Under the Radar: How is Bain & Company helping firms manage their key priorities entering into 2025, and how does the consulting giant define its role in the age of AI? Its Chairman for Southeast Asia sheds light on the matter.

Money Matters with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

We’re going to start the year by looking at a global consultancy firm that helps the world’s most ambitious change makers define the future.

Founded in 1973, our guest Bain & Company works with clients from across 65 cities to solve industry-defining challenges in strategy, marketing, organisation, operations, digital transformation, corporate finance and even more.

The firm said it serves over 64 per cent of the Global 500, private equity funds representing 75 per cent of global equity capital, as well as leading nonprofits and startups.

It prides itself on working with an insurgent mindset, delivering integrated solutions and providing a uniquely collaborative culture. But how does the firm break down such flowery phrases into standardised service offerings that can be replicated for different clients?

At the same time, Bain & Company also boasts an interdisciplinary capability called Future Sensing, which helps interpret signals within a host of emerging trends to provide insights for firms to navigate turbulence, maximise opportunities and reduce risks.

It also identified key priorities for CEOs to monitor in today’s volatile and uncertain environment. Some of these priorities include (1) Understanding the power and peril of artificial intelligence, (2) Rehumanising work, and (3) Waving goodbye to the invisible hand.

But how is Bain & Company helping its clients manage these priorities and how much money is in it for the consulting giant to double down on its work in these areas? Meanwhile, Bain & Company also appeared to be big on generative AI, having found that the market for AI products and services could reach up to US$990 billion by 2027.

It had in October announced an expanded partnership with OpenAI to accelerate transformative impact in the world’s top companies. But what should we know about the partnership, and how will generative AI augment the role played by traditional consulting firms?

On Under the Radar, Money Matters’ finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Edmund Lin, Chairman of Southeast Asia, Bain & Company.

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