10. GearsCRM
Headquarters: Needham, Mass. Number of Billable Consultants: 75 Client Industries Served: High Tech, Manufacturing, Retail, among others Consulting Service Lines: Strategy and IT
For the second time in three years, GearsCRM finds itself as one of Consulting's Best Small Firms to Work For. Only this time, the Needham, Mass.-based firm finds itself in the Top 10 for the first time ever.
No easy task for any firm, but especially one that's 100 percent virtual. It's no doubt more difficult to maintain a consistent and positive culture when there's no common brick-and-mortar office space, often turning down projects that require team members be onsite at a client for an extended period of time. "This really allows us to have a flexible schedule approach," says Harry Radenberg, President of GearsCRM.
The firm's go-to-market strategy is also unique, Radenberg says. With no traditional sales team, Gears CRM leads its sales efforts with Solution Architects who are much more senior level experts and have years of implementation experience under their belts. "We feel that level of experience and expertise has given us a big advantage as a company," he says.
An advantage that has extended all the way to being one of the Best Small Firms to Work For. "I think there is definitely a great amount of pride across the company for winning an award like this and being recognized," Radenberg says. "We have a unique model for consulting where we focus on flexible schedules and being 100 percent virtual; winning something like this validates that the model is working."
Consulting is such a project focused world so you always have the ups and downs with particular projects, but the firm tries to make sure it has a good support system to address that, he says.
"We have very low employee turnover and as a result a lot of the team has been here a long time. I think that really helps the culture and morale as well because we have a large senior team that can help support the newer team members as we're growing," Radenberg says. "We grew the team 40 percent year over year and we were able to do that with minimal disruption."
On the survey, the firm excelled in the areas of Work/Life Balance and Compensation & Benefits. Radenberg attributes the Work/Life Balance, in part, to the virtual workforce as well. "I think we are clear evidence that you can be a highly productive and skilled consulting firm and have a terrific work/life balance by being virtual," he says. "It might not work for all industries, but I think it's perfect for consulting."
As far as Compensation & Benefits, it's a big focus of the firm, he says. "We are continually surveying our team to see what is important to them and we strive to improve each year with new benefits," Radenberg says. "We just had our 10 year anniversary, and our benefits package has become a great offering with 10 years of continual enhancements."
When you look at the remainder of this year, what excites you? What opportunities do you see in your markets?
Radenberg: When you work with Salesforce, there's never a lack of new opportunities. Salesforce just acquired Tableau and I think that will be an exciting extension of our Analytics team. AI is really starting to take off and we have a lot of exciting projects around it already kicked off so I can't wait to see those go-live. The integration space is also exciting with our Mulesoft and Dell Boomi partnerships.
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