BOSTON & LONDON—May 10, 2023—Bain & Company today announced a strategic alliance with Ashling Partners, a leading global provider of automation consulting and implementation services and an industry-recognized expert leader in these fields. Bain is also directly investing in Ashling to deepen its collaboration with a key partner in Bain’s Vector℠ digital practices. Ashling is backed by THL, a premier private equity firm investing in middle-market growth companies.

With their expanded collaboration, Bain and Ashling will help clients develop, build and scale their automation programs faster and more effectively to deliver full potential and value. Ashling’s extensive technical capabilities and managed services will augment Bain’s deep strategic and operational expertise in implementing world-class automation – recently recognized by HFS Research as market-leading.

“Automation has become a top priority for our clients, across all industries. These transformations are now touching almost every element of customer experience and business functions, with profound impact. At this time of far-reaching change, our Bain Enterprise Technology and broader Vector teams are very excited to be partnering with Ashling,” said Stephen Phillips, head of Bain’s global Enterprise Technology practice.

 “We are very fortunate to collaborate with Bain’s global thought leadership and Vector digital delivery platform for a truly end-to-end automation journey for our collective clients. I am very excited about the expanded conversations we can now have with clients and the value we will deliver because of this partnership. With the backing and support of THL and now the partnership and investment with Bain, companies can feel confident that we bring the best resources globally to any business challenge or discussion,” said Don Sweeney, co-founder and co-CEO of Ashling Partners,

Automation is among Bain’s fastest expanding capabilities within its wider Vector practices. The partnership with Ashling will further strengthen and scale Bain’s automation expertise for clients, delivered as part of its comprehensive suite of Vector digital services. Bain’s Vector team has advised on more than 6,700 digital projects across industries worldwide, delivering end-to-end capabilities in automation, advanced analytics, innovation & design, software engineering and enterprise technology.

Bain’s partnership with Ashling comes at a time when automation is booming as a critical business need across all industries, fueled by developments in generative AI, inflation and need to improve business resilience following the Covid pandemic. 

“Recent developments in generative AI have accelerated companies’ drive to automate business processes.  Our extensive research shows that many automation programs unfortunately fall short of potential with companies under-utilizing capabilities and under-estimating challenges. By combining our capabilities at Bain with Ashling’s, we will help our clients avoid these missed opportunities and achieve the most effective automation programs and most powerful results.” said Michael Heric, leader of Bain’s global automation capability area within the firm’s Vector digital practices.

Marshall Sied, co-founder and co-CEO of Ashling Partners, said: “We are very excited at what this partnership with Bain means for our clients, partners, and our people.  We have always believed in aligning to outcomes and driving those outcomes into reality using intelligent automation and continuous improvement techniques.  Bain’s approach and reputation as the leading global strategy firm will help us connect value streams in an even more meaningful way leveraging automation and AI as our vehicle.”

Media contacts:

For any questions or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Bain & Company:

Katie Ware (New York) — Email: katie.ware@bain.com

Gary Duncan (London) — Email: gary.duncan@bain.com

Ashling Partners:

Alexandra Runjo (Chicago) — Email: alexandra.runjo@ashlingpartners.com

About Ashling Partners

Ashling Partners is a global intelligent process automation consulting firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Ashling Partners offers end-to-end business process optimization services, including business process discovery, process mining, design, automation, and change management. Services also include the advisory, implementation, and ongoing support of robotic process automation (RPA), intelligent automation, low code, IDP, and machine learning solutions to help enterprise clients digitize their operations and drive results. For more information about Ashling Partners, please visit www.ashlingpartners.com.