Financial Analysis puzzles, solved step by step

About 5,100 people, as a range of roughly 3,400 to 5,100. Take a floor plate of 25,000 square feet. After lifts, stairs and services about 80% is usable, 20,000 square feet. At 100 square feet a seat that is 200 seats, and at 85% occupancy about 170 people a floor. Thirty floors gives about 5,100. Roomier offices at 150 square feet a seat bring it down to about 3,400.

Why start from one floor?

Think of estimating the people in a cinema: you count the seats in one row, then the rows. A tower is the same: thirty copies of one floor, so estimate one floor carefully and multiply, because every assumption is easier to defend on a single floor you can picture. Define the answer too: people who work in the building, meaning assigned staff, not visitors and not the count present on any one day.

What goes into one floor?

Four assumptions, each said out loud. A floor plate of about 25,000 square feet, typical for a large commercial tower. About 20% of that is the coreThe central block of a floor holding lifts, stairs, toilets, shafts and service rooms, which cannot be used for desks., leaving 20,000 usable. At 100 square feet a seat, including aisles and meeting rooms, the floor holds 200 seats, and with 85% of seats assigned that is about 170 people. The rest are vacant desks, new hires not yet in, or space held for growth.

Which assumption would you flex, and how would you check it?

Seat density moves the answer most. A dense back office runs near 100 square feet a seat; a bank's front office with larger desks and more meeting rooms nearer 150. At 150 square feet a seat the tower holds about 3,400 people, so give the answer as about 3,400 to 5,100. Then trim for floors that hold no desks: if the lobby and a plant floor take two of the thirty, the dense case falls to about 4,760. A check from another side: assume a dozen lifts, each carrying about 15 people a trip on a round trip of about 3 minutes. That moves about 12 x 15 x 20, or 3,600 people an hour, which fits a building of a few thousand people arriving over a morning, not tens of thousands.

About 32 lakh litres a day, inside a plausible range of roughly 18 to 47 lakh. Assume about 1.3 crore people in four-person homes, 32.5 lakh households. If 80% buy packaged milk at about a litre a day, that is 26 lakh litres. Tea stalls, restaurants and sweet shops add perhaps a quarter more. Each input is an assumption to state aloud and test.

What is the natural unit for a daily staple?

Think about your own home: someone buys one or two packets every morning, and the number depends on how many people share the kitchen, not on who drinks what. For something bought every day by almost every home, the household is the unit, because the buying decision and the quantity are set per kitchen. Start from people, convert to homes, decide what share buys the product, and multiply by the daily quantity. Then add the buyers who are not homes.

Every number in the chain is an assumption, not a fact, and should be said that way. The population depends on where you draw the boundary: the city proper and the wider metropolitan region differ by a large factor, so confirm the latest census or municipal estimate and say which one you are using. The 80% packaged share leaves room for loose milk from local dairies, which is still common in parts of the city.

How do you cross-check it without reusing the same assumptions?

Use a check that rests on different inputs. Per head, 32.5 lakh litres across 1.3 crore people is about 250 ml a day: two or three cups of tea at about 50 ml of milk each plus a glass for a child. That is believable. From the supply side, if a road tanker carries about 15,000 litres, which is an assumption to state, the city needs about 217 tankers a day. A good estimate survives a check built from a different direction; if the per-head number had come out at two litres, you would know a step was wrong.

What would sharpen the estimate most?

The packaged share is the biggest swing, so it is the first thing to research, followed by the trade uplift, which is hard to observe because tea stalls and sweet shops often buy loose milk in bulk. Seasonality matters too: festival weeks lift demand for sweets and milk. The limit to say: this is a demand estimate on an average day, and a dairy planning supply would also need the peak day and the share each brand holds.