Example 1: Profit decline
Prompt: A regional restaurant chain has seen profit decline for three years despite flat revenue. The CEO wants to know why and what to do.
Answer path: Start with revenue and cost. Since revenue is flat, split costs into food, labor, rent, utilities, and corporate overhead. Compare cost growth by category and location type. A strong recommendation might focus on renegotiating supplier contracts, redesigning labor scheduling, or closing underperforming stores if fixed costs are structurally too high.
Example 2: Market entry
Prompt: A U.S. fitness brand is considering entering Canada with boutique studios. Should it enter?
Answer path: Evaluate market attractiveness, customer segments, competition, economics, operating capabilities, and risks. Estimate the number of target customers, likely visits, pricing, and studio-level breakeven. Recommend entry only if the target cities can support profitable utilization and the brand has a clear reason to win.
Example 3: Growth strategy
Prompt: A B2B software company wants to grow revenue 20% next year. Leadership wants to know which growth levers to prioritize.
Answer path: Start by splitting revenue into customers, average contract value, expansion revenue, churn, and pricing. Estimate the size of each lever: new logo growth, upsell/cross-sell, price increase, churn reduction, and new product revenue. Compare each option by revenue impact, margin impact, implementation time, and execution risk.
Sample recommendation: Prioritize expansion revenue and churn reduction first, then selective pricing. Those levers use the existing customer base, should have lower acquisition cost than new-logo growth, and can be tested within the year. New products may be attractive but likely take longer to affect next year's revenue target.
Example 4: M&A case study
Prompt: A consumer goods company is considering buying a smaller premium brand. Should it make the acquisition?
Answer path: Evaluate strategic fit, category attractiveness, standalone growth, brand strength, customer overlap, distribution synergies, cost synergies, purchase price, and integration risk. Then estimate whether the value of growth and synergies exceeds the acquisition premium and integration costs.
Sample recommendation: Move forward only if the premium brand gives the acquirer access to a faster-growing segment and the deal value is supported by realistic distribution synergies. The biggest risk is damaging the premium brand through integration, so the buyer should preserve brand independence while scaling distribution.
Example 5: Market sizing case
Prompt: Estimate the annual market for premium dog food in the U.S.
Answer path: Define the market as annual retail spend on premium dog food. Start with U.S. households, estimate the share that own dogs, estimate dogs per dog-owning household, apply the share of owners buying premium food, and multiply by annual spend per premium-fed dog. Sanity check the result against total pet food spending.
Sample recommendation: If the estimate suggests a multi-billion-dollar market with healthy premium adoption, the category is attractive enough to explore. The next step would be segmenting by channel, customer willingness to pay, and margin by product format because market size alone does not prove profitability.
How to make answers stronger
Do not treat the answer as a script. A strong consulting case study answer explains why each branch matters, uses math to prioritize, and ends with a recommendation tied to the original client question. Mention risks and next steps only after making the core recommendation clear.
Sample final recommendation
"I recommend entering Canada through a two-city pilot rather than a full national rollout. The market appears attractive in Toronto and Vancouver, the target customer segment is large enough to support studio-level breakeven, and the brand can test pricing before committing major capital. The biggest risks are customer acquisition cost and local competition, so next steps would be validating location-level demand and running a detailed unit economics model."
For candidates searching for case interview examples with solutions, the important pattern is not memorizing the wording. It is seeing how the answer connects structure, math, business judgment, and a final recommendation.
What makes a case study answer good?
It is structured, specific to the prompt, supported by numbers, and decisive at the end.
Should every case answer include risks?
Usually yes, but risks should support the recommendation. Do not let risks replace a clear answer.