Preparing for Strategist Interview?

For Strategist prepared by: Anand Mohan Sharma [pg07anand_s@mdi.ac.in]

For those preparing for the Strategist Interview, here is an example of the kind of questions you may be asked.

PS : It's a real business case.

There was a time when no airline would give decent service to City A in US. There were 4 flights in a month from there and charged good money but less services. Plus the flights were notorious to be cancelled in the last min, as pilot decided to bypass City A. Now a guy introduces flights from there and gives quality and gets ladies all dressed in eye catching attire, cost is decent and less than those charged by other players. It went okay for few months until the big players decide to lower the prices to cheap levels in order to wash out the new player.
What is the way out if you are the manager of this new airline? Remember you do not have enough cash, since it isn’t Kingfisher with Vijay Mallya’s backing.

What went wrong at P&G?

For Strategist prepared by: Anand Mohan Sharma [pg07anand_s@mdi.ac.in]

P&G found out that main problem the people had while taking chips on picnics/outings or having them for long storage for long distance market catering was that they would 'perish'. And hence chips manufacturers catered to only local customers. There was no big brand. So it decided to make them with a special coating so that they remain fresh for long time and packaged them in a strong cylindrical box to bear transportation jerks. Thinking it would soon make itself as the first real chip brand, P&G was saddened to find that the sales were very low, and only few people that too many of them old were buying it.
Being a manager, now how would you analyze the case and help P&G out?