UPS to Launch Joint Project with CARE International

Case Type: operations strategy; marketing.
Consulting Firm: Bridgespan Group final round full time job interview.
Industry Coverage: freight delivery, shipping services; non-profit organization.

Case Interview Question #01338: Your client UPS (United Parcel Service, NYSE: UPS) is a multinational package delivery and supply chain management company headquartered in the U.S. city of Sandy Springs, Georgia. The global logistics company has a number of divisions and subsidiaries, including its cargo airline (UPS Airlines), freight-based trucking operation (UPS Freight), and retail-based packing and shipping centers (The UPS Store).

Your client UPS is involved in a one-year-old partnership with CARE International, an NGO (non-governmental organisation) operating in several countries. At the time the agreement was signed, the partnership was defined only at a very high level, and despite best intentions, there has been no progress for the past six months, leading to frustration on both ends. Both sides have now agreed to try to launch something in a developing country where they both operate.

Your consulting firm has been asked by the senior managements of UPS to work with both organizations to understand how this partnership can progress, and whether or not this NGO is even an appropriate partnership for your client UPS. What do you do?

Possible Answers:

Note: From the beginning, you should realize that you have been described a situation but have been given very little information about either of the two main stakeholders – your client UPS and the NGO CARE International. Your first goal should be to understand them.

Candidate: I would first like to understand the two main stakeholders involved. Could you tell me about our client UPS? What businesses does it operate in?

Interviewer: The client UPS is involved in international ground and air logistics as well as mail services in several countries. Its annual revenue is over USD $50 billion.

Candidate: Could you also tell me about CARE International, the NGO it’s partnered with? What kind of work is it involved in?

Interviewer: The NGO is also quite large and is involved in various kinds of development work. It runs education programs, grassroots-level development work, and advises developing country governments on things like social policy.

Note: You now know a little bit about the two main stakeholders involved. If you have some paper you should have noted down those activities. You also want to learn about the partnership. Understanding what it is about may help you later in making an assessment about whether the NGO is an appropriate partner for your client UPS.

Candidate: I now understand a little bit about our client and its partner. Could you tell me about the partnership itself?

Interviewer: What would you like to know?

Candidate: Why did both groups enter into this partnership to begin with?

Interviewer: The client UPS wanted to get involved with an NGO for several reasons. A positive image in this area is becoming important because of increasing media and consumer attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR). It chose this particular NGO CARE International because of its global reach. Being a global company itself, UPS was looking for a partnership that could be visible in several different parts of the world.

The client UPS did not want to just give money to fix a building or paint a classroom; it prefers to use its expertise to do something unique. It wanted a large and stable NGO so that projects could be sustained over a significant period of time and it wasn’t looking for new projects or partners every few months.

As far as the NGO CARE International is concerned, it’s always looking for private sector partners to support its work, either financially or in kind. It partners with all kinds and sizes of companies but was attracted in this case for very similar reasons – that is, a successful partnership with a global company could lead to work in different parts its their world.

Note: Now you have learned a lot of information in that answer. CSR is important to the client company UPS not just because it is a good thing to do, but because the company wants to use it to enhance its corporate image, i.e., possible use of any results for marketing purposes. Also, the typical solutions of monetary donations or building a classroom may not appeal because they are not unique. Both parties are interested in taking advantage of each other’s size and trying to launch something that can be duplicated in different parts of the world. This also means the client company is going to have to look for similarly large partners if it decides this NGO is not the right one to partner with. By now you have a lot of interesting background information and should start analyzing what should happen going forward. Present a structure for how you plan to work through this analysis.

Candidate: I think I understand some of the context of the current situation. I would like to continue, using the following structure. I would first like to see if there are opportunities to develop this partnership, keeping in mind some of the goals of both organizations. If we determine there are no significant opportunities, I would try to evaluate if the client UPS should consider dissolving its partnership with the NGO.

Interviewer: OK, that’s fine.

Candidate: Opportunities to develop this partnership can come from our client either becoming involved in the NGO’s ongoing programs or working to develop something new.

Interviewer: I do not think the client’s first choice would be to piggyback on an existing program. The NGO would also not be averse to something new, but it would need to be very much in line with what it does.

Note: Your interviewer is guiding you to explore opportunities for a new program. Another hint is that the NGO is likely to be more limited than the client on what it is willing to work on. This could help narrow your areas of exploration.

Candidate: I would like to focus on the NGO. You mentioned a few areas it works in. Could you be more specific so that I can better understand its work?

Interviewer: Sure.

In education the NGO runs several campaigns, both independently and with the government. These can be about almost anything.

In terms of development, it works in rural areas, such as building classrooms, clinics, transportation and communication networks, etc. Often it involves private sector partners to provide experts to implement the projects. Its work also usually involves the local or state government, either in implementation or to gain the necessary approvals.

It also may advise governments on development or social policy but not actually become involved in carrying it out. When they work with governments, it is often because the government has invited them, but on occasion they will proactively develop proposals for consideration as well.

(Note: OK, pause. You had earlier been given a hint that you may need to focus on the activities of the NGO to search for opportunities for cooperation. You have now been given a lot of information about these activities and should see if there is anything that stands out in the context of the client’s core competencies.

Part of your work as a consultant will be to sift through vast amounts of information to determine if any of it is useful. Do not hesitate to ask the interviewer for a few minutes to do this kind of analysis.)

Candidate: That’s a significant amount of information. I’d like to take a minute to review it and see if it suggests avenues to explore further.

Interviewer: Sure.

(Note: There are several combinations that can be explored here, and in a real consulting project it is quite likely you would explore most of them. However, the one that should stand out is the NGO’s work in transportation networks given that the client UPS is involved in logistics. A weaker possibility is the NGO’s work in communication or education. This can be paired with the client’s expertise from its mail business. It is better to identify two or three possibilities rather than just one, in case your interviewer wants to explore different alternatives.)

Candidate: I feel there may be a few different areas to explore. One that stands out to me is the combination of the NGO’s work in transportation and the client’s expertise in logistics. Another potential area may be in pairing the NGO’s work in communication or education with the client’s mail business. I would like to explore these further.

Interviewer: Great. I think that’s reasonable.

Candidate: I would like to start with the first one. In the country selected, is there any transportation work that the NGO is involved in?

Interviewer: No, not presently. But it has periodically worked with the government in this area. The country is quite prone to hurricanes, but being a developing nation, it often needs international aid to help recover. The NGO has in the past coordinated efforts at international ports in the aftermath of a hurricane. There were still lots of problems, but the NGO helped a lot.

(Note: The interviewer has given you a specific example of the NGO’s work in the country and in an area the client may be able to work in. This is likely a sign that you are on the right track and the interviewer may want you to develop it further. You could suggest this as an initial hypothesis to gauge how the interviewer wants to proceed. If the interviewer responds vaguely, you may need to consider switching tracks.)

Candidate: You mention there being problems despite the NGO’s involvement. There may be an opportunity to explore if anything can be done to improve this. Being in international logistics our client UPS may have expertise in moving large quantities of goods through international ports, though in this case it may be limited to airports. Would you like me to dive deeper into this area or should we explore some of the other potential opportunities?

(Note: The interviewer could go in several different directions at this point.)

Interviewer: No, let’s stop here. Based on the information you have, what would be your recommendation?

(Note: The interviewer may want to end the interview or move to another part of it. Even if you feel you only scratched the surface, you need to make a recommendation. You should try to supplement your recommendation by proposing what the next steps might be.)

Candidate: Based on the preliminary information thus far, I would recommend our client UPS explore if there is an opportunity to combine its logistics expertise with the NGO’s transportation-related work. There may be a second opportunity in communication or education. If none of these leads to the development of a suitable program, the client may need to consider looking for a different partner. However, it needs to realize that there may be only a limited number of NGOs capable of working on a global scope as they want to.

Interviewer: Now, assume you have got this far before you even started working on site. How would you structure your work once you get there?

(Note: You need to outline a high-level workplan. If you can tie it into the structure you used during the interview, even better.)

Candidate: Similar to my previously outlined structure, I see two distinct parts to this project. The first is looking for a way to further the partnership, and the second is to assess if this partnership is creating value for the client.

I would work on the first part in a three-phase structure.
(1) In the first phase, I would confirm the client and the NGO’s goals for this partnership, understand the NGO’s work in depth, the client’s core competencies based on its lines of business and then look for areas of overlap.
(2) In the second phase, I would concentrate on looking for projects the two organizations can work on in these areas.
(3) If any are found, the third phase would be assessing their suitability given the resources the client is willing to commit and its business objectives – for example, can the work of the project be duplicated, is the output going to contribute to the corporate image, and so on.

The second part of this project is, I think, our responsibility to the client to evaluate the partnership regardless of whether or not any suitable project is found.

I would analyze why there was a lack of progress for so long, use the phase one work to assess future potential for this partnership and review what the other options are for the client. This could take place after the first part of our project or run in parallel as a second workstream.

Interviewer: Very good. I think that’s suitable. Thank you.

Final Comments:

This case is about assessing whether there is an opportunity to develop an existing partnership, and whether there is any value in continuing with it, given the business objectives of the client. The interviewer chose not to go into too much depth in analyzing individual options, but directed the discussion toward reaching an initial assessment, and formulated a structure for project planning.

The interviewer could have handled this case in several ways:

(1) One would be to do a deep dive into a particular option, i.e., analyzing business fit, comparing resource (HR, financial) requirements with what the company was willing to commit, and so on.
(2) The interviewer could have also tried to challenge your creativity by asking you to identify several potential options for this partnership.
(3) A third option could have been to quickly guide you towards the conclusion that there was little scope for developing this partnership, and then asking you to work through the decision-making process of whether or not to dissolve it.

In the version presented above, the end to the interview may seem a bit abrupt, but this could be an attempt to throw you off or to see how you summarize and close a discussion when you have very limited information.