Consulting giant Bain & Co. expanding push in Canada with Montreal office

U.S. consulting company Bain & Co. is raising its bet on Canada with the launch of a new office in Montreal, deepening its relationships in the country at a time of significant upheaval for many businesses.

Boston-based Bain, one of the world’s big three management consultancies, will open a bureau in Quebec’s largest city in October, the firm’s executives confirmed. Matthieu Vigneron, a 20-year consulting veteran with expertise in the realms of aerospace, telecom and technology, will lead a team of 30 employees to start.

Bain has operated in Canada from a base in Toronto for more than three decades, quadrupling its Canadian operation over the past 15 years and boosting its personnel to 250 people. The Montreal expansion marks its first foothold into another Canadian city, building on a client list that includes financial services companies, retailers, and utilities, as well as investment and private capital funds.

“It’s a longer-term play that we’re making here,” said Jed Fallis, who leads Bain’s business in Canada as managing partner. “We look out and see the companies and clients that we do work with, and then the ones that we don’t, and think there’s a lot of opportunity for us.”

Last year was not a great year for consulting, with the sector’s market growing around 3 per cent – about half the rate of nominal gross domestic product growth, according to an estimate from Kennedy Intelligence, a research firm serving the industry. But the rise of artificial intelligence and the volatility of the current business environment are among the factors that could play into executives’ demand for outside advice.

“In the case of Quebec, they have a very specific set of answers that are going to be appropriate for them,” Mr. Fallis said in an interview earlier this month, adding that Bain helps their customers execute on its recommendations, if needed. “We think that we can do that far, far more effectively by having a local French-speaking team who can better meet the needs of Quebec-based clients.”

Bain declined to disclose the names of its Quebec customers, citing confidentiality. But one of its long-standing contracts in the province is with financial giant Desjardins Group.

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The banking co-operative was bleeding thousands of customers a year and facing heavy competition from digital-forward rivals when it turned to Bain in 2017 for help. Desjardins was able to reverse course and add 140,000 customer-members over the next five years, according to a case study published on Bain’s website.

Bain was attracted to Montreal in part for its talent pool, including generalists graduating from university and the more specialized data scientists and AI experts, Mr. Fallis said.

With a local presence in Quebec, Bain could tap into that expertise more effectively than it has previously been able to from its Toronto base, he said. Mr. Fallis added that building expertise in AI and advising clients on how to navigate it will be particularly important. “I think it will upset the competitive dynamic in many different industries,” he said.

Canada might possess world-class research and a robust talent pool, but the country is falling behind as global competitors race ahead in AI adoption, Royal Bank of Canada said in a report published in June. Only 12 per cent of Canadian firms “have integrated AI into their production or services, placing Canada among the lowest in AI adoption in the OECD,” according to RBC.

Bain’s two main rivals in management consulting, McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group, already have offices in Montreal. Bain is significantly smaller than its competitors, and isn’t trying to chase them to become big for big’s sake, said Tom Rodenhauser, managing partner of Kennedy Intelligence.

“It’s a different animal,” Mr. Rodenhauser said, adding the consultancy has more of an investment banking mindset and does a lot of work on deals. “They have runway to continue doing what they’re doing.”

Bain & Co. spun off its investment business into Bain Capital in 1984. That firm now has around US$185-billion in assets under management, holding private equity stakes in Canadian companies including BRP Inc. and Canada Goose.