Thanks for registering for the live case walkthrough with Jenny Rae and MBA candidate Khanh Tran. The case is a Deloitte Human Capital case. HC is a unique case type, which makes knowing how to navigate it a great asset to have in your interview tool belt. If you are preparing for HR/HC roles in your interviews or just need the case practice, this session is for you.
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Case Transcription:
Jenny Rae:
I’m really excited to welcome our guest, and so I’m going to let her introduce herself. But before I do, I just give a little lay of the land of what we’re going to cover. Today’s case is a human capital case, and it’s not a traditional human capital case that you would get at a firm that only focuses on human capital. So we’ve built this around a Deloitte human capital case. There is math that’s involved. And not all human capital cases would have math like this one, but all of them do have metrics that are implied. So it’s helpful to think about not just the metrics that you would need, but also what that would look like beyond it. In addition, I think it’s really powerful when we’re talking through the case today to pay attention to how you could get this case not just as a human capital case, but as a creative case, especially in the second round of an interview. So I’m excited to introduce our candidate today. She’s an experienced interviewee whose done interviews with a couple of different firms, and has also got a good amount of practice under her belt. So Khanh, welcome. We are excited to have you. Please share a bit of your bio and a bit of your case experience with the group before we dive into the case.
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Khanh Tran:
Sure. So hello everyone, my name is Khanh Tran. I am a recent MBA graduate from University of Georgia, and my background is in retail operation and recently transferred into procurement supporting the US government. I am one of the Black Belt cohort for the June last this summer. And also I’ve done about 30 case so far, and within the past month I had interviewed with McKinsey and also confidence interview with Cognizant coming up this weekend. So I’m excited to be here today. This is my first human capital case, so we’ll see how it goes.
Jenny Rae:
Well, your attitude it is one of the reasons that you got selected to join because you’re one of those weird weirdos that we are in great fellowship with who love to do cases. So we’re excited to have you on. And I’m excited today to push you because I know that you do have good casing experience, and you have had success at getting some of these amazing interviews. So we want to make sure that you’re able to be successful. So Khanh, I’m going to time our session. I’m going to lap it as we’re going through different parts of the case today. I’m going to, in general, because it’s a Deloitte-style case, give you the reins to guide us the case. But I will move us along to the key pieces that we need to get to if we need to. And finally, I’m going to try to give you some really differentiated feedback at the end. Not just here’s what you should be doing in this part, but here’s what it would make a difference between a pass or a fail. So I’m really excited to dive in. Are you ready?
Khanh Tran:
Yes, I’m ready.
Jenny Rae:
All right. So let me read out the background of our case today, and then as per usual, if you’ve got questions, you know, recap it for me, jump in and then we’ll get started.
Khanh Tran:
That’s great.
Case Prompt
Jenny Rae:
So our client today is a large integrated global security company called Milestone. Their firm, which is traded on the NASDAQ and employs over 10,000 staff worldwide, produces hardware and software for use by military agencies, law enforcement, and private security companies. Of the 10,000 staff at Milestone, 6000 are based in the US working across 15 different offices, and the remaining 4000 are in Europe and Asia across 20 other offices. In addition, over 2000 of the total staff are part of a direct sales force.
While the company is not traditionally known as a tech forward firm, it recently acquired a novel 3-D simulator for law enforcement training that allows officers to practice newly developed crisis response scenarios on a monthly basis. Previous solutions only allowed updates on an annual basis, and the updates had to be done manually. Interestingly, for such a tech enabled company, the acquired firm, called Mooble conducts all of its staff training live. Milestone has an internal initiative to move its total training process to an online platform like Coursera, but now Mooble has introduced this odd data point in the mix. Should Milestone migrate its total training process online, or should it focus on an increase in in-person training, and what should it consider as it weighs the decision. Let me know if you’ve got any questions about the background.
Khanh Tran:
Sure, yeah. Before I dive into the question, let me just recap making sure I got everything. So our client name is Milestone, which is a global security company. Has 10,000 employee providing hardware and software services to law enforcement. So we have about 6000 employees in the US within 15 offices, and then 4000 based in Europe and Asia within 20 offices. And also remember you’re saying about 2000 which is the direct sales associate as well. So right now we are looking to a question of whether our client, which is Milestone, should consider implementing their current online training for law enforcement online, or they should encouraging the in-person training, and also what are different criteria that we should consider when implement that strategy. Did I cover a majority of information?
Case Clarifications
Jenny Rae:
Yes, but I do want to make one clarification so that it’s clear. So this new company that we’ve acquired, Mooble, their service that they provide is this training for law enforcement. But that’s only a very small part of what they do. What’s interesting is that when they train their employees, they trained them live rather than online. So even though they're offering this virtual training. And so we’re actually making not a decision about law enforcement or delivery, we’re making a decision about internally how should we train our staff at Milestone. Should we train them using a digital online platform, or should we run group live trainings? Which one do we think would be more effective, and which one do we think would make sense most for the business. So I just wanted to make sure that was clear.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. And I also have a question about that as well. So you’re talking about Mooble. Is that the company that we acquired that have that online training, right?
Jenny Rae:
That’s right, yeah. So they’ve got this online training service, but again, we are not looking to roll that out for us. We’re just looking at this different online training, which you’re probably familiar with, like a Coursera, or just something that has an online platform and we’re trying to figure out whether that makes more sense, or whether keeping trainings live makes more sense.
Khanh Tran:
Okay. And then, and then again probably has already you might already mentioned that, I just want to make sure that is clear. So we’re looking into the internal implementation of that either online for our staff or either in-person for our staff.
Jenny Rae:
Correct. Exactly. Great clarification there.
Case Prompt Questions
Khanh Tran:
All right. And then let’s move on into asking about the question. So I have a few questions for you. So first of all, so with this – with this training process, is it something that’s supposed to be done annually, or is this require more training, for example like every quarter, every like every six months, something like that?
Jenny Rae:
Yeah. We think about the role out on an annual basis. We make the plan on an annual basis, but there are certainly different frequencies depending on the mode that we choose. For example, online training is kind of always available, and then the live training would need to be scheduled in. And so I think we’d be looking for some feedback for you about what you think about that.
Khanh Tran:
Okay. And then in addition to that, would like to understand about like the content of the training. So is it more about just the basic policy and procedure, or it’s going to be more of the practice and real operation that the employees need to know as well?
Jenny Rae:
Yes, both. So it includes onboarding training, making sure that we have great humans on our team that are following policies, but also probably more importantly it’s about skills, and, you know, kind of progressive training as people are developing new roles inside the organization, or taking on new responsibilities.
Khanh Tran:
All right.
Jenny Rae:
Both, in short.
Khanh Tran:
Awesome. And then moving on to my last question is about the in-person training that we are providing right now. So in term of the person that providing those training, do we have a good foundation in terms of like the number of those people, or we just have like a specific kind of like just a couple of people have been doing that for a long time.
Jenny Rae:
Yeah, we actually don’t have anyone internally that does it live. It’s a fully outsourced function. We do have staff that coordinate the trainings, but no one internally that conducts them.
Khanh Tran:
Awesome. All right. So those are all the questions that I have for you. And can I just take a moment to really structure my thought process here?
Jenny Rae:
Yeah, go for it. While Khanh is working, everybody else build your own structure. This will be great practice.
Case Structure
Khanh Tran:
I think I have a rough draft of what different area we should consider, and how I’m going to tackle this problems.
Jenny Rae:
Great.
Khanh Tran:
So there’s going to be four different areas that I want to look into.
- First of all, I would like to look into the current capability of our client have to implement this, either in person or online.
- Second of all is to look into the employees, the current employees that we have to really understanding like the spread and also the scope of that implementation.
- And the next one is to look into the feedback of what the employee really looking for in terms of this training.
- And then the next one is to look into different advantages of having the online training and also the in-person training.
So first of all, start with the capability. I would like to understanding the, as you mentioned first of all, is about like those the source that we have in providing the training, which is the outsource. What does that look like, what is that availability, how much does it cost. Our client to really doing that. In addition to that, I would like to understanding the timeframe that we are able to providing though. Is this going to be 24/7 and this is just a specific day and specific time as well. And then moving on to the number of employees, I would like to understand these following metrics.
First of all is to understanding how many new employee coming in that we have. In addition to that, what is the rate of people successfully completing these trainings within the specific time frame that we are providing them. In addition to that, I would like to understanding in addition to this type of training, what is other training that also in place that are employees that have any challenging to accomplish as well. And then moving on to the third area about the feedback of the employee, I would like to understand is what is – what are some of the advantage or some of the thing that employee looking for. Is this the knowledge or is this like the real life execution within this type of training.
In addition to that, I would like to understanding is there additional resources within the online platform, or are somewhere within the company system for the employee to really learning the new policy and procedure. And then moving back, talking about the last area is about the convenience of this operation. I would like to first of all dive into what is the saving going to look like in terms of having an online platform version in person, in term of the dollar of the amount.
In addition to that understanding the cap – the capacity, the number of the people that we are able to provide within a specific time frame as well. Yeah. And with that being said, if you don’t have a specific reference, I would like to start looking to the current capability of that we are able to providing to really dive into understanding the current process that how we are providing that training at this moment.
Jenny Rae:
Okay. Sounds good. Yeah, go ahead and ask me whatever questions you have.
Khanh Tran:
Oh yeah, definitely. So the way I structure my thought is from the start to the end of that training. So we look into the start of that training I would like to really understanding as you’re talking about the outsourcing, having people from a third-party really teaching and coming in teaching and training is. So do we have any information in terms of how many training that we done in the annual phases, and in addition to that, how much does it cost us to implement those training. In addition to that, how many people that we are able to provide those training to as well.
Jenny Rae:
Okay. Great. So tell me one at a time what you think the most important thing is that you want.
Khanh Tran:
I would say the most important thing is the number of people that getting the training and get the knowledge. So
Jenny Rae:
Okay.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah.
Jenny Rae:
So let me ask you a question. Do you think you could train the same number of people using these two methods, or would you train different people with one method versus the other method?
Khanh Tran:
I would say it would be different because with the online platform, my assumption going to be is gonna be more 24/7. People are going to have more flexibility to get that training within the timeframe that they prefer. But that their schedule. So that number going to be different. In-person training is going to be more with the timeframe barrier, and so the cost barrier as well.
Jenny Rae:
So you would – you would – it would be more expensive, or you would train more people?
Khanh Tran:
So with the in-person, I would say it will be more expensive, but in terms of the number of people I would say is probably could be the same. Is depend on how we implement it now and the target number of people that gonna get trained.
Jenny Rae:
Okay. So you want to train the same number of people in both situations.
Khanh Tran:
Yes.
Jenny Rae:
You want to train 100%, or do you want to train something lower than 100%?
Khanh Tran:
When talking about a percentage, I would say under a point of view with a manager I would ensuring that all my staff is trained hundred percent, so yeah, we are aiming for 100%.
Jenny Rae:
Okay. Great. And then a second question, have you done any online training like this, Khanh, or in-person training? I’m curious just to know which one you prefer and what you think some of the benefits of both kinds would be. You mentioned at one of your points would be feedback with employees, which we’ll talk about that in just a minute. But before we think about that we have to decide what kind of feedback we’d asked them for. So what would you think about asking about in this situation?
Khanh Tran:
Sure, yeah, definitely. So I can put my personal experience in here. So I’ve done a lot of online training within the past month, and some of the feedback I’ve been providing is the plus of that, which is the benefit of the online training is the flexibility of the timeframe, and also I can just go with my own pace. However, on the other side talking about the disadvantage is the engagement between the audience and also the instructor. So on the other hand, when we’re talking about the in-person training, I can build that relationship with the instructor. And in addition to that be able to asking more questions to understand the knowledge, rather than just rereading the information that they’re providing. So that personal interpersonal connection is the plus with the in-person training from what I’m seeing.
And so moving to the feedback as you mentioned early, and I mentioned earlier and you really want to understand better so I would say the question that I would ask is what – what did the employee really learn from. From like the quality of the content and also the knowledge that they learn which when they feel like they’re getting more knowledge, and it’s more valuable of their time. Is it the online learning or the in-person learning.
Jenny Rae:
Okay.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah.
Jenny Rae:
Love that. Good. Is there anything else that you think about getting employee feedback on? So you said you’d asked them two questions. What did they learn, and then what – the second one was something around the experience, right?
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. The valuable in terms of the time that investing in. Yeah. So now we’re talking about the feedback, so we’re already talking about the content of they learn the time investment of that. So another thing I would like to ask in terms of the feedback is the convenient in terms of the easiness of navigating through that online platform because sometimes it’s quite challenging. So that is another thing that we – the technical problem to involve in there as well.
Jenny Rae:
Okay.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. And then next one is -
Jenny Rae:
Let me ask another question. What about employees that haven’t had any training? Would you ask them any questions as well, or would you only ask employees that have already been trained?
Khanh Tran:
That’s a very good – that’s a very good point. So I would say that having that fresh perspective from people that have not had this training before is also very valuable. They can use their personal experience from school to really provide a feedback to us. So I would say that we’re gonna apply the feedback to not just employee already train, but also like the brand-new employee to really gauging and understanding what they’re looking for as well.
Jenny Rae:
Now if you could only pick one, which type of training would you want to do?
Khanh Tran:
So when you’re talking about only pick one, either the online or in-person which one I should choose?
Jenny Rae:
That’s right. Which one would you start with. Which one would you evaluate first. What would be your hypothesis?
Hypothesis
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. So my hypothesis would be so look into our client and also the current situation that we’re in right now with COVID and virtual learning. So I would pick the online learning as the start for us in this case.
Jenny Rae:
Okay, great. Now you mentioned at the beginning a couple of metrics that you’d want to evaluate. Tell me what numbers you’d want to evaluate for this.
Khanh Tran:
Sure. Yeah. So in term of the number first of all, I would like to see how many people would be getting trained if we end up implementing that online platform. In addition to that, moving about understanding the cost of the online platform. So how much does it cost us to implementing that. And also additional maintenance fees for it as well. And also when we learn something, we’re making sure that the employee get that knowledge. Show the testing and the assessment at the end is also important as well. So really want to see what is the – I would not say the rate was like the – the percentage of people can pass the assessment within the first trial to really understanding the difficulties or the challenging of the content that deliver as well.
Additional Case Data
Jenny Rae:
Okay. Well, I’ve got some of the data. It may or may not be all that you need, but there – I guess like two important pieces of the data are that we would be able to offer – we’d want to offer – we would reasonably offer 80% of our staff the online training option. There are some people that work in like for example, you know product development that don’t really need this kind of skills training in the same way, or you know, engineering or like some of the different departments might not need it in some of the same way. But 80% of our staff we think would. And the cost including any maintenance fees are $500 per year per staff member to have access to basically like an unlimited amount of content.
Khanh Tran:
Okay. So you give me two data points here. So we have 80% of the staff will receive these training, and its cost each staff would be about $500 per year to receive unlimited access on those. So with these two data points I can really translating into how much it’s going to cost us in an annual basis to really get these trending out to that 80% of staff, and from that number to really understanding what that investment mean in term of the return of the improvement within the operation, or within the work ethic that they do. So am I on the right track here?
Jenny Rae:
Sounds good to me.
Case Math
Khanh Tran:
Okay, yeah. I can just go ahead and start with the calculation.
Jenny Rae:
Khanh, so before we start those calculations, like how – how are we going to quantify this benefit? You just mentioned that all of the sudden, and so I think we should jump into that quickly because there might be something important there that we should focus on.
Khanh Tran:
Okay. All right. And your question is how can I quantify the benefit?
Jenny Rae:
Yeah, because what you said is okay, this is going to give us the cost, right? But then the other part you said is you know we need to know how this is going to benefit us internally. I’m just wondering how you’d measure that, or how you’d quantify it. What would you do about that.
Khanh Tran:
Sure, yeah. So – so in terms of benefit, I would say so when we train our staff, we want to making sure that they follow the right procedure. The first of all, I would like to understanding of I would say the percentage of people that like violating the policy, so how – how is that number look like. In addition to that, I would like to understanding if they got trained they know more about the work that they do. They get in love with the work. So what is the turnover rate. What does that number look like as well. And in addition to that, would like to understanding what is the – so we train the people so that they can stay and continue to work with us. So what is the promotion rate with what – with these employees as well. So – so those are going to be some of the number that we can look into to really understand and quantify the benefit of these trainings.
Jenny Rae:
Okay. Great. So I’ve got that data too. Now you can just factor it all in together. Our current turnover is 20%.
Khanh Tran:
Okay.
Jenny Rae:
Per year. We would have incremental retention of 2% of the 20%. And average annual hiring cost for a new staff member is about $50,000.
Khanh Tran:
$50,000. Okay. All right. So let you – let me just recap the benefit that he was talking about. So we have 20% turnover rate per year currently – currently, not within that training yet.
Jenny Rae:
That’s right.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. And then the retention is 2% out of the 20%. And the hiring cost is $50,000 a year.
Jenny Rae:
Or providing the training – I think what we’re saying is providing the training gives us 2% of the 20% that don’t.
Khanh Tran:
Oh, I got you now. I got you.
Jenny Rae:
Turnover, yeah.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, so without that training we're going to lose all of that 20%.
Jenny Rae:
Correct.
Khanh Tran:
Turnover.
Jenny Rae:
Just as a normal year.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, just as a normal year. And then the hiring cost is $50,000, which is on the average. If we hire people or spend more -
Jenny Rae:
Yeah, that’s right. An executive is going to be more, and then like you know, a really junior staff member is going to be less than that.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, awesome, awesome. So now we have a cost, but we also have the benefit of this as well. So I would say the next step here is really doing the calculations to quantify what is the cost actually like, what is the benefit actually look like, and what are different scenario that we – that would come out if we implementing that online training.
Jenny Rae:
Okay, great.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, so I can just start the cost first.
Jenny Rae:
Sounds good.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. So I’ll start with the 80% of the staff, so we’re looking to 10,000 people, so 80% of that is going to be 8000. And then $500 per person per year, so 500×8 is going to be 4000. And then I’ll add another thousand at the end, so we’re looking about $4 million to provide this online training. Wow, that’s a lot.
Jenny Rae:
That’s great.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, that’s the cost. Okay, so now we’re moving onto the benefit. So first of all we look into the turnover rate is 20%, and with that training we will be able to retain 2%. So I can first we are calculating the number of people that will be retained, and yeah. So it’s – so let’s start with a 20% first. So 20% of 10,000 is 2000, and then I’ll 2% of that. So 2% of 800 is two, so of 8000 is 20. So 2000 is 40. Yeah, 40 people. Okay, so will retain about 40 people. Okay. And then it’s cost us $50,000 per year for hiring. All right. Hiring. Very interesting here. So we’re looking to an investment cost of $4 million, and also on the other side we’ll be able to retain 40 people. So if I break it down, kind of like divide at 4000 – 4 million to 40 people, so it’s, well, it will be about 100,000 per each. 100, yeah, yeah. It’s about 100,000 per each to really keep and retain these people. And also the hiring cost of $50,000 as well. Okay. So what that means that we are seeing a lot of investment here and in term of the return, we still – still seeing a very – because what I’m looking into right now is only the base case. Because do you have any additional data in term of if where implementing that online platform is the retention will be able to increasing up to higher 2%?
Jenny Rae:
Well, I mean we are just increasing it to 2%. That’s – that’s what it does for us. That’s basically the benefit of the online training is that fewer people leave. So what do you think about the online only solution?
Khanh Tran:
I have to say is a very high investment cost, and the retention does not look optimistic at all in addition to that we still have to spend quite a lot for the hiring, annual hiring as well. So at this point we – I would say we are just going to pause this option and look into the in-person option to see what does it really look like.
Jenny Rae:
Let’s do it.
Khanh Tran:
Some of the number. Okay. All right. So I would say it’s gonna be a similar process and we look into the online, so I would like to understand how – what is the percent of staffing that will be covered for that training, and how much it’s going to cost for us. And in terms of the benefit I would like to really understand about the turnover rate and so the hiring cost as well.
Jenny Rae:
Great. I have to ask you, do you think there could be any other benefit with a live training option? You’ve alluded to this a couple of times, but we now we have to quantify it, we have to think about it a little bit differently.
Weighing Options
Khanh Tran:
Yeah. So with the in-person, I would say with the benefit first of all, I would say it’s the cost saving in term of having people coming in rather than having the platform. So that the first one. And in addition to that really understand if we can provide that in-person training. And right now we are still using a third-party to sourcing these training for us. If there’s any opportunity for us really having a real team within our company to implementing those training as well. So kind of like new job, new opportunities for our current employees.
Jenny Rae:
Okay. Great. So I think – I think we’ve got enough there that I can give you the data around it. So basically this – we would only train 30% of our workers if we go with the in-person training option. Our focus would be on sales and senior leadership. So rather than like everybody who’s coming in, it would just be certain focused areas. It would cost us $2500 a year per staff member to offer the trainings that we think they would need in order to make them, you know, engaged, interested and to drive what I’ll talk about in just a second, which is an increase in productivity. Their incremental retention is 20%. And their current turnover just of that population is 10%. So our average sales per type of employee is $4 million. We think that we're going to get a 1% productivity boost from this. So they’re going to be able to sell a little bit more than they are right now. And our average annual hiring cost for this new sales and senior staff member would be about $70,000. So what do you think about this solution instead?
Khanh Tran:
Okay. When once you provide these information, I would – I would hope that I could get more of those information on the other option. Okay, let me just – I think I missed one information. So you’re talking about the 10%. So can you help me with that?
Jenny Rae:
Yeah. Right now our turnover with just this group is 10%. So when we’re talking about the incremental retention, it’s 20% of the 10% instead of the 20% of the overall group from before. And that makes sense, right? We would have a higher turnover rate and a more general population, rather than a more senior focused group.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, okay, awesome. So with this option right now, so let’s start with the cost first. Will be able to provide 30% to sale and senior leadership, sale person and senior leadership. So that 30% is going to be about 3000 people, and it’s cost each staff is $25,000. So 25×3 is 75, and I’ll add, so it’s going to be $7.5 million in terms of cost here.
Jenny Rae:
Okay.
Khanh Tran:
Right. And then look into the benefit. So we have 10% retention, 10 – 20, no, 20% retention, 10% of the turnover rate. So that percent turnover just out of the 3000 people, right?
Jenny Rae:
That’s right.
Khanh Tran:
Yep. So 10% of that is going to be 300 people, and then we will be able to retain 20%. So will be able to retain 60 people out of that group. Okay. All right. And then so – and you’re also talking about the $4 million sale, so it’s for each sale associated it will make about $4 million.
Jenny Rae:
Yeah.
Khanh Tran:
And then their productivity boost 1%, so instead of making $4 million, they would be making 1% – 1% more of that $4 million.
Jenny Rae:
Yeah.
Overcoming Incorrect Math Calculations
Khanh Tran:
About like one, 4.4 million, yeah. Okay, so -
Jenny Rae:
Would it be 4.4 – sorry, what did you say? I want to make sure I heard it.
Khanh Tran:
I don’t think it’s 4.4. Okay, let me just do my math again. Alrighty, okay no, it’s not 4.4. It is 4.04.
Jenny Rae:
That makes more sense.
Khanh Tran:
Yeah, there we go.
Jenny Rae:
I didn’t know if I heard you incorrectly, so I was just double checking.
Khanh Tran:
You were right. My math was wrong. Okay. So let’s look at this. So we spend more money for this online training the number of people that getting the online training is less, however, the number of people get retaining from this online training is more. And also in terms of the productivity is more as we have the increase in productivity. So with that being said, moving onto making the decision, which one I should consider. I would say – I would list out different options, kind of like different criteria here, and weight which one is the most important to the clients in terms of increasing sales, in term of the company culture, mission, vision. So that with that being said, so I can just kind of start out listing different criteria that we should consider here.
Jenny Rae:
Khanh, before you do that, just quickly, can you actually quantify how much that productivity boost is going to give us in total?
Khanh Tran:
Okay, all right, awesome. So we have each employee going to get about $4.04 million. And so you said it in total. So we looking to a 3000 people. So if I times 3000, it’s going to be, hold on, 4.04×3 is 12. Okay, one, two, all right. So I have about 12 billion, yeah. Yeah, so it’s going to be about 12 billion. Let’s make it easier.
Jenny Rae:
Easier is good.
Khanh Tran:
No. So I would say with that 1% productivity is can be increased $120 million more in terms of sales, right? Yeah. And then –
Jenny Rae:
What do you think about that?
Khanh Tran:
So with that $120 million more and we spend $7.5 million in cost to implement these training, so that cost is only about less than 10% of that increase in profitability, or increase in revenue generating. So look like it’s a very good investment just look into the in-person training here.
Case Recommendation
Jenny Rae:
Okay. So now you were moving on to some of the other things. I just wanted to make sure we had the full data. And I’m actually ready for you to go ahead and just wrap it all together, so you can just tell me what you think makes sense and why, and you’ve got options for the conclusion, right? It could be a single one of the options that we put together, a blended approach, or some alternative that we haven’t yet discussed. So I’m looking forward to hearing what you would recommend.
Khanh Tran:
Okay, awesome. So my recommendation would be go ahead with the in-person training because we’ll be able to generating additional $120 million in term of sale. In addition to that, able to retaining 60 more – 60 people. And those are all senior leadership people which require a lot of experience and training. And also salespeople which help our company increasing the revenue. However, in addition to that, this is just like a short-term strategy. I would say that in a long-term strategy we still want to make sure that our product development team and also engineers team also getting that training as well. So still have to consider that online training, but not in a 80% capacity that we aiming for. So if we were able to, so with that being said, the next step is to look into the requirement and the need for engineering and product development people, and asking for what is – what is the long term career goal for them really look like so that we can provide those training so that we can also help retaining those people and help out company in the long run.
Case Feedback
Jenny Rae:
Awesome. Khanh, good job. You can relax. Well done. We covered a lot in that case, and there were a lot of things to think about. So I’m going to go back through, give you some specific feedback and overall kind of let you know what I was thinking as I was going through it.
So first of all, I thought that your timing was really great for every part of the case. There were one or two places where I think that you could have been more structured, and I’ll call those out specifically and really more structured in this part would be more speed and more confidence. So you were full of ideas, and I felt like there were a few times when you kind of shot at one of the ideas, but then a more comprehensive solution faster would have actually been a quicker overall solution. And it would have allowed us to have – there is one final part of the case that we actually didn’t totally get to because of the - the timing for that.
When you were talking about the opening, I felt like in the recap you did a really good job of, you know, explaining what you were looking at. My only – this is a very small nuance, but you just – when you recapped you said law enforcement only, and I would have loved for you to have said law enforcement and other areas. You know, especially the military. I don’t know if you are working with the military or with other elements of the US government now, but like I want you to kind of expand that and make sure that you weren’t getting too narrowly focused because I got a little bit worried that that was one of the issues.
I felt like your questions were really good. You were, you know, really quickly asking about what your assumption was. About like I would imagine that they’re doing maybe this, or this type, or it’s for this purpose. And I felt like you were able to build a good structure. You asked three questions, and it only took you two minutes and 20 seconds. So between your recap and that part, you know, you really used your time well at the beginning of the case. I think you could even be a little stronger. And you’re looking for differential approaches, so even at the beginning what you said was I have a couple of questions. But tell me I have a couple of questions that are going to help me focus my structure and solve the case more clearly. Like tell me why you’re about to asked me the questions from the beginning, and then as you are asking the questions, say I think if I understand the business model I’m going to be able to really hone in on an answer. Like kind of reinforce that as you are asking the questions.
Then as you went into the structure, you took a minute and 50 seconds to prepare it. It was really textbook in terms of what you did, and then when you came out the only thing that was a little unclear, this happened really consistently, and it’s kind of a funky piece of feedback. I’ve never given this to anybody before. But it was like at the end of every list you kind of waffled more. So when you had your three categories, your first two were like super solid, and then your last one was like I actually wrote it down at the beginning as two different categories. I didn’t know whether you had three or four. And then when you went back into the actual structuring, the last bullet in every section it was almost like you were like here’s the kitchen sink for every single thing. Like you were trying to not miss anything, but I think what happened is that I lost some of that confidence and clarity from you that you could have gotten if you had just bulleted out some of the other things that you talked about.
So, for example, in the current capabilities category, you – what I wrote down was that your first bullet point was source, where we source these from right now. But then what you said, you kind of explained it first, and then you got to the data. Flip it, right? What’s the cost of our current training. How many people – what percentage of people does it currently cover. All of that data is exactly what we covered in the case. So if you had gotten me to the data faster by building it into your structure, it would have gotten us where we needed to go later inside the case. And then you talked about the specific date and time. You kind of got into this other like more random things that were quantifiable. So, you know, in terms of structuring, I think you still could be an A, where you’re at a B+ right now. And I would really push you to just get that more quantitative data-driven approach right up front and to really focus your time on that.
I thought you did a better job with the current employees. What percentage of them are adding every year. What percentage of them are the rates of completion. But then again, your third one was like what are the challenges to accomplish it. And I know a human capital case feels like it could just be like a big hug or something else, but still, like try to stay focused on, right, you know, like what percentage of employees will gain performance, right? Some of the other things that we were thinking about rather than like what kind of challenges. I think you covered that in the cost. So just being a little bit more, I would say like single tract in each category, and then a little bit more data-driven would have made that an even better.
The final thing is that one thing about a human capital case, if you know it’s a human capital case, like sometimes you could just get this at McKinsey, or you could get this case, you know, at BCG, and if you don’t know if it’s a human capital case. In fact, this case is built off of an internal project that Deloitte did for themselves, which is kind of cool. So I’ll tell you about that a little bit more right at the very end. But human capital cases need to be people first. So my final thought, I wrote that down on my paper, and my final thought would be that in your feedback portion, the third bucket, I would have presented that one first, right? What percentage of our staff like each kind of training. What percentage of them engage and gain performance from each type of training. And that’s actually exactly the process that Deloitte did. They figured out first what their people wanted, and then they developed what the solution would be.
And so it came across as very, you know, that people always talk about consultants being like to "spreadsheety". It came across like that. Rather than, you know, the purpose of this is to enhance the people experience inside our organization. So here’s how I would measure that. Then when you were talking about some of the first brainstorming, when I kind of asked you back that first question, I don’t know how many of the cases that you’ve done are more McKinsey style, that where like somebody’s bossing you around, but it seemed like you were a little lost there. And I want you to go into a McKinsey-style brainstorm rather than just a high-level brainstorm. And so it felt like because you felt like you were in control you needed to move on a little too quickly, and we actually ended up spending seven minutes there when we could have spent probably two if you had just gone a little deeper first.
So this is when I asked you hey, you know, what do you think are the benefits of the different kinds of training. And you were like online training, it’s flexible. Off-line, you build a relationship and get more questions answered. I would have rather had a let’s think about the benefits of the online training. It’s probably more affordable, it’s more flexible for completion, you can cover a wider range of topics, right? I would have wanted you to like really list those things out, number them on your paper, tell me at the end how many there were, and then go more deeply into the second category. And again, that kind of glance that you did at the beginning it meant that I had to go back and ask for more, and then it turned into what felt like a very – was a very unstructured conversation. So if you’ve ever gotten the feedback that you could be more structured, and especially when you’re leading, you need to go deeper into your ideas so that you cover a little bit more and in a little bit more of a listicle format.
Then in your math, your math is so good. I mean I really had no question about whether you could do the math. I felt like your – I was expecting the math to be kind of perfect, but what I would love to take your math to the next level is to tell me at the beginning what the insights are going to be. So the fact that you didn’t tell me up front what the costs, sorry, what the benefits were going to be, meant that we were just going to calculate how much it was going to cost us. And so when you finally got that, I jumped on it a little bit because I wanted you to think about the fact that okay, if we’re going to cost this out, like we need to get something back from it. You know, every once in a while, like very, very rarely we do something because it’s mandated, but it’s usually like only if it’s government-mandated, right? Not because we just like think it’s generally a good idea. Usually there is some kind return that has to happen inside the business. And so I wanted that even maybe earlier in your general structure would’ve been great to have it, but at least here I wanted you to highlight that. Because that would tell me, you know, what I think we’re going to find is that the online is less expensive to – it was less expensive to implement, but more – but the in-person is going to be more beneficial. And I – my guess is that the online because it’s less expensive, the differential is going to be bigger, but it’s possible that it could go the other way. So like tell me up front, right, this is what I’m looking for when I’m weighing them out. It just gives me context for why I’m doing the math itself.
And then finally, I think you could have been really strong, I mean live in-person training came out with the clear monetary advantage. And even if the people came back and were like we really want online training, you would be like oh, it’s because you’re lazy. No. Need you to become more productive so we’re gonna run you through this under training. That $120 million is actually like a massive number, we need to go after that. So I just felt like you’re kind of like oh yeah, it’s like 120 mil, like you know, it’s monopoly money. Like no big deal. And I wanted a little bit more of a reaction from you when you got that kind of like monster number as in context of everything else.
And just kind of a fun – a fun recap for this. So Deloitte started with the same hypothesis that you did, right? Let’s go for online training. They were like we think we can cover people more, everybody’s a modern and have cool. They are all millennials, they’re going to love the online training. And so they started with feedback. So when I asked you, you know, what kind of feedback would you ask people for, I was – I was really thinking about that part process. And what they came back with was people wanted to spend more time, they felt more valued with the more time, they felt more valued with the more in person. It connected with them with more than just skills, but with a greater purpose of the firm, with other people, as well there were all like all these other benefits that people rated, and it was overwhelming. It was like over 85% of the people internally were like we don’t want online training. We want it to be live. And so then they went into this cost expenditure, and basically they figured out that between retention and productivity, they could make, you know, if they only had like a higher utilization or higher productivity, they could make these massive gains. And that’s actually what led Deloitte to build Deloitte University. And so they built not just Deloitte curriculum, but Deloitte the campus. And so I love the fact that you talked about internalizing the training maybe to bring the cost down, to make sure that it was expanded but still thinking about that live option and Deloitte has done that I think really, really effectively.
So this case was, was based off of something that was taught and written about by Barry Salzberg, who was the CEO of Deloitte at the time, and he’s a mentor of mine and was a professor of mine at Columbia Business School. So anyhow, I hope that you found it to be not – not maybe as pure human capital as you were worried about, but still very business decision applicable, and also interesting. Do you have any questions for me, Khanh?
Khanh Tran:
I don’t think I have a specific question, but just want to say thank you for giving me this case. Honestly, I was a little fumbling at first because I was when planning I really don’t know what how should I structure this case. But when we dive a little bit deeper, I feel like I find the path to really find my way out – out of this. So this is a very great case, something different, but also a great business case to really learn and weigh the benefit of cost as well.
Jenny Rae:
Love that. The benefit in the cost framework is it feels very basic, but it can be super useful when you’re floundering, just really trying to articulate that, and trying to explain how you would measure what the benefit is here I think was one of the keys to the case once we got there. And that’s really helpful.
Additional Reading:
- Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide
- McKinsey Case Interview Walkthrough
- Case Study Samples: Video Examples With Answers
- Consulting Case Library