Bain & Company’s IT Practice (A)

 Bain & Company was thinking about establishing an IT practice in their company. Bain
chairman, Orit Gadeish, has identified David Shpilberg as a potential candidate to recruit
and start up the IT practice in the company.
 IT as a practice was gaining traction in the consultancy domain in the early 2000s,
wherein more and more firms trying to understand the implications of strategic IT
practices within their business. Bain partners had received a lot of IT related queries
from their clients during the late 1900s.
 Traditionally, Bain preferred to hire new people into junior positions, then selectively
promote them instead of hiring senior employees from other consultancies.
 Setting up a new IT practice in Bain would be a difficult task because IT was considered
as a specialist aspect of a business, whereas Bain had a reputation as a company of
generalists.
 A new IT practice means that Bain would have to recruit a considerable number of
senior IT professionals from outside. Bain’s strong culture which is reluctant to hire a
large number of senior people from outside also poses some challenges to the IT
practice.
 Getting client on board was essential to generate demand for the new practice. For this,
the partners who are responsible for the client relationship should also be on board.
 Both Gadeish and Shpilberg had an important decision to make. Shpilberg has to make a
call as to whether he should take up the added responsibility. Gadeish has to keep in
mind the reputation of the company and the potential cost of failure should things go
south.

David joined in 2002 January

One person David at the helm