Launching Bain’s digital product arm Next-Gen Software Solutions (NGSS)
Launching Bain’s digital product arm Next-Gen Software Solutions (NGSS)
Bain leaders had a vision of launching an internal software team to digitize Bain’s tools and methods. This would help teams work more efficiently, allow Bain to deliver results for clients faster, and ensure case teams and clients could scale results across more of the client’s organization than was previously possible. That vision became a team called Next-Gen Software Solutions (NGSS) group.
These teams provided early support and now work with NGSS
While NGSS is Bain’s digital product arm, they partner with other teams who are critical in providing expertise, infrastructure, analytics, and input. When NGSS began building and scaling internal Bain software, some of these teams also became its customers.
These teams provided early support and now work with NGSS
While NGSS is Bain’s digital product arm, they partner with other teams who are critical in providing expertise, infrastructure, analytics, and input. When NGSS began building and scaling internal Bain software, some of these teams also became its customers.
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AI, Insights, & Solutions (AIS)
When an NGSS software product requires advanced analytics or machine learning models, AIS data scientists develop and integrate them.
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Bain Capability Network (BCN)
When an NGSS software product requires client-specific data or additional analysis, the BCN’s centers of expertise help deliver it.
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General Consulting
Bain’s consulting practices often use NGSS software products and are one of its primary user groups. They provide expertise and feedback that make NGSS products even better.
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NextGen Software Solutions
The NGSS team began as just five people and has grown to hundreds. Early team members decided on their own structure, values, and strategy, and now turn Bain’s internal tools and expertise on topics like private equity into software products—from concepting to scale.
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Product, Practice, and Knowledge (PPK)
Bain’s PPK team documents and shares Bain’s consulting methodologies for delivering client case work. The PPK team helps Bain’s consulting practices work with NGSS to turn their proprietary methodologies into software products.
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Talent Acquisition
Our Talent Acquisition team applied their expertise in designing, developing, and executing recruiting programs to secure the right talent. This talent pipeline helped bring much needed expertise to bear.
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Technology Solutions Group (TSG)
Early on, the TSG team provided technical infrastructure and information security for NGSS software products.
Background
In 2019, Bain aimed to reinvent itself digitally. At this time, management consulting firms were either primarily focused on consulting or on digital. Bain leadership wondered, why choose? What if they could manage both? This approach might help Bain address the fact that the global pace of work was speeding up. It could also help clients scale their results and help Bain assist them in more ways and reach more client teams than was currently possible.
“We had reached a level of scale where we needed to think in terms of internal products,” says David Schuette, Senior Strategy and Planning Manager on the NGSS team. “Previously we were small enough that everyone knew their domain. People could reach out to those individual experts if they needed something. But now, we needed the entire organization to be able to access their knowledge, without losing that feeling of intimacy. Everyone needed to bring all of Bain’s expertise to bear. That led Bain to create a team that could turn all those methodologies into software.”
The plan
Bain launched the Next-Gen Software Solutions (NGSS) team with just five members: Michael Osbourne, Stephen Dienhart, Michael Ward, Stefan Schulte, and Wayne Boley. They set about devising all the team’s processes from scratch. “We were building the plane whilst flying it,” recalls Michael Osbourne, Vice President and Head of NGSS.
One of the great benefits of working on a team like this is it offers all the security and benefits of working within Bain’s culture and also a chance to have total ownership of important problems from start to finish. “It was, and continues to be, an alchemy of both worlds, large enterprise and startup,” says Michael Osbourne.
The NGSS team’s plans and processes began to coalesce as Bain identified their first product, ARC, short for “action, results, and collaboration.” Bain helps its clients utterly transform their businesses. But tracking and managing all those workstreams across an enterprise is difficult. The Transformation Practice, which leads this kind of work, knew this, and partnered with NGSS to begin building ARC to help both Bainies and clients monitor their progress, collaborate, and launch initiatives.
Through this and other projects, the NGSS team arrived at core values they knew would make them successful:
Innovation—Try things that haven't been done before.
Customer-centricity—Empathize with the customer and listen deeply.
Diversity and inclusion—Celebrate the value of a diversity of opinions and backgrounds.
Product-mindedness—Think in terms of scale from day one.
Continuously improving—Use everything as an opportunity to become 1% better.
Questions:
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What factors would ensure the NGSS team’s success?
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What would convince consultants and clients to adopt internal software?
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How would they get many internal teams to share the best of their knowledge?
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How would they create an agile startup culture while supporting an established business?
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How could they codify and repeat their product creation process?
The approach
One of the team’s greatest challenges and successes was evangelizing the value of software within Bain. Whereas previously, Bain’s consultants were used to having many small point solutions they’d apply as needed—sometimes built in spreadsheets—the NGSS team and the early Practice pioneers like the Transformation Practice, got them to think about how that entire process could be within one interface and one product.
“Consultants would have all these point tools. If they needed web scraping, they’d reach for the web scraping tool,” says David. “They wanted to continue doing what had always worked. But in the software world, that isn’t how you’re successful. You have to teach people the difference between configuration and customization and how software could be part of their playbook.”
Early on, the NGSS team would approach other teams like Product, Practice & Knowledge (PPK) to discuss opportunities to create software. As they started to build those products and demonstrate success, teams began coming to them. “Eventually a funding committee was established to decide where Bain should invest,” says Michael Osbourne. The committee, supported by NGSS, would consider each proposed product’s importance to revenue, how productizable it was, and how it could accelerate work already being done.
The greatest early example of a product that hit all those criteria was ARC, which was a runaway success. “ARC was the real moment of truth,” says Michael Osbourne. “It took off and spread and really helped the consulting business.” Previously, consultants would discuss transformations with clients and fill out a spreadsheet. But ARC was a genuine platform that allowed them to track those initiatives, visualize their progress, and collaborate with clients in a place where they too could explore the project. It's now used in the majority of transformation cases Bain delivers globally.
After ARC, several more products took off. Demand for NGSS products kept growing and as a result, so did the team. “To leadership’s credit, each time we went back and said, ‘We need more people’ they always provided,” says Michael Osbourne. NGSS's roster of successes grew to include:
The results
The NGSS team is now hundreds of people and Bain has crafted a truly unique consulting business that offers software as a key part of its value proposition to clients. NGSS has opened new revenue streams. It helps Bain clients quickly scale their results. And it has become a differentiator that helps clients choose Bain. Clients now know that on big projects, their entire team can participate and achieve even more exceptional results. “We’ve built dozens of products, are scaling the ones we have, and this is only the beginning,” says David.
of offices around the globe use these products
of team members
of products covering most of Bain’s practices
