Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is an American management consulting firm founded in 1963. The firm is one of the world's three largest strategy consulting firms by revenue. The firm aims to help corporations and organizations innovate and find sustainable competitive advantages.

The firm provides strategic advisory services related to innovation and product development, marketing and sales, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, change management, corporate development, and finance. The firm partners with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their opportunities, address their challenges, and help develop their businesses. The industries the Boston Consulting Group participates in include:

• Automotive and Mobility
• Biopharmaceuticals
• Consumer Products
• Education
• Engineered products and Infrastructure
• Financial institutions
• Health Care payers, providers, and services
• Insurance
• Media and Entertainment
• Medical Devices and Technology
• Metals and Mining
• Oil and Gas
• Power and Utilities
• Principal Investors and Private Equity
• Process Industries
• Building Materials
• Public Sector
• Retail
• Technology industries
• Telecommunications
• Transportation and Logistics
• Travel and Tourism

Boston Consulting Group was founded in 1963 by Bruce Henderson as a consulting division of the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company. Initially the division advised clients of the bank, with the billings for the first month at $500.

In 1964, in an attempt to grow and market the consulting division, Bruce Henderson began publishing Perspectives, which were brief essays on strategy and industry. The small essays were published in a brochure which were small enough to fit in a coat pocket. These essays started as excerpted ideas from other publications, but soon Bruce Henderson and colleagues delivered their own ideas, including the growth share matrix and time-based competition.

With the success of their early Perspectives campaign, Boston Consulting Group has continued to publish industry analysis and reviews to evaluate changes and trends across the industries. This includes the publication of a strategy book for developing business strategies post-COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economy.

In 1966, Boston Consulting Group acquired T.F.M. Adams and opened an office in Tokyo.

Bruce Henderson, in 1974, arranged an employee stock ownership plan so the employees could purchase the consulting division from The Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company and take the consulting division independent. The company achieved independence in 1975.