ZS Associates is a

management consulting Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

and

professional services Professional services are occupations in the service sector requiring special training in liberal arts and pure sciences education or professional development education. Some professional services, such as architects, accountants, engineers, d ...

firm focusing on

consulting A consultant (from "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice or services in an area of specialization (generally to medium or large-size corporations). Cons ...

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

, and

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

. Headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, it provides

healthcare Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

, and

services. The firm was founded in 1983 by two professors at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

who developed sales force alignment models using the world’s first personal-computer-aided territory mapping system. The firm employs more than 12,000 employees in 35 offices in

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and

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. The company was chosen by

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as one of America’s best

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

and

firms in 2019 and has been awarded for its company culture by Consulting magazine for several years in a row. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation has also been recognized the company for earning 100 percent on their Annual Corporate Equality Index for

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workplace equality.

History

ZS Associates was founded in 1983 by Andris (Andy) Zoltners, Frederic Esser Nemmers, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, and Prabhakant (Prabha) Sinha, a former associate professor of marketing at the

Kellogg School of Management The Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management (branded as Northwestern Kellogg) is the graduate business school of Northwestern University, a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois. History Early ...

. At Kellogg, Sinha and Zoltners developed a side business advising companies on sales and marketing, which evolved into ZS Associates. In 1982, Zoltners and Sinha presented their sales force sizing and territory alignment models to their academic colleagues, demonstrating the world’s first personal-computer-aided territory mapping system. In 1983, Sinha joined Zoltners at Northwestern, and the pair founded ZS Associates in their off hours, offering companies increased sales force efficiency using their now-proven territory mapping software. In its first three years, ZS had helped eight of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, including Pfizer, align territories and resize their sales forces. By that time, the 25-member team worked on 100 or more projects in a dozen countries—including the

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Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and many European countries. Through the 1990s, ZS continued to develop its capabilities, adding data warehousing, market forecasting, market research and analytical services for their clients. The firm also began sales force incentive compensation program auditing, design and implementation during these years.

Acquisitions

The company purchased the assets of BASES Pharmaceuticals Forecasting from Nielsen. In 2021, the company purchased Medullan, a company specializing in digital health and digital medicine strategies and solutions. In 2022, Danish bioinformatics and systems biology company Intomics was acquired for an undisclosed amount. In February 2023, ZS purchased the intelligent design company Trials.ai. In June 2024, the company acquired Digital Additive.

Industries

ZS operates as a

strategic Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art o ...

, long-term advisor to its clients, in the following incomplete list of industries: * Pharmaceuticals and Biotech * Medical Technology * Health Plans * Travel and Hospitality *Industrials and Business Services * High-Tech and Telecommunications * Financial Services * Private Equity

References

{{Reflist, 30em Companies based in Evanston, Illinois