Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: May 15, 2026

 

IT strategy case interviews ask you to help a client improve how they run, fund, and source their technology. You might be asked to cut IT costs, simplify a bloated application portfolio, or pick a sourcing model. These cases blend business judgment with basic technology knowledge, and they show up often at firms like Accenture and the Big 4.

 

By the end of this article, you will know the six most common IT strategy case types, a step-by-step method to solve them, the frameworks that matter, and a full worked example.

 

But first, a quick heads up:

 

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What Is an IT Strategy Case Interview?

 

An IT strategy case interview is a case where the client's core problem is their information technology strategy itself. Instead of using technology to solve an unrelated business problem, you are deciding how the company should run, fund, source, and structure its IT.

 

This makes IT strategy cases a specific subset of technology consulting case interviews. A general technology case might ask whether a retailer should build or buy an e-commerce platform. An IT strategy case goes broader and asks how the whole IT function should operate.

 

Typical IT strategy case prompts include:

 

• A bank spends 9% of revenue on IT and wants to cut that to 6% without hurting performance.

 

• A manufacturer has 600 software applications and suspects half are redundant.

 

• A retailer is deciding whether to keep its IT team in-house or move work to an offshore vendor.

 

• Two merged companies need to combine two completely separate IT systems into one.

 

Firms use these cases because they test business judgment and technology fluency at the same time. In a 20- to 30-minute exercise, an interviewer can see whether you can translate a messy technical situation into a clear business recommendation.

 

What Companies Give IT Strategy Case Interviews?

 

IT strategy case interviews are most common at firms with large technology consulting practices. The firms that give these cases most often are:

 

• Technology-focused consulting firms: Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, and IBM

 

• Big 4 consulting practices: Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY all run sizable IT and technology strategy teams

 

• MBB digital and technology arms: McKinsey, BCG, and Bain run IT strategy work through their digital practices

 

Accenture in particular hires directly for IT Strategy Consultant roles. Candidates report a six-stage process that includes behavioral, technical, and case rounds, with case prompts often pulled from the interviewer's real past projects.

 

The more senior the role and the more technical your background, the more technical your IT strategy cases will be. Entry-level candidates are usually given cases that lean more on business logic than deep technical knowledge.

 

What Do Interviewers Look For in IT Strategy Cases?

 

Interviewers in IT strategy cases look for five qualities. They are mostly the same traits tested in any case, with one important addition around technology fluency.

 

Logical, structured thinking: Can you break a broad IT problem into clear, separate parts? Can you reason your way to a conclusion instead of guessing?

 

Business-first reasoning: Can you tie every technology point back to cost, revenue, risk, or speed? The quickest way to fail an IT strategy case is to get lost in technical detail that does not change the recommendation.

 

Technology fluency: Do you understand basic concepts like applications, infrastructure, cloud, and data? You do not need to be an engineer, but you should not freeze when the interviewer says "enterprise architecture."

 

Quantitative skill: Can you work through IT cost math, savings estimates, and payback periods cleanly and quickly?

 

Communication: Can you explain a technical trade-off in plain language that a non-technical executive would understand?

 

In my experience interviewing candidates at Bain, the one that separates strong candidates from weak ones is business-first reasoning. Many candidates know the technology words. Few can consistently connect them to business value.

 

What Are the Components of an IT Strategy?

 

An IT strategy covers seven core components. Knowing these gives you a ready-made checklist for almost any IT strategy case, because the client's problem will almost always sit inside one or two of them.

 

I call this the IT Strategy Blueprint. When you get an IT strategy case, run through these seven components and pick the two or three that matter most for the prompt.

 

• Business alignment: How well does the IT plan support the company's overall business goals and priorities?

 

• Applications: What software does the company use, how much overlap exists, and which apps should be kept, retired, or replaced?

 

• Infrastructure: What hardware, data centers, networks, and cloud services run the company, and are they cost-effective and scalable?

 

• Data and analytics: How is data stored, governed, and used to make decisions across the company?

 

• IT operating model: How is the IT organization structured, and how does it make decisions and deliver projects?

 

• Sourcing: Which IT work is done in-house, which is outsourced, and should it be onshore or offshore?

 

• Security and risk: How does the company protect its systems and data, and stay compliant with regulations?

 

Most IT strategy cases focus on applications, infrastructure, the operating model, or sourcing. The other three components usually come up as supporting considerations rather than the main problem.

 

What Are the Most Common Types of IT Strategy Cases?

 

There are six common types of IT strategy cases. Each one maps to a different part of the IT Strategy Blueprint, and each has a central question and a key metric you should anchor on.

 

Case Type	Central Question	Key Metric
IT cost reduction	How can the client lower IT spend without hurting performance?	IT spend as a percent of revenue
Application rationalization	Which applications should be kept, merged, or retired?	Number of apps and total app cost
IT sourcing	Should IT work be done in-house or outsourced, onshore or offshore?	Cost per role and service quality
IT operating model	How should the IT organization be structured and run?	Project delivery speed and cost
Cloud migration	Should the client move systems from its own data centers to the cloud?	Total cost of ownership
Post-merger IT integration	How should two companies combine their IT systems after a merger?	Integration cost and synergy savings

 

IT Cost Reduction Cases

 

IT cost reduction cases ask you to lower a client's technology spend while keeping service levels stable. These work much like a standard cost reduction case interview, except the costs sit inside IT.

 

Start by breaking IT spend into its major buckets: applications, infrastructure, IT staff, and vendor contracts. Most companies spend somewhere between 2% and 8% of revenue on IT, so use that range as a quick benchmark to judge whether the client is overspending.

 

Then find the largest buckets and look for waste, duplication, and better pricing. The biggest savings usually come from retiring unused applications, consolidating infrastructure, and renegotiating vendor contracts.

 

Application Rationalization Cases

 

Application rationalization cases ask you to review a company's software portfolio and decide which applications to keep, merge, or retire. Large companies often run hundreds or even thousands of applications, and a meaningful share are redundant or barely used.

 

The standard approach is to score each application on two dimensions: business value and technical health. Applications with low value and poor health are retired. Applications with high value and poor health are rebuilt or replaced.

 

Industry benchmarks suggest that 30% to 50% of applications in a large portfolio can often be eliminated or consolidated. That makes app rationalization one of the fastest ways to cut IT cost.

 

IT Sourcing and Outsourcing Cases

 

IT sourcing cases ask whether IT work should be done in-house or handed to an outside vendor, and whether it should sit onshore or offshore. The decision usually comes down to cost, quality, control, and risk.

 

Outsourcing and offshoring can lower cost per role significantly, but they add coordination overhead and can reduce control over quality and security. Core, strategic work is usually kept in-house, while routine work like help desk support is more often outsourced.

 

Compare the fully loaded cost of each option, not just the headline labor rate. A cheap offshore contract that creates rework and delays is not actually cheap.

 

IT Operating Model Cases

 

IT operating model cases ask how the IT organization should be structured and how it should make decisions and deliver projects. The client is usually frustrated that IT is slow, expensive, or disconnected from the business.

 

Look at how IT teams are organized, how they prioritize work, how they fund projects, and how they coordinate with business units. A common fix is moving from a fully centralized model to a hybrid model where shared services stay central but business-facing teams sit closer to each business unit.

 

Cloud Migration Strategy Cases

 

Cloud migration cases ask whether a client should move systems from its own data centers to cloud providers. The core trade-off is upfront migration cost and risk against long-term savings, flexibility, and scalability.

 

Compare the total cost of ownership of staying on-premise against the total cost of moving to the cloud, including the one-time migration cost. Moving to the cloud can often cut infrastructure costs by 20% to 30% over time, but the migration itself is rarely cheap or simple.

 

Post-Merger IT Integration Cases

 

Post-merger IT integration cases ask how two companies should combine their separate IT systems after a merger or acquisition. These often appear inside a broader digital transformation case interview or M&A case.

 

For each major system, you usually choose one of three paths: keep one company's system, keep both for now, or build something new. The goal is to capture synergy savings quickly while avoiding outages that disrupt the business.

 

How Do You Solve an IT Strategy Case Interview?

 

You solve an IT strategy case interview using the same six steps that work for any case interview. The content is technology-focused, but the process does not change.

 

1. Understand the case. Take careful notes as the interviewer gives the prompt. Confirm the objective before you do anything else, because solving the wrong problem is the fastest way to fail.
   
   
2. Structure the problem. Build a framework before analyzing. Use the IT Strategy Blueprint to identify the two or three components that matter most, then add specific questions under each. Tailored case interview frameworks beat memorized ones every time, because they fit the exact problem in front of you.
   
   
3. Kick off the case. Decide where to start exploring. In a candidate-led case you propose the first area and explain why. In an interviewer-led case, the interviewer points you to a starting area.
   
   
4. Solve quantitative problems. IT strategy cases almost always include math, such as IT cost breakdowns, savings estimates, or payback periods. Lay out your approach before calculating, and keep the case interview math clean and well-organized.
   
   
5. Answer qualitative questions. Expect questions on risks, vendor relationships, change management, and user adoption. Structure every answer instead of listing ideas at random.
   
   
6. Deliver a recommendation. State your recommendation clearly, give the two or three reasons behind it, name the key risks, and suggest next steps. Keep it tight and lead with the answer.

 

If you want to learn this six-step process quickly and practice it on dozens of cases, my case interview course walks you through proven strategies in as little as 7 days.

 

IT Strategy Case Interview Example

 

Here is a worked application rationalization example so you can see the six steps in action.

 

Interviewer: Our client is a large insurance company. Over 15 years of growth and acquisitions, it has accumulated 800 software applications. The new CIO believes the portfolio is bloated and expensive. She wants to know how much the client could save by rationalizing its applications. How would you approach this?

 

You: Before I structure this, I want to confirm the objective. We are trying to estimate the cost savings from reducing and consolidating the application portfolio, and recommend how to do it. Is that right?

 

Interviewer: That is correct.

 

You: I would structure this around four areas. First, the current state: what the 800 applications cost today and how that cost is spread. Second, the rationalization approach: how to score each application on business value and technical health. Third, the savings: how many applications we can retire or merge and what that saves. Fourth, the risks and implementation plan.

 

Interviewer: Good. Let's start with the savings. Assume the 800 applications cost $120 million per year in total. Industry benchmarks suggest 40% of applications in a portfolio this size can be retired or consolidated, and that retired applications carry about half the average cost. What is the rough annual savings?

 

You: The average application costs $120 million divided by 800, which is $150,000 per year. We can address 40% of 800 applications, which is 320 applications. Those carry about half the average cost, so $75,000 each. That is 320 times $75,000, which is $24 million in annual savings, or 20% of the IT application budget.

 

Interviewer: That math works. What risks would you flag?

 

You: I would flag three risks. First, retiring an application that a small but critical team still depends on. Second, hidden integration links, where shutting down one application breaks another. Third, the one-time cost and effort of migration, which eats into year-one savings. I would recommend a phased rollout, starting with clearly unused applications, and a careful mapping of integrations before anything is switched off.

 

You: So my recommendation is that the client should rationalize its application portfolio, targeting roughly $24 million in annual savings, about 20% of the application budget. The client should score every application on business value and technical health, retire the low-value applications first, and phase the rollout to manage risk. Next steps would be a full application inventory and an integration map.

 

This answer works because it confirms the objective, structures the problem, runs clean math, names real risks, and ends with a clear recommendation and next steps.

 

What Are the Most Common IT Strategy Case Mistakes?

 

There are five mistakes candidates make most often in IT strategy cases. Avoiding them will put you ahead of most of the field.

 

Getting too technical: Diving deep into technical detail that does not change the recommendation. Interviewers want business impact, not a systems lecture.

 

Ignoring business value: Talking about applications, infrastructure, and cloud without ever tying them back to cost, revenue, risk, or speed.

 

Using jargon as a crutch: Saying "TOGAF" or "enterprise architecture" without being able to explain what you would actually do. Naming a framework is not the same as solving the case.

 

Skipping the math: IT strategy cases reward candidates who can quantify savings. Vague answers like "this would save a lot" are not convincing.

 

Forgetting implementation risk: Recommending a big change without mentioning migration cost, outages, or change management. Executives care as much about risk as they do about savings.

 

IT Strategy Case Interview Tips

 

Use these eight tips to sharpen your performance on IT strategy cases.

 

Tip #1: Learn the IT Strategy Blueprint. Memorize the seven components so you always have a structured starting point for any IT strategy prompt.

 

Tip #2: Translate everything into business value. For every technical point you raise, ask yourself how it changes cost, revenue, risk, or speed.

 

Tip #3: Learn a handful of technology concepts. You should be comfortable explaining applications, infrastructure, cloud, data, and sourcing in plain language.

 

Tip #4: Benchmark IT spend. Remember that most companies spend 2% to 8% of revenue on IT, so you can quickly judge whether a client is overspending.

 

Tip #5: Practice the core case types. Most IT strategy cases mirror traditional case types, so strong fundamentals on a strategy case interview transfer directly.

 

Tip #6: Always quantify savings. Practice IT cost math until you can break down spend and estimate savings quickly and accurately.

 

Tip #7: Name the risks. End every recommendation with the key risks and how you would manage them.

 

Tip #8: Get feedback on real cases. Practicing with someone who can critique your structure and communication is the fastest way to improve.

 

If you want expert feedback on your IT strategy cases, my case interview coaching pairs you with former interviewers who can pinpoint exactly what to fix.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is an IT strategy case interview harder than a normal case interview?

 

Not really. An IT strategy case uses the same structure, math, and communication skills as any case interview. The main difference is the subject matter, so the extra preparation is learning a few technology concepts and the IT Strategy Blueprint.

 

Do I need a technical background to pass an IT strategy case interview?

 

No. For most entry-level roles, you only need to understand technology concepts at a basic level and be able to reason about business value. A deep technical background helps for senior or specialist roles, where cases tend to be more technical.

 

What frameworks should I use for an IT strategy case interview?

 

Use the IT Strategy Blueprint to identify which components of IT strategy the case is about. From there, build a tailored framework with specific questions under each area. Memorized frameworks like TOGAF or ITIL are useful as background knowledge but should not be applied mechanically.

 

How long is an IT strategy case interview?

 

Most IT strategy case interviews last 20 to 30 minutes, similar to other case interviews. At firms like Accenture, the case is one stage in a larger process that can include behavioral and technical rounds across several weeks.

 

What is the difference between an IT strategy case and a digital transformation case?

 

An IT strategy case focuses on how the IT function itself should run, fund, and source its work. A digital transformation case is broader and focuses on using technology to change how the whole business operates. They overlap, and post-merger IT integration cases often touch both.

 

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