Advice
Preferably you will have been asked this question with just the well as opposed to the badly bit as it is a general rule in interviews that wherever possible you try to avoid any negative comment or thought about anything. It does make a difference to the perception of the interviewer if you focus on negative issues as opposed to positives.
The key to this question is to make sure you pick a company you can talk a lot about. It is all very well describing a business but not particularly good if you can only say that their profits are up and give a couple of bits of information about why you think this is so.
Try to think of a well known business and particularly a well known business that is well known for its success or turning round and making themselves a success. The examples you need to give to explain why it is so should relate wherever possible to the job you are applying for, so if you are applying for a managerial position it is worth giving a few reasons such as strong leadership, budget control, innovation, and good use of assets.
Try to avoid giving any examples of small businesses that the interviewer will probably not have heard of or not be too familiar with. Although it may well be that you can give plenty of detail about the small company, it does make the question rather one sided as it is unlikely the interviewer will know sufficiently about them to be able to comment.
Example Answer
“X Plc are, in my opinion, strong performers in the pharmaceutical field. Their profits are up this year by 20% and their costs have remained static for the last 4 years. They have been a strong contender for a number of years now and look to remain so with effective management, utilising the skills and experience of a stable workforce to great effect. The company appears to be full of innovators who produce new products regularly to keep this business at the front in development.”
