Dan Schwartz: Winning in the New Normal of Government Services

Read the transcript below.

DAN SCHWARTZ: As this period of turbulence in government services continues, we believe it's more important than ever to focus on the fundamentals, and that means delivering at the lowest total cost to the customer.

To get total cost of delivery right, we encourage our clients to think about three levers.

First, scope, the amount of work you're going to do for a client. By knowing your clients well and focusing on the clients that you have the best relationship with, you're more likely than the competition to know their stated and unstated needs and scope the work to meet those needs.

Speed, getting that amount of work done with the fewest possible hours. By investing in repeatable approaches and assets, you're able to reuse your capabilities and deliver with fewer hours.

And rate. While many companies focus primarily on indirect, we encourage our clients to think about both the direct and indirect costs of delivering for the customer.

Now, the right mix of scope, speed, and rate is going to differ for each company, and it's important for them to have the right strategy that works for them. But, regardless of what that mix is, we encourage our clients to do three things.

First, be intentional. Understand what your mix is and invest behind it. Be bold. Once you understand your strategy, really invest behind it. And be disciplined. There's going to be programs and opportunities that you're going to have to walk away from to follow your strategy. It takes discipline to do that.

Now, in this period, getting total cost of delivery right is more important than ever. And we believe that the companies that focus on all three levers and are intentional, bold, and disciplined in following their strategies will be the ones that best succeed.

Read the Bain Brief: Winning in the New Normal of Government Services