IT practice case

study
Paritosh Kumar -- 200301015

Rahul Chauhan -- 200301043

Favourable: 
Considering • Consultants at Bain were well known Business strategy advisors to large companies therefore it was
the period to an ideal position from which to address IT concerns of companies.
which the case • The company was already providing services to many large companies and they could become their
relates, potential clients for new cases. Company’s partners had good network and connect with clients.
• Company’s culture of collaboration and data driven analysis approach.
was there a • PMI (Post Merger Integration) could become a viable area of assistance initially and inturn would
justification provide positive momentum to the newly established IT practice.
for Bain & Co. • A Business perspective on IT problems is very important and Bain’s IT practice can provide the
to start a new necessary perspective.
• Clients were telling Gadiesh and the partners at Bain about their IT issues and wanted suitable
practice called answers to their queries and Bain & Co was in a perfect position to address the issues and increase
IT Practice? their client base and profits as the clients had confidence in the company to cater the IT services.
• David who has extensive experience is on board.
• Poor alignment between Business Units and IT departments of the companies at that time.
 Unfavourable: 
• Company’s no or less experience on IT delivery till date.
• Perception of IT inside Bain was akin to “Priesthood”. Bain was a company of generalists and ‘Bainees’
shied away from interacting with any specialised aspects of business life. IT was considered as one of the
most specialized aspect of business and this perception might lead to failure of its IT practice.
• Bain’s internal culture could become a deterrent in building a healthy IT practice. To build the practice,
many hirings had to be done at senior positions and it was a major challenge to integrate them with the
company culture.
• Bain had cultivated had strong reputation for itself and if this IT practice turns out to be a failure, it could
hamper severely their reputation and business prospects.
• CEO’s and top executives being less informed and aware about the benefit of IT practice might cause
reluctance in acceptability.
• Budget and Cost negotiation with clients who considered IT to be a costly affair.
• IT consultants being stereotyped as narrow specialist rather than providing a holistic deliverables to
business and clients.

Because of the advent of Internet, the story of IT was changing. Previously IT was about small independent tasks, more
transactions processed, more processing speed etc but now IT was able to facilitate more and more business processes which
was also evident by the questions received by Bain partners from their clients. 
As more and more Business processes get integrated with IT, IT projects become more huge and complex and started to affect
entire organisations. 
The tipping point came when computing muscle got combined with connectivity and it lead to more and more business
processes deeply linked with IT systems and IT services requirement became a necessity. 
From the above analysis, we can definitely say that Bain was correct in their assessment of starting their IT practice. 
 2021 is full of challenges and opportunities in every aspect of life.
Businesses are no exceptions and there are challenges and opportunities
abound. In the past decade there has been a massive boom in IT and IT
related businesses as every business has many processes governed
Assume that you have been just partially or fully with the help of technology. Bain and Co is doing
amazingly well and is one of the top 10 players in world in the world of
(in June 2021) appointed as
Business Consulting. Before jumping to which areas of IT consulting to
Head of the IT practice of Bain enter into, lets first look at the areas in which Bain is currently providing
& Co its IT consultancy services. 
Which specific areas of IT Consulting • Digital Transformation and Strategy
would you propose Bain & Co. to enter
into and why?  • Advanced Analytics
• Cloud Computing
• Internet of Things
• Cyber security
• Agile
• SaaS etc.
As we can see from above, Bain is currently providing it s consulting services in almost all major
areas of technology. But there is still a lot of scope for Bain to foray into other areas of technology
to cement itself as the most sought after IT consultant. 
We would suggest Bain and Co. enter into business model innovation consultancy. It is an emerging
IT consulting area where Bain and co can leverage its expertise and network of large clients to
deliver its best.

Parameters:
• Business model innovation being the emerging IT consulting area. 
• Bain already has a built-in capability of resources and a well-established team. 
• Bain service being a process oriented service including business alignment, complexity
management, value delivery, etc., can execute projects successfully. 
• Bain has clients in telecom, finance, and retails. These sectors are now relatively technology
driven where with use of technological innovation clients can gain competitive advantage. Bain
can pitch some innovative ideas and help implement the same with its expertise. 
• Current availability of high speed internet and technologies like AI, ML,IOT there is huge
potential for automation which can reduce cost and human intervention. Bain using these
technologies can help its clients to deliver value to their business. 
• Any consultancy need trust and Bain with so many years of delivering IT services has built trust
with its clients. 
 Businesses today are no longer defined by their level of capital, but by the technology they use
to create it. The wave of digital transformation has unleashed a world without boundaries
What is your between sectors, where emerging technologies are accelerating the pace and potential for
assessment of value creation. 
your closest In this regard we can say that the closest competition may be Big IT companies which are
competition in moving into consultancy space. Many big IT companies are building strong consulting practices
the above that are pitting them more directly against the likes of big consulting houses such as McKinsey,
Deloitte etc. 
mentioned
consulting areas With IT becoming an integral part of most business improvements, IT companies see
themselves as uniquely placed to offer consulting services. These companies has more technical
of service and resources and competencies at their disposal as compared to the regular management and IT
reasons thereof? consulting firms. 
How do you For IT companies, consulting has a fewbenefits. One is, they induce long term client
intend to beat relationships. A lot of consulting happens with many people from top management. This helps
the competition? get recognition in company management and top tier decision making personnel, which then
translates into deeper and longer-term client relationships. Another benefit is that most
consulting assignments will eventually translate into IT orders, because any business change
and transformation today involves technology transformation or the use of technology. If a
company hires an IT firm as its consultant, then in many situations the company will also give
other relevant IT assignments to that company. In these aspects we can say that competition
from IT firms is a big potential threat.
The way to beat this competition is not by competing directly in IT consultancy space but by delivering holistically
complete business transformation services including strategy, operations, leadership management, IT, supply chain etc. to
the client organisations. IT companies can only go to a limit of suggesting their clients on how to do IT better. If they
venture out far and also try to provide high end management consulting, they are planning to fail. They don’t have the
maturity and capability to provide such consulting. This is where Bain can capitalize on and play to its strengths and provide
superior generalists consultancy services. 

Bain has several advantages and it needs to utilize those well to have a competitive edge vis a vis the competition.: 

• A greater acumen to understand Business and its various nuances and not just IT and IT related work.

• Decades of experience in doing complete business consultancy work

• Sufficient experience and technical expertise to provide consulting with respect to Information Technology

• Ability to work hand in hand with clients and solve their business problems

• High degree of problem solving skills, generalist expertise and analytic capability.

• IT companies hold little edge as access to technology is not limited and anyone capable and willing can make use of the
technology to provide desired solutions