IT consulting

IT consulting (aka business and technology services) is a field that focuses upon providing temporary external resources for information technology development. IT consultants give independent and objective advice to organisations on how best to use information technology to approach business challenges. The work is often based on the need to improve efficiency and the way companies function with IT.

Some consultants work for firms that specialize in staffing, while other consultants work independently.

There is a relatively unclear line between management consulting and IT consulting. There are sometimes overlaps between the two fields, but IT consultants often have degrees in computer science or management of information systems while management consultants often have degrees in accounting or economics.

=Tax implications (United States)=

Some independent contractors consultants work on a 1099 basis, which means that they handle their own social security and payroll taxes. Other contracters prefer to work on a W-2 basis, which means withholding is performed, and that state and federal laws apply.

=List IT consulting firms=

The following is a list of the largest IT consulting firms in the world by number of consultants. For some companies, their number of consultants will not be equal to their number of employees, but the headcounts below are intended to only reflect consultants.

==North America==

IBM Global Services (Somers, NY) (175,000)

Electronic Data Systems (Plano, Texas, TX) (132,000)

Accenture (New York, NY) (106,000)

Computer Sciences Corporation (El Segundo, CA) (79,000)

HP Technology Solutions (Palo Alto, CA) (65,000)

Capgemini (New York, NY) (55,000)

Affiliated Computer Services (Dallas, TX) (40,000)

Unisys (Blue Bell, PA) (37,000)

CGI Group (Montreal, Canada) (25,000)

BearingPoint (McLean, VA) (16,000)

Booz Allen Hamilton (McLean, VA) (16,000)

Deloitte Consulting LLP (New York, NY) (12,000)

The Titan Corporation (San Diego, CA) (12,000)

Keane (firm) (Boston, Massachusetts) (9,000)

Perot Systems (Dallas, TX) (6,000)

Telcordia Technologies (Piscataway, NJ) (4,000)

Sapient (NASDAQ) (Cambridge, Massachusetts) (3,000)

Avanade (New York, NY) (2,800)

Fujitsu Consulting (Edison, NJ) (2,400)

Sapphire Consulting (Woburn, Massachusetts) (2,300)

Answerthink (New York, NY) (1000)

Sierra Systems (Vancouver, Canada) (1000)

Burntsand (Vancouver, BC) (500)

Whittman-Hart (Chicago, IL) (300)

==Asia==

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (Mumbai, India) (45,000)

Infosys Technologies Ltd. (Bangalore, India) (43,000)

Wipro Ltd. (Bangalore, India) (29,500)

==Europe==

Atos Origin (Hoofddorp, Netherlands) (47,000)

Getronics (Amsterdam, Netherlands) (28,000)

LogicaCMG (London, UK) (21,000)

PA Consulting Group (London, UK) (3,050)

=Defunct but notable=

MarchFirst

=See also=

List of management consulting service providers

Permatemp

Staffing

Outsourcing, delegation of internal non-core operations to external entity

=External links=

[http://www.consulting.about.com The Consulting / Freelance Site on the About.com network]

[http://consulting.about.com/od/consultingfirms/ Consulting firm listings and articles]

[http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Explore_types_of_jobs/Types_of_Job/p!eipaLstate=showocc&idno=424 IT consultant in close-up], general job description

[http://www.vault.com/nr/consulting_rankings/techconsulting_rankings.jsptechconsulting2005=2 Top 25 list on Vault.com]

[http://www.washingtontechnology.com/top-100/2004/ Washington Technology Top 100]

[http://www.jashaw.com/solo/solo1.html Tradeoffs between W2 and 1099]

[http://www.crainschicago.com/cgi-bin/article.plpage_id=1172&format=list Staffing for Chicago]