type employee owned industry management consulting founded 1943 personnel administration headquarters london uk key people marcus agius non executive chairman alan middleton chief executive officer andrew hooke chief operating officer revenue 423 010 000 2014 number of employees 2 636 2014 slogan pa consulting technology innovation . website www.paconsulting.com pa consulting group is a consultancy specialising in management consulting technology and innovation . it has clients in both the private and public sector including local and national governments and the defence sector . it has offices in europe the nordics the united states the persian gulf and asia pacific 1 and operates as an employee owned company . 2 contents 1 history 1.1 1940 1950 1.2 1950 1970 1.3 1970 1992 1.4 1992 2007 1.5 2007 present 2 technology and innovation 3 pa ventures 4 references 5 external links history edit 1940 1950 edit pa was founded in 1943 as personnel administration by three englishmen ernest e. butten tom h. kirkham and dr david seymour . britain s war effort created great demand for munitions and goods which had to be produced by a relatively unskilled workforce . butten and his colleagues formed personnel administration limited to provide advice to industry as to how to improve the productivity of their workers . 3 4 like the other three firms that dominated consulting in the 1940s 50s and 60s pa was an offshoot of the pre war bedaux company . 5 bedaux in turn had been developed from the time and motion scientific management theories of frederick winslow taylor and frank gilbreth . butten sought to take the mechanistic and task orientated concepts of scientific management and add a human dimension to them . the chief idea along the lines of douglas mcgregor s theory y was that by involving the worker in the process of change and a suitable form of ownership greater gains could be made both by the worker and the organisation . 6 pa s first assignment was to train housewives to assemble the tail gun section for the avro lancaster bombers as part of britain s policy of bringing women into the factories in order to free up male workers for the armed forces . 4 7 by 1964 the company had dropped the name personnel administration and was known as simply pa consulting group . 8 1950 1970 edit pa expanded over the next 20 years and by 1970 it was one of the world s largest management consulting firms by headcount closely followed by booz allen and mckinsey . 9 staff can buy shares with deferred elements to bonus 80 % own them . pa had also expanded geographically mostly along the lines of the commonwealth with its operation in australia providing about a third of the firm s revenue . 10 in the 1960s pa diversified its business significantly by developing the use of the newspaper box advertisement for recruitment . 10 butten retired from pa in 1970 having earlier sold his 100 % shareholding in pa to the butten trust in 1958 . the trust was intended as a long term guardian of pa s fortunes and an assurance that the company would be owned by the employees . 11 1970 1992 edit pa s position in the industry deteriorated drastically over the following quarter century as competitors such as mckinsey and the newer strategy consulting firms such as boston consulting group and bain redefined the concept of management consulting . while there were occasional years with strong revenues the company was never very profitable . the only strong area of business during this period was pa s work advising companies on potential applications of technology to business issues . arising out of this success major technology centres were built in melbourne uk and princeton usa . 12 towards the end of the 80s after an upsurge in the industry pa s management decided it wished to take the firm public . the butten trust after an application to the courts in the uk agreed to give 15 % of its shares to its employees as part of a long term plan to float . however the company suffered in the subsequent consulting industry downturn of 1989 to 1992 and by the end of that downturn pa was essentially bankrupt with some 30 million us 57 million of debt significant annual losses and a rapid outflow of staff . 9 12 1992 2007 edit between 1991 and 1994 pa reduced its workforce by almost half . in 1992 jon moynihan was appointed as chief executive of pa with a remit to turn the company around . with a new strategy aggressive cost cutting and an industry upturn the turnaround succeeded and in 1995 pa made record profits . 13 14 jeremy asher became group ceo in 1998 and during his three year tenure pa grew from about 2 500 staff to just under 4 000 . 15 16 the firm expanded significantly in the united states through the acquisition of hagler bailly inc. in 2000 for around 96 million in cash . 17 pa revenues suffered during the consulting recession of 2001 2004 but saw a significant recovery between 2004 2006 which helped it to increase its focus on ventures and 50 % of pa s return to its main shareholder over the years 2002 2006 came from non consulting activities . 18 this included the sale of a number of subsidiaries including ubinetics volume product technology and meridica . 7 by 2005 the company was ranked 8th in the sunday times list of britain s biggest mid market private firms . 19 2007 present edit in 2008 pa suffered a high profile loss of a usb data stick containing home office information on prisoners that led to the home office cancelling the firm s contract . 20 this loss followed a string of other high profile data losses by other uk government contractors 21 22 prompting the home office to review its contracts 21 pa continues to work for a range of public and private sector clients . government figures released in 2010 showed that the company was the second largest beneficiary of uk government contracts to consulting firms receiving 11million over the first year the coalition was in office . 23 it has gained publicity for its work on analysing what it has called the zombie economy . 24 25 other work includes its annual survey of opinion in higher education 26 and ongoing technological innovations including a new type of round kitchen towel . 27 on 31 december 2013 jon moynihan retired as executive chairman 28 and was replaced by marcus agius the former chairman of barclays bank . 29 in march 2014 the company launched a new logo the third in its history a new visual identity and redesigned website . 30 also in march health select committee member sarah wollaston mp questioned how pa consulting came to be given the entire nhs hospital patient database for england which it then uploaded to google maps whose servers are based outside of the uk . 31 in 2015 the carlyle group bought a majority stake in the company giving it a value of usd 1 billion . 32 33 technology and innovation edit remote control panama land rover with ground penetrating radar to detect ieds followed by mastiff with choker mine rollers the company has a strong focus on technology dating back over fifty years . its cambridge technology centre was founded by professor gordon edge in 1970 34 and played a critical part in creating the cambridge phenomenon where the city became a leading centre for the uk s technological companies . 35 innovations developed at the centre over the past 50 years include the original brushless servo motor ; medical injectors that mean the patient does not need to see the needle ; a self monitoring device for people with diabetes that measures blood glucose levels ; micrometers ; and 4g wireless test equipment . 4 during the iraq war pa consulting developed the panama system to protect uk troops from improvised explosive devices winning the management consultancies association s top prize for innovation . 36 37 pa ventures edit pa s venture programme pagroup ventures was established in 2000 to exploit the ideas and intellectual capital generated from its consulting work . it was seen as unusual in continuing this approach after the dotcom boom led to other companies withdrawing from this business . 38 pa recent ventures include a third generation mobile phone business called ubinetics that was sold for a total of 133 million in 2005 ; 39 40 and meridica a drug delivery system company that was sold to pfizer for 125 million in 2004 . 41 pa demerged its venture arm ipex capital in june 2008 although it continues to work closely with the company . 42 other recent ventures include exacsys which develops solutions to improve point of care poc diagnostic systems . one application of this technology is the self monitoring of blood glucose smbg to help people manage their diabetes . 4 procserve which provides a cloud based procurement system . the procserve trading network covers more than 17 000 organisations and is used by central government and the national police procurement hub as well as commercial sector customers including orange and xerox . 43 references edit pa consulting group vault.com swinson jo 4 july 2013 jo swinson time has never been more important for employee ownership co operative press the story of the pa consulting group 1943 1992 christine jackson and mark smalley a b c d pagano margareta 30 january 2011 a perfect partnership between the geeks and suits the independent kipping matthias management consultancies and organizational innovation in europe in p rez paloma fern ndez and rose mary eds innovation and entrepreneurial networks in europe p. 66 routledge 2009 . isbn 1135213801 ernest butten obituary the times london england tuesday 26 march 1985 ; pg . 14 ; issue 62096 . a b power helen 15 august 2008 britain s biggest private companies expertise at your service the daily telegraph the times monday 1 june 1964 p. 19 issue 56026 a b hill andrew 11 november 2013 change ripples through fish tank ft.com a b the story of the pa consulting group 1943 1992 christine jackson and mark smalley the times 26 march 1985 ernest butten obituary a b the story of the pa consulting group 1943 1992 by christine jackson and mark smalley inspirational chief works wonder for pa consulting sunday times 7 march 1999 hill andrew 22 december 2013 jon moynihan the consummate consultant ft.com 2 november 1999 tewksbury profile jeremy asher this man enjoys watching his employees run in accountancyage.com jeremy asher executive profile business week tower resources plc 20 june 2000 company news ; hagler bailly agrees to purchase by pa consulting the new york times pa annual reports 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 britain s biggest mid market private firms the sunday times london england sunday 9 october 2005 ; pg . 6 s9 ; issue 9450 . hope christopher 10 sep 2010 prisoner data blunder firm pa consulting loses multi million government contract the daily telegraph a b 22 august 2008 firm broke rules over data loss bbc news online hutt rosamond 10 oct 2010 mod stunned by massive data loss the independent hope christopher and quilty harper conrad 19 november 2010 coalition spends more than 200million on consultants pr and marketing the daily telegraph 13 november 2012 zombie companies eating away at economic growth bbc news online ahmed kamal 7 november 2009 zombies are lurking on every high street the daily telegraph garner richard 24 june 2013 up to 30 universities could close or face merger because of government reforms and dwindling student numbers the independent chapman jenny 11 december 2012 brains factory from bomb disposal ... to paper towels cambridge news 10 june 2013 update pa consulting group