BCG · Tech Consulting · Medium · 25-35 min

Family-Owned Conglomerate Digital Transformation

Family-Owned Conglomerate Digital Transformation is a medium BCG tech consulting case interview that runs 25-35 min. A KSA family conglomerate — SAR 8B revenue across retail, real estate, F&B, and contracting. A strong answer works through 5 phases: Reframe the ask; Inventory the four BUs and identify the two or three where data/AI creates disproportionate value (likely retail, then F&B); Surface the prerequisites; Operating model; 12–18 month roadmap with one lighthouse value-creating use case in parallel with the foundational build.

Last updated 2026-09-05

The brief

A KSA family conglomerate — SAR 8B revenue across retail, real estate, F&B, and contracting. The chairman has come back from Davos asking for 'an AI strategy across the group' in 90 days. There is no Chief Data Officer, no data lake, finance still closes on Excel, and the four business units do not share a customer master. The chairman's son, recently appointed group COO, is your sponsor.

How to approach it

  1. Reframe the ask — 'AI strategy' is the wrong starting question; replace it with 'where does data and AI move the group P&L'
  2. Inventory the four BUs and identify the two or three where data/AI creates disproportionate value (likely retail, then F&B)
  3. Surface the prerequisites — customer master, data governance, a CDO hire — and decide what is gating
  4. Operating model — central CoE vs federated BUs, where the CDO sits, who owns the lighthouse use case
  5. 12–18 month roadmap with one lighthouse value-creating use case in parallel with the foundational build

What a strong answer does

  • Reframes 'AI strategy' to a value question before discussing any technology
  • Picks one lighthouse use case (e.g. retail demand forecasting) to deliver visible value while capabilities are built
  • Surfaces the CDO hire, customer master, and data governance as gating dependencies before any AI work
  • Names the real risk — family-governance dynamics, son-of-chairman as sponsor, what happens when the chairman changes his mind
  • Quantifies value pools across the BUs even with rough numbers — anchors the conversation to money

Red flags interviewers score down

  • Starts with the technology stack (lakehouse, Databricks, foundation models) before establishing value
  • Recommends a 24-month foundational build with no early visible win for the chairman
  • Ignores the org and family dynamics — pretends this is a standard enterprise transformation
  • Tries to do everything across all four BUs simultaneously

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