BCG boosts digital design offering with MAYA acquisition
Digital design and innovation lab MAYA has been acquired by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for an undisclosed fee. BCG completed the purchase in the hope at helping the management consulting firm to deliver design and R&D expertise to clients, with demand on the rise.
Pittsburgh-based MAYA Design has been acquired by Boston Consulting Group. Financial terms for the agreement were not announced, however it was disclosed that the design company’s three founders – Carnegie Mellon University professors Peter Lucas, Mickey McManus and Joe Ballay – will become senior advisers at the Massachusetts-based consulting firm. MAYA Design President and CEO Dutch MacDonald will meanwhile become a digital director at BCG. The acquisition is aimed at broadening and deepening BCG’s digital offerings and capabilities, especially those related to digital transformation.
MAYA Design has 30 employees who will be transferred across with the new deal, while the group’s Pittsburgh office will give BCG a new location to grow and recruit top digital talent, leveraging MAYA’s strong ties to the local universities and tech community. Since its 1989 launch, the organisation has focused on innovation, intellectual property development, user experience (UX) design and prototyping, as well as the implementation of market research to validate business concepts, and customer journeys.
“We are very excited to bring our unique strengths to BCG’s broad set of digital and strategic capabilities. Our firms share similar values, work culture, and clients,” said MAYA CEO, Dutch MacDonald. “This is an exciting opportunity for the MAYA team, and we look forward to joining forces.”
Global management consulting firm BCG caters to clients from the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors through its 85 offices in 48 countries, and has been witnessing increasing demand for advice regarding the implementation of digital business infrastructure. Recently this also saw the firm acquire German company Inverto, a move which further diversifies its range of services for clients in the procurement and operations segment, in an addition which saw more than 130 management consultants bolster BCG’s capabilities the fast growing digitalisation and Internet 4.0 segments of the professional service industry.
In addition to enlarging its Technology Advantage practice, the firm has also created business units including BCG Digital Ventures, its digital innovation, incubation, and investment arm; BCG Platinion, its IT architecture and solutions unit; and BCG Gamma, an advanced analytics and data science service. The increasing opportunity for consulting on digital disruption has meanwhile seen a number of high profile initiatives from rival firms looking to benefit from the trend, including the launch of a number of global Digital Capability Centres by McKinsey & Company.
“To meet our clients’ ambitious transformation and growth agendas, we are expanding our offer with an even fuller set of digital services,” said Tom Reichert, global leader of digital and analytics at BCG. “This acquisition will enhance our ability to bring top-notch digital design and R&D capabilities to our clients, enabling us to deliver even greater value and impact.”