Founded in 2015, Arrayo has been around for almost a decade. Much credit is owed to our founders, Gary and JP, who bring the same fundamental values to every new challenge. As Arrayo’s tenth anniversary approaches, we thought it would be interesting to dwell on these values from another perspective: that of our Ambassadors, the seasoned project leaders who we’ve known and worked with for so many years. Time and time again, their mindset and behavior illustrate and amplify our values.

Here you will read exclusive stories from our founders and Ambassadors as they faced the gamut of consulting challenges. Each time, our key advantage was their unique blend of domain expertise and experience delivering projects. We hope these tales will make you nod, reflect, and relate, just as we hope that you will keep them in your back pocket – as we have – for whenever the need arises.

Value n˚1: We build long-term solutions for our clients.

There are many things we do to be appreciated by our clients: we are friendly and convivial, host social and industry events that are both fun and engaging, etc. By fostering genuine conversations, we ensure that our clients, and ourselves, have a positive human experience beyond just working together. That said, our purpose is delivering quality results for our clients, first and foremost. This is why we take great care in sustaining and perfecting our approach to clients’ challenges.

Take, for example, how we manage offshoring. In the past few years, our clients have come to know us for our unique offshore model.

Lured by the promise of cost effectiveness, both the financial services and biotech industries have long grappled with offshoring pitfalls. High turnover, low quality, and communication gaps plague a large number of offshore initiatives. At Arrayo, we leverage our boutique positioning to counter these risks. For example, we tend to favor offshore partners in similar time zones to their in-person colleagues. As teamwork is core to Arrayo’s value proposition, the ability to collaborate in real time is key and helps us maximize the value of offshoring. We have found, moreover, that a ratio of five offshore team members to one nearshore team member is effective on a given project.

Arrayo’s approach to offshoring is a prime case study of our core values: excellence, empathy, and adaptability. We will touch back on offshoring throughout this paper.

As far as building long-term solutions, our Ambassadors are a key part of the equation. They combine domain expertise – for example a background in finance or drug development – with project delivery experience. Offshore team members tend to be more skilled in technology and benefit from the industry experience of Ambassadors, just as Ambassadors lean on offshore team members to execute complex deliverables. Attentive to quality and skilled at managing lean teams, our Ambassadors are the perfect bridge between offshore colleagues and our clients.

Our Ambassadors’ talent as quality managers gives us a significant edge outside of offshoring as well.

In one situation, we had four consultants, one Ambassador and three analysts, working on a project with a client. One of the three analysts was not pulling their weight and creating additional work for the Ambassador, who had to double-check and fix all their work before it went to the client. The client never found out and continued to praise the quality of the deliverables.

In the end, we found a replacement for the analyst who was falling behind and then presented the solution to the client, who approved the decision quickly.

“We value our client’s time,” says JP, “And we know that issue management is a burden. It’s important to show our client that we know what’s going on and that we’re taking care of it.”

In their role as quality managers, our Ambassadors also strive to implement long-term solutions.

Consulting gets a bad rap for creating black boxes. A black box is any proprietary tool which requires upkeep by the service provider, and which the client cannot fix nor maintain on their own. By fostering this dependency, service providers blatantly prioritize profits over their client’s best interest. In our view, a good tool empowers the client to make the best decision at any moment. For this, they must have full control over their assets and tools.

Connor has been a business developer with Arrayo for three years. He recalls working with a proteomics client looking to upgrade their data pipelines. A year prior, the client had had a black box solution implemented by another service provider. Unsurprisingly, the solution was expensive to run and maladapted to their needs.

“Quite frankly, our expertise allowed us to build the data pipeline differently, for cheaper, in a short timeline,” says Connor. “There’s no secret differentiator in terms of technology. It was our experience that set us apart.”

Arrayo finished the project in time and the client was impressed. A couple of months later, they turned to Arrayo again for a different project.

While some service providers get repeat business from creating black boxes, Arrayo achieves this by creating trust. Our clients see the net result: that they have more control over their data and their business when they work with us. With trust comes repeat business. Long-term partnerships are a two-way street.

Value n˚2: Empathy is the core element of our business.

Every person Is influenced by diverse motivations, life circumstances, and values in their actions. Empathy, to us, is the ongoing process of learning about and connecting to the people we work with. Rather than a hindrance to our business, empathy allows us to be better service-providers, and better humans.

Our offshoring service was not perfect right away: this powerful ability to quickly scale up a team led to new challenges. For instance, Gary noticed that offshore team members tended to feel more isolated, not just geographically but regarding the context and purpose of the project they were working on.

“When you’re working on something, you want to understand the value of what you’re providing,” says Gary. “It is important that our colleagues offshore see that they are team members… that they are listened to.”

It was crucial to address the issue at its root. First, Gary encouraged domain experts on our team to give offshore colleagues the full picture of a given task – this allowed them to combine their respective skillsets more effectively. Second, Arrayo developed an incentive system in the form of a grading rubric. From then on, each team member’s performance was graded monthly on a scale of 1 to 3, in four categories: participation, collaboration, delivery, and assiduity. Each category contains more granular metrics. While some categories are more subjective than others, the grading quickly improved our team members’ motivation. Not only that: one of our clients opted to review the monthly rubrics. A few months into the project, when we got to the point where there were almost only 3’s, the client celebrated with us.

Our empathy, our eagerness to see each other succeed, is one of our greatest strengths. It has allowed us to build long-term relationships with both clients and team members, who remain our best advocates.

Across an impressive portfolio of projects, Frank has solidified his role as an Ambassador for Arrayo’s expertise and reliability. He has twenty years of experience under his belt and has been working with Arrayo and JP since 2017. For over three years, Frank worked with Arrayo on a data warehousing project. A restructuring started within the company and Frank’s status as a consultant there grew uncertain.

“The first thing I did was voice my concern to JP,” Frank says. “I heard anecdotally that people were being let go and was looking for my next thing. He understood immediately and worked on finding another project for me.”

Given that the job market was tough at the time, Frank and JP had a conversation about what would happen in the worst-case scenario. They agreed on a time lag during which Frank would remain available without searching for opportunities outside of Arrayo. When the time lag expired, Frank received an offer from another company, which he accepted. He notified JP, and they parted ways professionally.

After five months, the new job was turning out to be a poor fit. Frank called JP again and as it happened, there was an opportunity for them to collaborate on.

JP did not need convincing when it came to Frank’s domain expertise and work ethic. He had proven, from their previous projects together, that he could deliver outstanding results. In other words, Frank’s effectiveness as a team leader was the groundwork for a swift re-joining.

There was something else that struck JP when they sat down to chat.

“He expressed that his recent experiences had been disappointing,” says JP, “And had a genuine desire to prioritize Arrayo.”

With JP and Arrayo, Frank could count on having mutual respect and open discussions. He knew JP was interested in collaborating long-term. It required a significant degree of empathy to sustain this reciprocity. Indeed, one may always be tempted to cheat the other for short-term returns. But when you value your partner’s long-term wellbeing, you set the stage for your own long-term prosperity. One can easily draw parallels between Arrayo’s partnership with their team members and their partnership with clients.

“It may not seem like it on the surface, but empathy is a good business practice,” says JP.

Jason Stearns, Arrayo’s Records & Information Management expert, is the first to attest. He firmly believes that managers should foster open communication with their reports. His personal goal is to promote transparency, wellbeing, and effective communication, and he has found this mission reflected In Arrayo’s business culture.

“I’ve had several managers who would have a weekly one-on-one scheduled with me,” says Jason, “And cancel nine times out of ten. That’s not JP.”

Jason learned the importance of communication from his first manager at Blackrock. While they didn’t have a standard one-on-one scheduled, Jason and his boss had the type of relationship where Jason could call him whenever he needed and vis versa. When Jason did schedule a meeting, the manager knew it was important and made the time to meet. As a result, they worked remarkably well together.

Trust has an outsized impact on the quality of your work. In a more recent project, Jason acted as a subject matter expert for an audit group. There were three phases in the audit. While he couldn’t help the audited teams during the audit, he was happy to help when they approached him after to ask how they could improve. Their trust improved to a point where the client felt comfortable confiding in Jason informally.

“These interactions improved our work,” says Jason. “They helped us better understand some of the inner workings at the client so we didn’t inadvertently create additional challenges for the stakeholders.”

As a direct result, Jason and his team crafted better, clearer reporting that properly factored in context and internal issues that they otherwise would have been unaware of. The client was satisfied with the deliverable, which had a much longer shelf life for being customized to their needs.

By taking the time to listen to and empathize with others, we open the door for more effective communication. The results can be unexpected.

“Sometimes, I just call JP to vent,” says Frank. “I air out all my frustrations, paint a rough picture of the situation I’m in, and just let it all out. Then our job together is to turn that raw venting into a polished next step: how am I going to communicate with this person? Or, how am I going to present the solution?”

“Whenever someone in my team needs to unleash their frustration, they know they can call me,” says JP. “We’re partners. If anything, I’m the stakeholder-helper.”

Gary, who manages our services in the Life Sciences industry, wholly echoes this sentiment:

“We are a company with an open door,” says Gary. “If you need to discuss, you don’t need to knock, you can just come in.”

Our empathetic approach to our team is firmly connected to our philosophy regarding clients. It Is also an approach which allows us to evolve and learn together.

Value n˚3: We seek out opportunities to grow.

As much as we wished we were perfect from the outset, Arrayo has certainly evolved over these past ten years. Just take the example of offshoring: our expertise has only increased since we began this service, starting with our talented team In Brazil. Years later, we continue to find new ways to learn and push ourselves further.

Empathy is a key differentiator in the way we work. This foundation of empathy allows us to be skillful listeners and adapt accordingly.

On one hand, listening is being at the “right place, right time.” This includes keeping in touch with clients, staying abreast of industry changes, and taking challenges in stride. At the onset of the pandemic, we adapted quickly: having remote work experience with our offshore team members, we were able to expand on the model while maintaining high standards of quality.

On the other hand, listening is also about reading between the lines. In Frank’s words:

“When we say ‘listening,’ we mean listening to the situation, listening to what the future will hold,” says Frank. “I’ll give you an example: sometimes, a client will tell you they want a, b, and c. A few months go by and they want a, b, and z. We have to be flexible.”

One time a client brought in Arrayo for a project, ostensibly to be keystroke operators. By the time that Frank began the project, the client’s needs had ballooned. Among other things, the client now wanted metrics to report to upper management. Seeing that their Excel-based processes were somewhat archaic, Frank introduced Jira and Power BI.

“The project took on a new dimension,” says Frank. “Suddenly, we needed to bring in someone with a Power BI background.”

Frank and JP had made the mistake, in the past, of taking someone’s resume at face value when it came to technical skills. Frank was working side-by-side with the resource in question when he realized, in horror, that the person knew how to use Power BI about as much as he did (i.e., not a lot. “Power BI is not on my resume,” says Frank.)

Well, how does a non-technical person evaluate someone’s technical skills in an interview? The secret, it turned out, was not being afraid to ask, and to challenge.

“We insist during the conversation that candidates define their specific roles within past projects,” says JP. “A good candidate is able to describe the business problem and value of the solution they are working on, along with the step-by-step approach to solving the problem.”

Referrals weigh favorably in a candidate’s favor, as well as strong listening skills and adaptability. Laws change, problems arise, new specifications emerge. Being open to change is an often undervalued skill. Paradoxically, we have found that even our agility has given us something to reflect about.

Jason recalls working on a project where the client put unrealistic demands on his team. The goal of the project was to map complex regulations.

“To the credit of the team, they stepped up and adapted to meet the unrealistic demands,” says Jason, “Which became a problem.”

As a result, the client continued to demand complex deliverables under tight timelines. The client would then sit on the deliverables in question for up to a month before reviewing them. Meanwhile, Jason’s team was growing frustrated at the constant pressure.

“In hindsight,” says Jason, “I could have challenged them on these demands right at the beginning. They loved the quality of our work. I just took the deadlines at face value.”

Arrayo’s culture is conducive to this type of reflection. Connor sums it up:

“Gary and JP give you the opportunity to take a shot at something. They trust they people they hire to do their best, so if they fail, they position the failure as a chance to grow.”

In fact, Gary Is the first to recognize his mistakes. A couple of months ago, he found himself in a challenging situation when a client (let’s call them Company A) delayed its decision on whether to extend a consultant’s contract. With no clear answer, Gary started looking for other projects for the team member, who had been performing very well. After several weeks of hesitation from Company A, he proposed the candidate to Company B, who swiftly decided to hire Arrayo. Just as the team member was preparing to transition, Company A finally responded—but not with the news Gary had expected. They expressed frustration, unhappy with the prospect of losing the consultant. It was a difficult moment, but for Gary, it was an important reminder to communicate abundantly and dig deeper when this kind of deadlock arises.

When asked about conflict-resolution within the team, Gary and JP stress that feedback is always welcome. Over the years, they have learned from each other and grown as leaders. Gary admires JP’s firm position on certain issues, his ability to make known where his limit is. JP admires Gary’s aptitude at governance, how he delegates authority and empowers his reports to take initiative.

“What’s extraordinary is that [JP and I] never had many disagreements,” said Gary. “He can certainly be opinionated; I can be too. But we’re always thinking about the company first before thinking of ourselves personally. We always found a compromise. Is it because we’re Belgians?”

Conclusion

As we look ahead to Arrayo’s next chapter, one thing remains clear: the values that have brought us this far will continue to guide us through the challenges and opportunities to come. The stories shared here embody the adaptability and dedication that define our Ambassadors and shape our company.

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of consulting, it is the unwavering commitment to these principles—championed by our founders and embodied by our Ambassadors—that sets Arrayo apart. Whether navigating complexity, fostering collaboration, or inspiring trust, our people remain our greatest strength. As we approach our tenth anniversary, we celebrate not just a milestone but the enduring mindset that has driven our success. Here’s to the next decade of learning, growth, and success.