Bain touts a practical approach to client engagements and backs those claims up by measuring the results. According to the firm (and attested to by calculations from PricewaterhouseCoopers), its clients' stock prices outperform the market by four to one. Bain's sales and marketing cases deliver on average more than 25 percent revenue growth. Bain-supported merger integrations on average generate 20 percent higher excess shareholder returns Furthermore, 85 percent of Bain's performance improvement work produces yields worth more than ten times the fees charged for the work.

Bain’s distinctive Results Delivery® foundation is embedded into every Bain engagement. This approach focuses on predicting, measuring and managing risk associated with a change from day one which helps clients realize results more consistently and predictably than their competitors.

Further evidence of the firm's confidence in its ability to produce results can be found in the practice of "tied economics"—something that Bain pioneered. To ensure alignment between a client's goals and the firm's work, Bain often takes equity in lieu of fees, which means that Bain is only successful when its clients are successful.

An entrepreneurial spirit

Bain has fostered its entrepreneurial culture since its founding when a handful of consultants left one of its competitors to build a new firm founded on the innovative principle of "results, not reports." At the time, Bain's approach was unique in the market—no other major players were attempting to differentiate in that way. That culture, and the transferable skills Bain consultants develop, is clearly a great benefit for those interested in pursuing their own businesses–in fact, many Bain alumni go on to be successful entrepreneurs.

Private equity leader

Bain was the first consultancy to work with private equity firms and has worked on half of the largest buyout deals in the last decade. The firm's practice provides fund strategy, sector screening, and deal generation, due diligence, portfolio company performance improvement, and exit planning for clients. Having carved a niche for itself in this area, the firm claims that its private equity practice is over three times larger than that of the next-largest consulting firm serving private equity funds.

Transformative social impact

Bain partners with organizations that have pioneered and scaled models of change that demonstrably work, but which often lack access to the type of strategic consulting the firm can provide to help them reach full potential. Therefore Bain’s 10-year commitment to invest $1.1 billion in pro bono consulting work is so important. Bain’s social impact work focuses on four key areas:

• Education: Improve the futures of underserved children
• Economic Development: Foster inclusive economic growth by leveraging markets and enterprise models
• Environment: Accelerate market-oriented solutions to environmental sustainability
• Racial Equity and Social Justice: Address structural racism and other systems of oppression

Bain works with environmental nonprofits to strengthen their conservation efforts, and with corporate clients to integrate sustainability goals and approaches into the core of companies’ strategies. The firm is proud to lead the industry on environmentally responsible practices as a Certified 100% CarbonNeutral Company® since 2012.  In 2020, Bain signed the Business Ambition for 1.5°C, committing to achieve net carbon zero emissions by 2030. Bain is also a member of the United Nations Global Compact, an initiative to implement sustainable and socially responsible practices into business operations.

Bain Social Impact includes formal, pro bono casework alongside a grassroots infrastructure that enables its employees to further enhance their personal impact—through volunteering, fundraising, and global externships–on causes that they are passionate about. The firm also maintains a close partnership with The Bridgespan Group, a leading non-profit consulting firm incubated by Bain in 2000.