Management consulting heavyweight Bain & Co has picked up Enterprise Blueprints, a London-based firm that advises companies on how to carry out IT upgrades.

Enterprise Blueprints provides technology architecture services. That means the firm focuses not so much on managing the technical details of IT projects but rather high-level priorities, like deciding what piece of software to buy or which legacy system to modernize first.

Enterprise Blueprints is active in many areas. The firm assists its clients, which include multiple financial institutions, with tasks that range from adopting cloud services to developing procedures for backing up data.

Enterprise Blueprints’ skillset will align well with Bain’s business model. Bain, like Enterprise Blueprints, also provides IT consulting but focuses more on high-level strategy details than technical implementation.

Companies can call in Bain to help them figure out which of several similar software products they should buy to optimize costs. Similarly, the consultancy can work with a Fortune 500 firm’s CFO to determine how an expensive IT project should be financed in a way that won’t leave a dent on the next quarterly earnings report.

Bain claims that its services provide substantial benefits for clients. On average, the firm boasts, clients experience a 50% reduction in the cost of lifting and shifting applications to cloud infrastructure.

“Together, the firms combined expertise will support clients’ technology transformations end-to-end, from strategy to the realities of scale delivery,” said Stephen Phillips, the head of Bain’s enterprise technology practice. “The acquisition will work to strengthen Bain’s pre-existing enterprise technology services with offerings that are especially important in leveraging technology to create competitive advantage.”

Post-acquisition, Enterprise Blueprints will operate as a independent group within Bain under its current brand name. Enterprise Blueprints has evidently built such a strong reputation with clients that keeping its brand name is worthwhile even for Bain, which is one of the most prestigious management consultancies in business. 

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