Orange County’s top management consulting firms grew their local offices by 25% over the past year, the highest rate since a recovery in hiring began in 2011.
The employment gains during the 12-month period through June follow 5% growth a year earlier and an 11% increase the prior year.
This week’s Business Journal list features the 24 largest management consulting firms here, which combined for 1,501 employees in OC, up from 1,198 a year earlier.
Fourteen firms have their corporate headquarters here. Ten are based elsewhere but have significant operations in OC.
The pace of local growth was more than double the rate at which the firms grew their overall employee bases; the companywide total increased by 11% to 334,568.
More than half of the listed companies—14—made hires in OC, and two firms made job cuts. Five firms reported they had no changes in their workforces, and Business Journal estimates showed numbers for three firms were flat.
• Dublin, Ireland-based Accenture PLC, which has an office in Irvine, inched up to the top spot this year from the No. 3 position last year, with a 143% increase in local employees to 370. About 92% of its OC employees are management consultants.
Accenture’s local gains were partly due to its July 2013 acquisition of Chicago-based Acquity Group LLC for about $316 million. Acquity had been a regular on the annual Business Journal lists through its Irvine office, ranking No. 6 last year with 67 employees here.
Accenture, a multinational conglomerate, has 293,000 employees overall, more than any other firm on the list. The publicly traded company recently had a market capitalization of about $53.6 billion.
• The Huntington Beach office of Experis kept its spot at No. 2, with a 27% increase in local employees to 211. Experis has 11,000 employees overall, unchanged from a year earlier.
Milwaukee-based Experis is part of ManpowerGroup Inc., a publicly traded global human resources consulting firm. Manpower has a market capitalization of $6.6 billion.
• Irvine-based Resources Connection Inc., a longtime keeper of the first-place seat on the list, slipped to No. 3 with a 1% increase in local employment for a total of 211.
Its firmwide numbers were up by six employees to 3,064. Resources Connection is the largest among Orange County-based consulting firms.
• Profit Recovery Partners LLC in Costa Mesa stayed at No. 5 with 91 local employees, up 11% year-over-year.
The increase in the number of consultants reflects the company’s overall revenue gains, said President Don Steiner, who founded the firm in 1997.
“We grew 25% last year, and we’re looking at about 20% growth this year” for an annual revenue of about $20 million, he said.
Profit Recovery Partners said it aims to help client companies reduce costs.
Its client base includes companies that “are $500 million and up in size” in various nongovernment industries, Steiner said.
“In the consulting world, normally consultants are hired for the strategy part,” he said. “But since we are contingency-based, we only get paid on results. We not only [strategize and] implement, but we also on a quarterly basis validate the savings.”
• Towers Watson & Co. moved up one spot to No. 6, helped by a 5% employment increase in its Irvine office. It employs 62 here, including 30 management consultants.
Towers Watson has 14,000 employees firmwide, the second largest listed company based on overall numbers.
The increase in its local workforce is reflective of the firm’s strengthening business, said Michael Fox, managing consultant for the firm’s Southern California operations.
Healthcare reform has been “a major factor” behind the increasing demand for Towers Watson’s services, he said.
“We’re doing a lot of design work, [asking such questions as], ‘What should companies do about healthcare reform, how should they handle the change in regulations, should they consider a private exchange, and how does all of that fit into their overall compensation philosophy?’ ”
It’s also a fight for talent, he said, “at all levels.”
“Given the slow hiring process in the past few years … there’s a big-time demand for talent. This affects what all of corporate America has to do in terms of hiring and managing employee performance.”
Local management consulting firms that decreased their workforces were Irvine-based SM&A, No. 10, whose staff count fell 13% to 39, and No. 18, Crews MacQuarrie & Associates Inc., also in Irvine, which had a 12% decrease for a total of 15.
This week’s list has five newcomers including:
• Irvine-based ZTNet Solutions debuted at No. 13 with a 63% increase to 31 employees.
The firm is headed by principals and cofounders Steve Fulmer and Selva Kulasingam.
Fulmer said he credits the firm’s specialty in the life sciences industry as a key driver of its overall growth.
“The industry is something that’s been a cornerstone of the economy in this region,” he said.
“Even within the American economy as a whole, a lot of innovation has been coming from life sciences, and those companies continue to thrive. A lot of those companies have a need for consultants due to their intellectual property.”
ZTNet recently opened an office in Carlsbad, where about five employees work, to better cater to its clients in the San Diego region.
The firm’s other practice areas include real estate and high-technology manufacturing.
Its client companies range in size from $200 million to $2 billion in revenue.
