Consulting Magazine - January 2013

HURON CONSULTING GROUP

We are pleased with the strength of Huron’s businesses entering 2013. We see strong demand in our two largest segments—Health and Education Consulting and Legal Consulting—as these markets continue to be impacted by economic and business pressures. In our Health and Education Consulting segment, hospital and university clients are facing similar challenges to reduce costs while enhancing quality. In our Legal Consulting segment, corporate law departments and law firms are under increased pressure to contain costs. Given the proliferation in electronic data, this industry will continue to face challenges managing the discovery process.

Positioned for Success

We are well positioned to provide our clients with services that deliver value, and we anticipate that demand will continue to remain strong in those businesses during 2013 and beyond. At this stage, we expect that the same factors impacting our clients in 2012 will continue in 2013, and we are expecting reasonably similar growth patterns across our business segments.

Healthcare

In Healthcare, which is our largest business, we expect that there will continue to be uncertainties for hospitals and health systems that must adapt to the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. In addition, there will continue to be reimbursement pressures, and the need to align physicians to accommodate the transition away from fee-for-service toward value-based pricing. There is no question that a bulk of the challenge— and for us, a bulk of the work—is focused on the operational aspects associated with implementing strategies related to these issues.

JAMES
ROTH
CEO

Education

In our Education business, universities are facing
a confluence of rapidly emerging technological
disruption and public pressure to reduce costs
and improve efficiency. However, universities
often find it more difficult to create institution-
wide change. Our core services are well suited to
this kind of environment, and we expect the fa-
vorable conditions in this practice to continue for
the foreseeable future.

Legal

Our Legal Consulting segment, which represents about 25 percent of our business, is well positioned to help corporate legal counsel and law firm clients deal with the technological and economic pressures in e-discovery and matter management. We are optimistic about market acceptance of Huron Legal’s new Integrated Analytics offering that is designed to reduce cost and enhance accuracy within the discovery process. The addition of capabilities from the AdamsGrayson acquisition in 2012 also strengthens this business.

People, People, People

As always, one of the ongoing challenges of the consulting business is finding and retaining great people. We believe that Huron’s culture, collaborative workplace environment, competitive salaries, and excellent benefits continue to set us apart from others.

‘Collaboration and Client Service’ Our people and our clients are always our first priority. The leadership team and everyone at Huron share a focus on teamwork, collaboration, and delivering excellent client service. When you live those priorities every day, they define your company’s culture. As we look to 2013, we are very excited about the opportunities before us based on the strength of our market position in each of our businesses. We are well positioned to help our clients address the strategic and operational uncertainties impacting their organizations.