The 4C Framework is composed of four elements: Customer, Competition, Cost and Capabilities. The structure is useful to get a better understanding of the client and important during your case interview. While the former 2 provide information of external market conditions, the last 2 provide internal information about the company. The framework belongs to the basic tools, which serve as general roadmap and reminder of the major aspects to cover. The 3C Framework – Customer, Competition and Company is very similar except that the internal aspects of cost and capabilities are combined within the company.
It is important to realize that the customer of the firm is not necessarily the end customer who buys the product. To find out more about the customer, questions should concentrate on:
It is important to understand the market position of the competitors as well as how the competition differentiates itself from the client's company.
Here, we compare our client’s cost structure with the competition’s cost structure and try to reduce our costs if certain components of competition costs are lower.
If we have a better understanding of the resources of a company, we are able to judge more precisely what kind of strategies a company can apply to boost its performance. Furthermore, we can decide if a company should rather make something by itself (organic) or buy the competencies from outside (inorganic - e.g., buying a new firm). Following are some examples of company's capabilities:
Read a case using the Customer, Competition, Cost and Capabilities Framework.