Bain & Company sponsors of the HEC Business Game present the Strategy Challenge

We spoke to Bertrand Pointeau, Senior Associate at Bain & Company

Bain & Company, sponsors of the HEC Business Game, conducted a case study for the event on digitalisation in the insurance sector. Bertrand Pointeau, a partner at the consulting firm gave us an insight into his involvement with the event and explained the Strategy Challenge that was to be presented to the participants.

Why has Bain got involved with this specific event at HEC Paris?

We are fully invested in the business game for multiple reasons. Firstly we have a very good partnership with HEC. As members of the HEC foundation, we share the same initiatives with regards to teaching and various other events. Due to our good working relationship, we’re always happy to join the school in experimenting with new ideas. Equally the European dimension the event offers is very appealing to us: we are looking for highly motivated and talented students from all over Europe and indeed worldwide. So for us HEC is a priority in terms of recruiting new candidates and we are able to reach these people thanks to events like this. Finally, we’ve had some excellent contact with the organising team who are very professional.

Can you talk us through the Strategy Challenge you’ve created for the participants of the Business Game?

At Bain, we are faced with the issue of the impact of new digital technology on traditional sectors. We’ve chosen insurance as it’s a traditional industry that provides an interesting case study with a lot of room for transformation. Recently we teamed up with Google to work on these issues, which proved extremely productive and generated new ideas applicable to the insurance industry. We wanted to address these ideas today using the creativity of the students in the business game.

What have you drawn from your interaction with the students at the HEC Business Game?

Students are beginning to ask questions that are more precise and more defined. I admire how they put themselves in the consumer’s shoes, focusing on real issues: such as water damage in homes, car accidents or indeed navigation systems in vehicles. It’s this concrete approach we’re looking for over and above management concepts set at too higher level of abstraction.

With regards to recruitment, how do you perceive the quality of students at HEC Paris?

For Bain Paris and also more globally in our international offices, HEC is an essential source regarding recruitment. We have been very impressed not only by the intellectual capabilities of students but also more and more by their level of professionalism due to the internships they’ve completed. I often participate in classes at HEC and year after year I become more impressed by the interaction of students in the classroom. All of these things bode well when recruiting for our new consultants!

Read the article: Third edition of the HEC Business Game
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