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See the testPractice Tests / 4-Hour Sales Data Analysis and Readout
- 4 hours
- Excel analysis + deck
- Raw data
- Private equity
4-Hour Sales Data Analysis and Readout
Take 201,123 rows of raw sales data, answer seven questions and say whether the firm should spend more time on the company.
You get the test, a ten-slide readout, the databook behind every number on it and a two-page debrief.
Meadowlark Pet Kitchens, a fictional company · Recreated from a test I took in December 2023
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What you are given
One Excel file with 201,123 rows, and seven questions.
This is a page from the test. Select it to read it at full size.
What the test asks
- Who are the key customers, and what do they buy?
- Where is the company growing, and where is it losing business?
- How do margins differ by customer?
- What have price and volume done?
- How much growth came from existing customers and how much from new ones?
- How many customers are added and lost each year?
- Should the firm spend more time on this company?
- There is no template and no data dictionary. The file has 21 columns and covers January 2016 through April 2020.
What the answer looks like
The answer is a ten-slide readout and the databook behind it, where every number on the slides is a formula on the raw data. The debrief gives the numbers to check yours against and what to test.
Take the free 60-minute test to see how a case is laid out
What you get
Start here.pdf1 page
1 - The test
Assignment.pdf1 page
Sales database.xlsb201,123 rows
2 - My answer
1 - Readout.pdf10 slides
1 - Readout.pptx
2 - Databook.xlsx12 tabs
3 - Debrief
Debrief.pdf2 pages
Who it is for
- Anyone with a data exercise or a commercial diligence case coming up.
- Most prep covers modeling. This covers the other test: a raw file, a few hours and a deck at the end.
- Four hours for the attempt and about one more to compare and read the debrief.
The story
This was a later test in the process that began with the free 60-minute model test and the investment discussion. It was December 2023, and I had already been to the firm's office.
On a Sunday afternoon a vice president emailed me one Excel file with 201,123 lines of a pet food manufacturer's sales and seven questions. An Excel analysis and a brief PowerPoint were due four hours later.
Ten slides and my workbook went back at the end of the four hours.
Before you start
Is this the real test?
It is recreated from the test I took. The file layout, the questions and the time limit are the same. The company is fictional and its figures are changed.
Is the answer the one you sent?
No. This is the one case where I rebuilt the answer, on the same data and in the same ten-slide outline. The debrief lists what changed and why.
What do I need?
Excel and PowerPoint. The databook is 27 MB and recalculates when it opens.
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