Bain launches ADAPT, combines strategy, digital and tech offerings
Bain & Company has continued the expansion of its digital advisory offering, as the firm aims to assist clients with accelerating innovative transformations to their businesses. Launching its new ADAPT offering, Bain has aimed to combine the firm’s strategic expertise with its digital capabilities to provide an integrated service.
With digital disruption throwing consumer markets into a constant process of change, with long-term market incumbents are turning increasingly to the consulting industry for help in leveraging digital solutions for their companies. Brands are expected to keep pace with the impact of the newest digital technologies, with enterprises failing to capitalise on the new appetite among consumers for artificial intelligence, machine learning, or virtual reality, being put under pressure by new, more agile start-ups in their sector. Bain & Company research has previously found this to be a daunting task for many executives, with only one in four senior executives actually feeling prepared to lead their companies through digital transformation, leading the digital transformation consulting market to surge to a worth of $23 billion.
In order to tap into this booming market, as well as in order to better facilitate the changing needs of clients, Bain has launched ADAPT, a new holistic strategy, digital and technology offering. According to a Bain release following the launch, the consulting firm believes that being a digital leader requires a combined solution like this in order to deliver business results in a digital world. Given the growing importance of digital in all industries and aspects of business – from streamlining operations to enhancing customer experience – Bain has adopted a ‘digital inside’ approach. The firm embeds digital capabilities into all of its industry and functional practice areas, rather than treating it as a stand-alone business, with offerings such as the Advanced Digital and Product Team (ADAPT).
An in-house team of Bain experts will staff the new ADAPT service, which will offer services including a development lab to support product implementation, experience design to create innovation, and digital analytics to leverage Bain’s existing Advanced Analytics Practice. ADAPT will also offer digital marketing services to expand clients’ test-and-learn capabilities, as Bain also seeks to intervene in a growing trend among the consulting industry that has seen major investment from its competitors in advertising and design solutions.
Recognising the rising need for more tailored, experiential digital advisory services around the world, Bain has also created regional Bain Digital Hubs as part of the project. Similarly to projects also launched by Synechron and McKinsey & Company in locales including the USA, Singapore and Germany, these hubs will aim to provide companies with on-the-ground channel expertise rooted in the nuance of local digital trends, infrastructure and capabilities. Currently located in San Francisco and Berlin, the hubs connect clients with local pockets of innovation and pair them with the firm’s sector-specific digital experts.
“Digital is embedded into everything we do at Bain, across all industries and disciplines,” said Elizabeth Spaulding, who leads the firm’s global Digital Practice. “ADAPT reflects our integrated approach by merging Bain’s digital, advanced analytics and IT capabilities with our cross-industry expertise to pilot new digital practices internally that will enhance our clients’ results.”
Bain is the latest in a long line of professional services groups looking to leverage technological transformation solutions for their clients. Earlier in 2017, Protiviti most recently launched its own digital consulting arm, while the Big Four of PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY have each expanded their own in-house digital offerings. Firms like Accenture, who announced a major spending campaign totalling $1.8 billion, are also investing large amounts in obtaining smaller digital and design solution companies in order to build their own transformation arms inorganically.
