Normally, December and January are the slowest months of the year for information technology consultants. But that hasn’t been the case this year, says Chris Kyhl, vice president of professional services for QCI in Des Moines.

“Our clients are busy, and the labor market (for IT professionals) is tight,” Kyhl said.

In just 10 years, the Des Moines-based software consulting company has grown from a one-person operation to 130 employees and approximately $16 million in annual revenues, with a client list that includes many of Greater Des Moines’ largest employers. Within the past five years QCI has expanded to Cedar Rapids and Denver, and two months ago, it opened an office in Omaha.

QCI’s emergence as a regional IT company was driven largely by its existing relationships with Des Moines-based companies that have offices in those cities, said Bruce Logan, who founded the company as Quality Consulting Inc. in 1995. “As we established relationships in those other cities, it just made sense to actually start a new client base and start hiring employees,” he said.

Competing in an industry known for high worker turnover, QCI boasts a turnover rate of less than 20 percent, which Kyhl attributes to the company’s emphasis on recruiting and retaining high-quality candidates.

“From our consultants’ standpoint, we really do a lot of scrutiny upfront and that really pays off for us,” he said. “We find the right people, present a good offering to them, and they take care of our clients. We give them a little bit on the margin to give them better compensation and to reward them. We also offer educational opportunities, because in our business you can’t get by with what you knew three years ago, and in some cases you can’t get by with what you knew a year ago. That adds to the attractiveness of joining QCI.”

In terms of its size and scope of services, QCI “is the leader in Iowa technology consulting companies,” said Leann Jacobson, executive director of Technology Association of Iowa. “It’s the big guy on the block.” The majority of TAI’s member companies are still in the start-up phase of 15 or fewer employees, she said, though more are beginning to reach the 25- to 35-person range.

Though QCI’s size and structure have changed considerably in its 10-year history, one strategy for growth has risen to the top, Logan said.

“We tried a number of different methods to grow the company (in the initial years),” Logan said. “Some worked and others didn’t. The strategy that we still work from today is to find the right people to offer the service, as opposed to pushing the service.” All of the company’s growth has come organically, he said, rather than through acquisitions.

Logan, who had worked as a programmer and consultant for a half-dozen different companies in Greater Des Moines since the mid-1980s, saw the need to form his own consulting company after clients began asking him to bring in additional people for projects he was working on.

As Y2K approached, the company stayed busy changing code for Central Iowa companies. One of its largest clients at the time, Equitable of Iowa Cos., now ING Groep NV, had 1 million lines of code to change.

QCI expanded its offerings with Internet development in 1999, and in 2000 opened a Cedar Rapids office. In 2000 it became a Great Plains Microsoft partner and began providing network server services. The company opened a Kansas City office in 2001, followed by Denver in 2003. In 2004 the company added storage solutions, archiving and compliance to its service offerings at its Des Moines office. Then, in late 2005 it opened an office in Omaha, where it now has three sales people.

Because QCI is firmly established in Des Moines, “Des Moines is a good barometer for us in terms of the types of things we should be offering (in other markets),” said Irving Hahn, the company’s director of operations.

Though IT consultants are often accused of pushing the newest technology, QCI takes a business approach to technology, Hahn said.

“It goes back to the fundamental belief that we’re providing professional services to get some project done, and it’s that project that’s going to lead to some sort of financial benefit,” he said. “The IT piece is really just an enabler, and we try to keep that in mind in whatever business that we provide for that client. We don’t want to go and try to sell the latest, greatest thing to our clients. Some of our consultants might like to do that, but that’s not our mission. We’re trying to help our clients achieve success.”

Data warehouses, for instance, a concept that’s been around since the early 1990s, generally didn’t gain acceptance with clients until a couple of years ago, he said. Data warehouses enable companies running several different systems to take data from each system and put them together for analysis.

“We’re letting our clients determine when they’re ready, and then our job is to have that expertise to help them with our products,” Hahn said. “While we keep our eye on the horizon, we are not on the leading edge trying to push some new technology.”

Hahn said the larger companies QCI deals with have increasingly adopted more formal vendor organizations to manage contractual relationships with IT firms, which has made the industry even more competitive.

“It’s almost like a clearinghouse that tries to obtain better pricing, better terms and standard contracts,” he said. Additionally, “there are plenty of mid-sized to small companies that don’t have the resources to have a vendor organization, and in those cases it’s not as competitive. It’s about the work you’ve done in the past, or somehow breaking in.

“Never does someone just hand you all their business just because you offer the full spectrum. Typically, you have to prove out your competence in each offering. That’s not to say that we don’t try to get all of their business.”