With a rising footprint in health-care analytics and digital transformation, world consulting powerhouse ZS Associates is ramping up its presence in Jamaica, betting on the island’s expertise pool to help its increasing portfolio of shoppers in the US and past.
Working in Jamaica via its 2021 acquisition of Medullan, a health-care expertise agency, ZS has grown its native workforce from 16 to 40 workers in simply two years. The corporate now goals to increase to 100 workers by the tip of 2025, positioning Jamaica as a strategic nearshore hub for its consulting, software program engineering, and knowledge analytics operations.
“Huge firms like ours are on the lookout for world expertise, that’s how we develop. What we now have discovered significantly sturdy in Jamaica is mission administration experience. When you examine Jamaica to India there’s a large benefit due to the identical time zone and ease of journey as effectively to the US the place our shoppers are,” Managing Principal Dharmendra Sahay informed the Jamaica Observer in the course of the ribbon-cutting ceremony of its new workplace on Wednesday.
ZS Associates lately opened its new workplace at 13 Haining Highway in Kingston, marking a major funding in its native operations. The fourth-floor area spans slightly below 5,000 sq. toes and was retrofitted at a price of roughly US$1 million to accommodate its rising group. ZS is already contemplating occupying the fifth ground in the identical constructing because it prepares for long-term development over the following two and a half years.
“We’ve outgrown our earlier area, and this new workplace is designed for the following section of our enlargement,” mentioned Ranjini Cassup, workplace managing director. “This funding displays our confidence within the expertise right here and Jamaica’s strategic benefit as a nearshore location for high-end consulting and expertise companies.”
ZS has carved out a distinct segment within the world pharmaceutical and medtech industries, working with top-tier shoppers like Johnson & Johnson, Takeda, and Genentech. The corporate specialises in digital scientific trials, strategic advertising and marketing for pharmaceutical merchandise, and AI-driven health-care options that streamline patient-doctor interactions.
Considered one of its newest improvements, developed largely from its Jamaican workplace, is a digital platform designed for oncology sufferers. The system integrates disparate medical data, permitting oncologists to trace affected person knowledge seamlessly throughout a number of health-care suppliers. The success of this mission has inspired ZS to discover broader purposes, together with digitised well being data for continual situations corresponding to diabetes.
“Well being care is likely one of the most complicated industries on the earth, and our experience lies in bridging the gaps between sufferers, suppliers, and pharmaceutical firms via expertise,” Cassup defined. “The work being carried out in Jamaica has world implications.”
ZS has expressed curiosity in collaborating with the Jamaican Authorities to deliver its experience in digital medical data (EMR) programs to the native well being care sector, although Cassup acknowledged the challenges of navigating the general public procurement course of.
“We’re able to collaborate, however I’ve discovered that it takes some quantity of networking to get us in entrance of key authorities contacts; it’s one thing we’re actively engaged on,” Cassup mentioned.
Not like conventional enterprise course of outsourcing (BPO) corporations in Jamaica, ZS operates on the high-value finish of the information financial system. The agency’s workers are largely drawn from disciplines like knowledge science, biotech, and mission administration, with many holding superior levels, together with MBAs and PhDs.
ZS’s determination to increase in Jamaica is pushed by a number of benefits: decrease working prices in comparison with the US, an English-speaking workforce in an analogous time zone to key shoppers, and the power to supply aggressive consulting charges with out sacrificing experience.
“The phrase obtained out internally inside ZS that there was this extremely expert, nearshore group in Jamaica that was not solely cost-effective but additionally deeply educated. That’s how we had been capable of develop so shortly in 2023,” Cassup said.
“Nearshore is the development that’s taking place available in the market, and it’s important for us to have that presence. We’ve discovered high expertise right here with nice talent units. This was a key discovering from our acquisition of Medullan, and we discovered it profoundly helpful to our organisation. Due to that, we’re going to develop aggressively — not simply in Jamaica, but additionally in Trinidad and different Caribbean international locations,” Noaman Khan, ZS’s salesforce skilled/world lead, added.
As a part of its development technique, ZS is strengthening partnerships with Jamaican universities, corresponding to The College of the West Indies (UWI) and College of Expertise, Jamaica (UTech), with plans to combine extra interns and convert them into full-time workers. The agency additionally goals to construct a devoted group of knowledge engineers and consultants to help its increasing world initiatives.
Past enterprise development, ZS has additionally embraced company social accountability via its ZS Cares initiative, which funds neighborhood initiatives and offers workers with two full days per yr to interact in volunteer actions.
Regardless of its success in Jamaica, ZS acknowledges that consciousness of its operations stays restricted regionally. The agency doesn’t but serve Jamaican shoppers and sees its presence on the island primarily as a solution to retain high-calibre professionals who would possibly in any other case search alternatives overseas.
“We’re not simply right here to make cash — we’re right here to create alternatives for extremely expert Jamaicans to remain in their very own nation and contribute to its financial system. Each time a certified skilled leaves for the US, that’s expertise and financial worth misplaced,” Cassup reasoned.
