On the Ball at Bain & Co.

As a new associate consultant at Bain & Company, I'm responsible for providing analytical input to a client case team. I work with Bain's Private Equity Group, or PEG as we call it, which focuses on assignments for Bain's private-equity clients. I started working at Bain in the summer of 2005 and have been based in the firm's London office for close to a year now.

Before Bain, I was in India, where I received my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, worked for two years in the software industry in Bangalore, and then moved to Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) for my MBA (see BW Online, 9/13/05, "India's MBA Gold Rush").

In my one year at the company, I have worked with clients in a number of industries, from energy and utilities to software and manufacturing. One day, I could be working with a client on a strategic review for a leading health insurer, and the next, I could be helping a leading bank decrease costs while increasing customer satisfaction.

TUBE TIME.  On each client "case," Bain associate consultants find the right information, create and interpret analyses, and present findings to case teams and clients. This work becomes the basis of the team's strategic recommendations. This can involve brainstorming sessions with management, interviewing industry experts and statistical analysts, or conducting focus-group discussions. Beyond pure modeling of data, we're expected to interpret the numbers -- how they affect the client, the client's industry, and how Bain can help our clients overcome growth dilemmas.

Here's a snapshot of a typical day on the job:

8:15 a.m. -- Leave home (near Tower Bridge) for the tube stop. Take the District/Circle line toward Embankment. The newspaper stack at the station is a yardstick for whether I'm running late or not -- an empty stack is bad news if I'm trying to make it in time for a 9 a.m. meeting.

8:45 a.m. -- Arrive at the office, plug in my laptop, download e-mail, and check voice mail. Monday-morning voice mails are usually updates from team partners from Friday-afternoon client meetings. I quickly scan e-mails for any urgent overnight messages.

9:05 a.m. -- Head for the weekly breakfast meeting of the private-equity team. The idea behind each Monday-morning meeting is to come together as a team to summarize how the various PEG cases are going, identify the projects that are in the pipeline, discuss the top industry events, and munch on bacon sandwiches.

9:40 a.m. -- Return to my desk and reply to most pressing e-mails. Put others into follow-up folder.

10:00 a.m. -- Case-team meeting to discuss Friday's client presentation and set the course for the day's priorities. The presentation on Friday has gone quite well, and Bain's client, a private-equity group interested in making a bolt-on acquisition in the industrial-goods industry, wants a more detailed revenue model to understand the revenue potential of each of their seven biggest markets. Excel, here I come.

11:00 a.m. -- Touch base with team members, who have been interviewing engineers all morning to help gather information about the industry. They have already hit on some really good, informative interviews.

12:30 p.m. -- Join my colleague Stefan for a quick lunch in the fifth-floor lounge of Bain's London office, then head back to my desk for some MBA recruiting work. Bain has made offers to some of my former classmates from the IIMA. I want to call and congratulate them and answer any questions they may have. It's great to catch up with old acquaintances and share their excitement. It seems like just yesterday that I was in their shoes.

1:00 p.m. -- Set up the skeleton for the revenue model, which essentially forecasts the revenue for the company based on the size of the market, their market share, and product price. Headset on -- I always listen to Pink Floyd when working in Excel.

3:00 p.m. -- After two hours of financial modeling, the first draft of the model is ready. I send it to my manager, so that she can review it before the case-team meeting later this afternoon.

3:30 p.m. -- Meet with my manager to review the model, then finalize tomorrow's trip to Manchester, where I'll meet with clients for the next two days.

5:00 p.m. -- Make updates to the model and consolidate the information the team has gathered from today's phone calls. The model is set to forecast expected revenues for the target company over the next five years, and how it's affected by factors like government spending, product acceptance, and the influence of competition.

7:30 p.m. -- E-mail the model to the case team. Ask for their input for their respective work-stream.

8:00 p.m. -- Leave work, and add a few things to my "to-do-when-working-on-train" list for tomorrow. Tonight, I'm meeting up with a few friends for dinner at a restaurant famous for its prawn curry.

10:00 p.m. -- Back home, I watch the news, set my alarm for six in the morning, and call it a day.

SEEING THE BIG PICTURE.  Before starting at Bain, I was nervous that the analytical rigor of the job would overpower the strategic thinking that I was taught in business school. However, it's the opposite that's true. For a new employee, it's tempting to jump into data and produce complicated models. However, you quickly learn to think through all of the number crunching before making the leap.

For future consultants, the best way to approach business school is to take a broad range of courses to get a flavor of different aspects of business without going too deep into a particular area, which comes with training on the job. If I were going back to business school, I would take a few more courses in marketing -- retail and brand management.

Earning my MBA was certainly a foot in the door at Bain (see BW Online, 2/17/05, "Meritocracy Inc."). The diversity and pace of learning is intense, and I think my MBA gave me the big-picture outlook that helps me contribute more effectively on our clients' assignments. As an engineer, being analytical comes naturally to me, but earning the MBA helped in being able to understand the business logic behind those numbers.

The summer internship program is also a valuable way to arrive at Bain. Many of our summer interns will receive full-time offers, and the majority accept. My advice is to take your internship seriously. It's an opportunity to jump-start the rest of your career.