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Industech

Case Interview Practice > 
Structure

Industech’s margins have dropped from 28 percent to 14 percent over the past five years. How would you structure your approach to identify what’s driving the decline and recommend how the company can restore profitability?

Case Exhibit

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Sample answer from an expert consultant

1. Revenue and Commercial Drivers
Understand whether margin erosion is driven by pricing, customer mix, or product strategy.

  • Product mix shift from high-margin software to lower-margin hardware sales.
  • Price competition and commoditization of IoT sensors.
  • Customer segmentation and discounting behavior.
  • Share of recurring vs. one-time revenue.

2. Cost Structure and Operational Efficiency
Examine which costs have increased and why.

  • Rising production or component costs for hardware.
  • Inefficiencies in installation, logistics, or service delivery.
  • Growing R&D or cloud infrastructure costs for analytics software.
  • Overlaps in SG&A from scaling too quickly across regions.

3. Strategic Positioning and Business Model Fit
Evaluate whether the company’s growth model supports profitability.

  • Heavy focus on one-time hardware sales vs. subscription-based analytics.
  • Lack of clear go-to-market focus (too broad customer base, fragmented solutions).
  • Limited integration between hardware and software offerings, reducing upsell potential.
  • Investments required to accelerate the shift toward recurring revenue.

Initial Hypothesis

Profitability has declined because Industech’s growth has been driven by lower-margin hardware sales and increased cost complexity from rapid geographic expansion. The solution likely lies in pivoting the business mix toward higher-margin software subscriptions and improving operational efficiency in hardware production and delivery.

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