The 2024 Best Small Firms to Work For: ZetaMinusOne

CLIENT INDUSTRIES SERVED: Energy, Life Sciences, Nonprofit, Automotive, Retail, Insurance, Legal Services, IT Services, Private Equity, Medical Aesthetics

CONSULTING SERVICE LINES: IT, Strategy

From fast-growing startups to Fortune 500 companies, ZetaMinusOne is a strategy and technology consultancy that helps businesses adapt and transform what's possible in a fast-changing world. We're master builders, creators and hands-on problem solvers that are motivated by unknowns. We create value through thoughtful envisioning, architecting, and developing of solutions tailored to our clients' unique needs.

CMAG: What characteristics and elements would you attribute to your firm's inclusion as a Best Firm to Work For?

Our success can be attributed to our commitment toward our mission of being the most innovative engine of talent and solutions. We love experimenting with different ideas and pushing the envelope on innovation. As a leadership team, we always keep our core values top of mind on every internal initiative and client project we work on:

• Discipline: Pursuit of high-quality, performance and rigor
• Intensity: Being assertive, energized, and passionate about everything we do
• Humility: Not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. Let go of your need to feel important and focus on the importance of others on the team.
• Beginner's Mind: Willingness to reshape our patterns of thinking, challenge our own preconceived notions/assumptions in the pursuit of continuous learning. The mindset of always having more to learn, more to be taught and more to discover.

CMAG: Are there any specific programs or initiatives that contributed to you being included as a Best Firm?

One initiative that we invested a lot in was building our relationship with prospective students at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayaguez, which is highly regarded as a top engineering and science program in Latin America. Beyond recruiting students for internships and co-ops, we taught technical workshops and educated students on what a career in consulting would look like. We also worked with professors to sponsor and participate in several capstone projects (to give students real-world experience with real ZetaMinusOne clients). Upon graduating and progressing through their careers with us, our people value the commitment we make to growing them to their fullest potential. We also have a transparent expectations framework that we use to guide them in their careers.

CMAG: In describing your firm, what would you say sets it apart from other consulting firms?

We're an IT consultancy that is headquartered in Puerto Rico and born in Puerto Rico. This gives our people a tremendous sense of pride because while many companies come to recruit talent away from Puerto Rico, we bring in a world-class consulting model to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has historically been affected by a lot of "Brain Drain", but we offer opportunity to keep the talent here and even bring talent back to the island.

CMAG: Where your workforce is concerned, what would you say your priorities look like for the upcoming year and beyond?

Scaling our consulting operations (everything from sales to delivery) to prepare for our next 50-100 people. To do this effectively, it requires 1) deliberate coaching around "the ZetaMinusOne way" and organically growing our people into leaders and 2) deepening our relationships with local technology partners/alliances in order to go to market. This will also position us well to start offering our services to the rest of Latin America.

CMAG: What opportunities do you see as the most promising?

Puerto Rico has experienced several devastating tropical storms over the past decade and we're excited to be a part of the recovery process. Given the severe damage to power transmission systems and aging power generation capabilities, we see a very large opportunity to help improve/rebuild the energy infrastructure on the island (examples: distributed generation technologies, solar, battery storage, etc). Since a large percentage of our client work involves clients within the energy industry, we feel that we're well-positioned to contribute.

CMAG: What market forces do you see as the most challenging?

Economic fluctuations and uncertainties can impact IT budgets and project timelines for our clients. As companies become more cautious with their spending, demonstrating value and ROI for our services is crucial. We put a lot effort into building strong relationships with our clients, understanding their needs and delivering measurable results, which helps us navigate through economic challenges while maintaining client trust and satisfaction.

CMAG: What impact do you think Best Firm to Work For honors will have on your employees? The firm overall? Clients?

Given that our firm is still small, it gives credibility to our focus on growing people and helps attract other talented people. This shows that our employees feel confident in our culture, feel more pride, and have an even higher willingness to contribute to our company's culture. This also shows to our clients that we do well on employee retention and that they don't have to worry that ZetaMinusOne consultants could leave for other companies in the middle of an important client project.