Bain & Company is one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms and has 38 offices in 25 countries. It’s a general strategy firm and was relatively late to the IT consulting market, but now has a variety of offerings, including complexity management, outsourcing and offshoring, and IT strategic planning. Although technology skills can help differentiate applicants, the company expects all of its consultants to be generalists.
Much of the firm’s work involves the IT implications of strategy formulation, IT support, and program management. Bain also works on implementation engagements—sticking around to help a company put its suggestions into practice—as well as on the high-level strategy and diagnostic engagements that are still its bread and butter. In 2007, the company hired John Frelinghuysen as a partner to head efforts to develop intellectual property in the area of digital media and consumer insight.
Bain nearly went under in the late 1980s, when its debt load, a recession, and negative publicity resulting from a conflict of interest entered into by a Bain VP combined to put the firm on its heels.
Bain sent founder Bill Bain packing in 1991, and promoted Orit Gadiesh, one of the darlings of the consulting world, to run the show starting in 1993; since then, Bain’s performance has generally been quite strong. Indeed, its current consultant headcount of 2,400 represents a growth of more than 400 percent from its 1991 consultant headcount of 550.
Bain ranked sixth on the 2008 Fortune list Where MBAs Most Want to Work.
131 Dartmouth Street
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-572-2000
Website: www.bain.com
Ticker: Private company
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