Cumberland Consulting Group, a healthcare technology consulting firm based in Brentwood, Tenn., could be one of the big winners of President Obama’s proposed reforms. The stimulus bill passed in February could translate into some big business for the company, which works with providers and is heavily entrenched in the electronic medical records space.

The stimulus bill, says Jim Lewis, one of Cumberland’s four ex-Ernst & Young founders (along with David Vreeland, Matthew Abrams and J. Brian Junghan), has billions earmarked for healthcare IT spending. “We’re pretty excited about that. It’s still pretty unclear as far as how that spending’s going to be allocated, you know, through
grants, though incentives to individual positions or what, but I mean that kind of money going into the channel that we’re working in, we feel like that’s gotta be good news.”

There’s a lot of good news at Cumberland these days. The firm, which has 48 consultants, saw $8.6 million in revenue in 2008, and is looking at a projected $10.5 million in revenue this year. But the economy has had an effect on the firm, which is evaluating the current market conditions when hiring. “We’re projecting about $2 million revenue increase this year, which will be with about 14 additional people, but what we’re doing is skewing our hiring plans more into the back of the second quarter and into the third quarter.” Such practicality grounds Lewis, who remains positive about this year. “We’re pretty optimistic that 2009 is going to be a good year for us. I don’t see the electronic medical record market pulling back as much as others.”

No matter what 2009 brings, Lewis assures that employees will be very aware of how the firm is doing—transparency is something Cumberland is committed to. Will that change if the firm gets a lot bigger? “I hope not. And I will tell you we had a lights out unbelievable 2006. And kind of an OK 2007. And I was really worried that for the first time we were showing people the numbers weren’t going toward the ceiling, and it was going to be a big problem,” Lewis says. “I was very pleased with the kind of attention folks paid to it. It was easy with 10 people; it’s not so easy with 50, but I think it’s definitely worth doing.”

Regardless of the economy, Lewis says he’s committed to making sure employees are happy to be on the Cumberland team. “I always felt the best way to incent your employees is to give them a stake in what they’re doing, and also really embrace this idea that in a consulting firm, you have no assets, you have nothing to sell but the talents of your people.”

And that means intense due diligence in bringing on the right consultants—but rewarding them richly when they join. “From day one, we decided that we were going to hold the bar really high as it related to recruiting, we’re going to make sure we have people that we were comfortable working with and we were going to treat them very, very well.” Lewis emphasizes the firm’s commitment to 100 percent healthcare coverage for its employees, as well as other perks that make employees feel appreciated. The result is high morale, he says, something that greatly validates the firm’s efforts.

Cumberland, Lewis says, doesn’t have a definite growth plan, though stagnation isn’t something in the firm’s future either. “We don’t have a specific goal out 10 years. You’ve got to grow in consulting, or you’re going to die. We’re looking at a slow and steady growth at a 15- to 20-person per-year level.” But that hasn’t ruled out dreaming of Cumberland doing even more to make a name for itself.

“We continue dialogue amongst the partner group about the idea of making a more aggressive move in the next year or two given what happens with the marketplace and government funding, but at the moment we’re going to kind of just keepin’ on keepin’ on.”

—Jacqueline Durett

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