case library / competitive dynamics and pricing
PakRight Cups
A easy to medium competitive dynamics and pricing case, candidate-led, built for live practice with an AI interviewer that grades like a coach.
- Competitive response
- candidate-led
- easy to medium
- ~25 min
- 2 exhibits
Our client is the CEO of PakRight, a US manufacturer of paper cups supplied to coffee chains and quick-service restaurants. Profits and revenues have been steady, but the CEO is concerned about an influx of cheaper cups from overseas manufacturers entering the US market. They want to know how to tackle this.
What happens when you run it live
Your interviewer holds answers to 4 clarifying questions candidates usually ask, so opening the case correctly gets rewarded. The case unfolds over 5 phases, with 2 exhibits handed to you at the right moments. You structure, do the math out loud, and close with a recommendation. Then you get a graded report across structure, quant, insight, synthesis, and communication, with the specific moments that cost you points. The exhibits, numbers, and answer key stay inside the live session, the way a real interviewer keeps the case packet on their side of the table.
How to approach a competitive dynamics and pricing case
These cases start with someone else's move: a rival cuts price, a new entrant shows up, a tariff lands. The question is how to respond, and the trap is answering before you understand the attacker's economics and your own. Contribution margin does most of the real work in pricing decisions: what does each unit actually earn, and where is the walk-away line.
Interviewers listen for game-thinking without game-theory jargon: what does the competitor want, what can they sustain, which responses escalate versus contain. The best answers weigh matching, differentiating, and not responding at all, and pick one with a clear trigger for changing course.
Run PakRight Cups live, free. About 25 minutes, graded in the same sitting.
Start practicing freefree · no card · graded in minutes