【正文】 s key purchase criteria and relative performance ? Financial history ? Sales and profitability by segment ? Cash flow analysis ? Margin and expense structure ? Relative cost position ? Cost benchmarking Your data gathering strategy will vary depending on industry: A framework caution All the frameworks detailed above are widely used, and most . business schools teach them as part of their core curriculums. Your interviewers will instantly recognize when you are applying them, since they are already familiar with the techniques. While this is OK, consider that you are trying to demonstrate your unique analytical and deductive reasoning skills that set you apart from other candidates. You must be creative and original in analyzing case questions. Use these frameworks sparingly. (Another note: No interviewer will be impressed if you proudly proclaim, I39。A Cases: Data Gathering and Analysis Market Analysis Tools ? Competitive position framework ? Relative value versus petitors to customer through supply chain ? Product life cycle ? Supply and demand analysis Industry capacity Industry utilization Demand drivers Regressions ? Segmentation analysis ? Porter39。s how to analyze a potential acquisition. Value Drivers (Mamp。t just for consultants. Mergers amp。s relative market share on the horizontal axis and its growth rate on the vertical axis. Mamp。re doing? Remember to look outside your client39。s overall business processes set and then determine if one or more of the processes are defensible petitive advantages. For example, a manufacturer of fruit juice might have the following value chain elements: ? Research and development (Will mango really taste good with cloudberry juice?) ? Cost of goods sold (How much does it cost to manufacture the fruit juice? Is there a frost in Florida that drives up the costs of oranges? Is the currency crisis in Indonesia making papaya very cheap? Are pervolume purchases lower than, for example, those of Tropicana?) ? Packaging and shipping (How much does that new bananashaped container cost? Are many bottles lost in transit? What are the fixed costs of shipping?) ? Manufacturing (How much do those juice pulpers cost? How often do factories need to be reengineered?) ? Labor (How many employees do we have? Where are they located? Are they unionized?) ? Distribution (Where are the distribution centers? Where are the products distributed?) ? Advertising (Billboards, TV, magazines?) ? Margin (How profitable is the juice pany?) For more detailed information on this type of analysis, you may want to consider the authoritative text on petitive strategy: Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, by Michael E. Porter. Core petencies Core petencies is the idea that each firm has a limited number of things it is very good at (that is, its core petence or petencies). When restructuring or reengineering, one of the starting points for a pany should be identifying its core petencies. A firm should define its core petencies broadly in order to be flexible enough to adapt to changes in the marketplace. (For instance, when Xerox defined itself as a document pany, rather than a maker of copy machines, it was able to take advantage of the more lucrative business of document handling and outsourcing for major corporations, as well as of the market for fax machines, scanners, and other documenthandling equipment.) Companies should seriously consider selling/spinning off business units that are not part of their core business. For instance, Pepsi recently spun off its restaurant operations after it concluded that its expertise was in manufacturing and marketing beverages, not in managing restaurants. Benchmarking and best practices A monly used concept in consulting (especially in operations and implementation engagements) is benchmarking. Benchmarking basically means researching what other panies in the industry are doing (usually in order to evaluate whether your client is operating efficiently or to identify areas where the client can cut cost