City of Atlanta to Develop Strategic Plan to Revive Economy

Case Type: add capacity, growth; operations strategy.
Consulting Firm: Oliver Wyman first round job interview.
Industry Coverage: government & public sector.

Case Interview Question #00535: The client Kasim Reed has just been elected to be the Mayor of Atlanta, the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2011, the city of Atlanta has a population of about 500,000. Atlanta is also the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to more than 5 million people and is the ninth largest in the U.S.

Over the last few years, the city of Atlanta has experienced some hard economic times and there has been a slight decline in the city population (in year 2009 the population is estimated to be 542,000). The Mayor’s election platform was centered on a message of economic revival with a strategic plan to be launched in the first 100 days of assuming office. The Mayor has hired you to help develop the plan. What information would you like to know about the city of Atlanta and what is your plan?

Instruction to the Interviewer:

The objective of this operations strategy case is

• To see if the candidate can come up with a comprehensive framework to get to a solution
• To see if the candidate can complete some quantitative analysis
• To see if the candidate can demonstrate creativity

Suggested Structure:

• Location of the city and the surrounding cities
• Current businesses and environment
• Government support — tax incentives, infrastructure support, etc.

Question #1: What could have caused the population/economic decrease in Atlanta?

Possible Answers:

• Poor macro-economic conditions
• Tax increases
• Aging population
• Deteriorating infrastructure
• Surrounding cities are having poor times
• Increasing crime rates
• Major airlines cut numerous flights too and from the city

Question #2: (Quantitative Analysis) The city of Atlanta’s unemployment rate is currently 8% and the Mayor would like to increase the population by 5% and to decrease unemployment rate to 5%. How many new companies will they need?

Additional Information:

60% of the city population can work and the average company size is about 500 employees. This key information is needed to solve this problem, only give it to the candidates if they know they need to ask for it.

Possible Answer:

This requires creating 299,250 – 276,000 = 23,250 new jobs.
At 500 jobs per company, the city will need 23,350 / 500 = ~50 new companies/plants.

Question #3: What could be done to get the ~50 new companies/plants?

Possible Answers:

• Get current companies to expand locally
• Offer to build roads to and from the plants
• Tax Incentives
• Lobby other governors of “at capacity” cities to suggest your city
• Lobby federal government for more federal jobs
• Actively marketing of the city as a destination spot

Question #4: The state of Georgia is looking to build a new university and is considering this city. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Should the Mayor support this? What are some of the possible concerns for the new Mayor?

Possible Answers:

• The city already has more than 30 institutions of higher education, including Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology
• The city population is getting older (retirement community) and not ready for this
• No central location geographically to put a large university
• How will the new university be funded? What will the city’s role be?
• What is the time frame for building the new university?
• Will progress be able to be made before the next elections come up?

Question #5: Ask the candidate to give a 30-second summary of the case.