By Laton McCartney

IT consultants have had a rough go of late thanks to the downward spiraling economy. Many have seen revenues and new bookings fall off from 2008. One, BearingPoint, went down for the count, selling off its business units to Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Consultants that have performed relatively well during the downturn typically have expanded into new areas like cloud computing and are leveraging previous acquisitions. Here's a snapshot of ten technology consultancies that are generally on target in meeting their numbers and are gearing up for a much-awaited economic rebound.

IBM
Armonk, N.Y.

Global Technology Services, IBM's IT services and consulting arm, took a hit during the first half of 2009. On a segment basis, Global Technology Service's revenue declined 9.7 percent for the six-month period ending June 30. In Q2 consulting and Systems Integration and Integrated Technology Services signings were $6.02 billion, a decrease of 13.5 percent. The company signed 17 deals larger than $100 million during the second quarter. In addition to the traditional IT consulting offerings such as performance analysis, governance and SOA, IBM offers a variety of more non-traditional IT solutions in emerging areas such as software-as-a-service and cloud computing. Note that another IBM division, Global Business Services, also does some technology consulting and in April launched a business analytics consulting service.

Accenture
Hamilton, Bermuda

Accenture ended its most recent quarter with revenue of $5.15 billion, which was in line with market expectations. New bookings came to $6.57 billion, bringing new bookings for the last three quarters to $18.36 billion. Meanwhile, Accenture says it is preparing for an economic upturn. "We have continued making important investments to take advantage of future growth opportunities and a market rebound," said William D. Green, the company's chairman and CEO. The firm's IT consulting and services arm, Accenture Technology Services, a 6,000-person strong organization, provides a complete portfolio of IT services. The staff was drawn from Accenture's top technology consultants who were previously scattered across different industry groups.

Deloitte Consulting
New York, N.Y.

Privately held Deloitte does not disclose revenue, but insiders say the firm is growing at a 4 percent to 6 percent rate. It serves a wide variety of industries such as aviation, financial services, energy and manufacturing. Earlier this year, Deloitte strengthened its government presence with a $350 million purchase of BearingPoint's North American Public Services business, which had been that firm's biggest unit. Before it went bust, BearingPoint was one of Deloitte's main competitors.

Computer Sciences Corp.
Falls Church, Va.

Like most of the major IT service providers, CSC has seen its revenue fall. For the first quarter of fiscal 2010, the company generated $3.9 billion, down from $4.4 billion for same period the year prior. The good news: It received new business awards of $3.5 billion for the quarter, much of it from government and military clients. CSC has expanded its cybersecurity and cloud computing positions and recently announced a cloud computing alliance with Microsoft.

EDS
Plano, Tex.

With its acquisition of EDS last year, Hewlett-Packard became a real heavyweight in technology consulting. By some estimates the combined services revenue of the two companies comes in at about $40 billion. EDS serves a broad range of industries including government, energy, manufacturing and retail. According to a recent Reuter's article, however, its operating margins for its consulting and outsourcing operations are only 8 percent to 9 percent, substantially below those of rivals IBM and Accenture. HP has sought to reduce costs by cutting 25,000 jobs over four years in a restructuring plan. It is also rumored to be moving out of business process outsourcing, which had been an EDS mainstay.

Tata Consulting Services
Mumbai, India

In its fiscal 2010 first quarter, TCS was able to effectively leverage a series of recent investments in developed and emerging markets. The result was that its consulting and outsourcing growth extended across a broad base. Revenue for the period reached $1.48 billion, an increase of 3 percent quarter to quarter. TCS's key wins include new contracts with chemical products, healthcare, retail companies and financial institutions.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.
Teaneck, N.J.

Cognizant is clearly doing something right. Defying the downward trend in revenue, the IT consultancy and outsourcer reported revenue of $776.6 million for second-quarter 2009, up 13 percent year over year. Earnings jumped 36 percent to $141 million. Cognizant has outperformed its peers such as TLC and Infosys in the IT services field. Its success has been boosted by a strong client list that includes JP Morgan Chase and a thriving healthcare business

Capgemini
Paris, France

Capgemini, one of the world's leading providers of consulting, technology
and outsourcing services, reported revenue of 4.38 billion euros ($6.19 billion) for the first half of 2009, virtually identical to the first half of last year. Bookings for the first six months also mirrored 2008, coming in at 4.43 billion euros (approximately $6.26 billion). Much of its revenue for the first half of 2009, however, was driven by a 43 percent jump in outsourcing. Consulting revenue was down approximately 12 percent for the period. Capgemini's chief rivals include EDS and IBM.

Infosys Technologies
Bangalore, India

Infosys posted its first ever revenue decline in fiscal 2010 first quarter, a drop of 2.9 percent from the same quarter last year. That, however, has done nothing to take away its luster as the most admired company in India, according to a recent Wall Street Journal Asia survey. Its consulting approach often involves redesigning business processes, understanding current processes and focusing on future processes. Typically it works closely with the CIO to create solutions to achieve a measurable improvement in key operational metrics. Infosys developed what it calls a Global Delivery Model for consulting based on a simple idea: A blended offering of high-quality business consulting onsite with technology implementation offsite.

Booz Allen Hamilton
McLean, Va.

Privately held Booz Allen Hamilton bills itself as a strategy and consulting firm. Much of its business comes from the government, military and intelligence community. Among its offerings: an integrated approach to cybersecurity and the military uses of cloud computing. It recently hosted cloud computing war games.

Comment on this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.