Bain & Company

"James Allen & Chris Zook, “The Strategic Principles of Repeatability,” Bain Brief,"

"Personal vehicles of players Player Personal vehicles created Bain Bain & Company; the unique Bain consulting formula; recommendations from client CEOs to other CEOs; Bain Capital Bezos Amazon; the Bezos business formula for Amazon Bismarck The Prussian state and army; North German Confederation; German state and military; successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France Churchill His opposition to Hitler; British state and Empire; their armies and people Curie Radium Disney Disney Studio; cartoons, movies and television; Mickey Mouse and later Disney characters; Disney’s personal WED corporation; Disneyland Dylan The folk movement; Columbia Records; songs and albums; fans Einstein Theory of Relativity; Zurich, Prague, Berlin, Caltech, Berkeley and Princeton universities; media Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning; lectures; awards; school of followers Henderson Boston Consulting Group (BCG); the Experience Curve and Boston Box concepts; Perspectives (short thought-pieces mailed to senior managers); BCG conferences Jobs Apple, NeXT and Pixar; Macintosh computers; Apple digital devices; Apple store; Apple apps Keynes The Economic Consequences of the Peace; King’s College Cambridge; The General Theory Lenin Iskra (Russian revolutionary newspaper); What Is To Be Done?; Bolshevik party; Russian state; military and secret police Leonardo His studio in Florence; his paintings, sculptures Madonna Record labels; albums, videos, movies; media; personal business ventures Mandela ANC; Robben Island prison; South African state Rowling Harry Potter Rubinstein Eponymous cosmetics empire; advertising and media; personality marketing and personal networking Paul of Tarsus City churches he founded; his letters (epistles) to them, Acts of the Apostles; Marcion and his pioneering New Testament canon Thatcher Conservative Party; British state and military; Falklands war; ‘Thatcherism’ programme in favour of free enterprise, against state business monopolies and abuses of trade union power"

"Like Bruce Henderson when he had discovered the Experience Curve, like Jeff Bezos when he and David Shaw worked out the blueprint for Amazon (and before Bezos left Shaw to start the new venture), like Bill Bain before he deserted Bruce Henderson to found Bain & Company, Einstein had been transformed. Like them all, he knew that he was privy to insights nobody else had, and that he would change the world. Similar transforming certainty affected three other people we have already met in these pages – Steve Jobs, Paul of Tarsus, and Viktor Frankl."

"The Bain philosophy was audacious in the extreme. You can instantly see the benefits for Bain & Company – long assignments and ever-increasing consulting fees within the client company meant huge inbuilt growth and profitability. Yet it wouldn’t have worked if it didn’t reflect the reality that consultants could be vastly more useful within such a relationship. They could understand the company better than it understood itself, and ensure that the chief executive could implement whatever was necessary for radical profit improvement, without brooking opposition from powerful internal executives. These were ‘barons’ – heads of functions such as manufacturing or marketing, or of country operations – excoriated by Bain because they often acted to protect themselves and their people from profit-maximising change. When I defected from BCG to Bain & Company, I was amazed at how utterly dissimilar the two outfits were. They used the same intellectual capital, but in totally contrasting ways. Bain & Company worked within clients in a much more intensive, expensive and remorseless way, leaving very little to chance – so achieving extraordinary results."

"Bain’s iconoclasm had six interlocking planks: •  An extremely close relationship with the client organisation, and particularly its head. •  Equality of status between the client organisation and the consulting firm (Bain & Company), and between the client’s CEO and the lead partner from Bain handling the client. •  A long-term and continuous relationship, completely at odds with the consulting industry norm of specific and intermittent projects. •  Exclusivity between the client organisation and Bain & Company both ways – as Bain told prospective clients, ‘We won’t work with your competitors, and you won’t work with ours.’ •  Focus on increasing the value of the company organisation – strategy was the means to the end, not the end in itself; conversely, to Bain, ‘strategy’ meant ‘anything that we can help with which will increase the value of the client firm’. •  Bill Bain believed in a top-down, quasi-military chain of command, both within his own firm, and in the client. What the lead Bain partner and the client CEO agreed should be done, would be done, by fiat, through the client organisation and in parallel with the Bain & Company organisation."

"Bain & Company’s credibility came in a new way. Bain created a cult of secrecy around his vehicle. For many years his firm had no brochure, no website, wrote no memos or reports, had no business cards, and shunned publicity like the plague. All his sales were made by direct pitches to chief executives, and by references from existing clients to their peers in other companies."

"Most basically, Bain & Company’s authority flowed from its unique positioning and intimacy with clients."

"Consider, for example, the following types of potentially transforming experiences: •  Educational – go to the best college(s) for what you want to learn and do. •  Self-defined unique expertise – become the expert in a narrow subject which you define. •  Live in a different country and culture. •  Work as an apprentice for an expert in your target field. •  Finagle a job in an exceptional, innovative company, which: ■  knows something unique – such as BCG for Bill Bain, BCG and Bain & Company for me, or DESCO for Bezos ■  operates in a different market from any other firm, defined by customers, products, price, or technology (or permutations of these differences) ■  is growing very fast – 30 per cent at least, ideally doubling or better each year ■  comprises ‘A’ people – curious, demanding, and innovating. •  Start a company, club or network like this."

"If you are in business, have you started a company that is sufficiently different from any other, with a great business formula, like Amazon or Apple or the Boston Consulting Group or Bain & Company or Helena Rubinstein or Walt…"