Deus Expertos Contables, 11 years in the Cuban business ecosystem

The history of Deus Expertos Contables, a leading company in the field of financial and tax advisory services, is also that of a young woman who dared to start a business  at only 25 years old in the Cuba of 2013. Since then, Marta Deus Rodríguez and her team have gone through thick and thin in an ever-changing economic and legal scenario that has tested their capacity to adapt and grow through the most complex circumstances. With a wide variety of clients, ranging from entrepreneurs who have just broken into the market to established economic actors, Deus Expertos Contables offers comprehensive services for the development of businesses, covering everything from the initial support and planning to the management of tax procedures.

 From those early years, when the Island was going through a boom in self-employment and private initiative, Marta recalls the founding principles, which have been consolidated for more than a decade: “In the beginning, we were a company driven by women, about four or five years later we hired the first man, it wasn’t a rule per se, but we were proud of it”, she remembers.

“We worked seriously, because when you’re handling numbers, you have to be rigorous with the client’s information and respect their confidentiality. This has allowed us to earn their trust”, she states.

Throughout the years, the Deus team has seen it all:

“There have been more favorable times for entrepreneurship, less favorable ones, moments when they [the government] wanted to limit the amount of licenses given; moments like the time of Obama, when a lot of businesses emerged and we had many clients; all the subsequent contraction; then the creation of PYMES [SMEs] that has been a new moment of grace; the non-agricultural cooperatives, which seemed like they were going to be something big but in the end there were very few left in the country. We’ve had to adapt to everything”.

What is Deus Expertos Contables‘ contribution to its clients?

“We take care of the accounting and tax aspects, and keep clients updated with new regulations, because ultimately that affects the accounting and operation of the business; we provide confidence, so the client knows that there is a specialist available to handle any problem, inspection, or control, that they are not alone, but that our company will be there to help and support them”.  

How do you value collaboration between business owners in the Cuban scenario?

“It’s extremely important because we can’t get anywhere on our own, it’s always necessary, first of all, a team, and then, the support between entrepreneurs. In an ecosystem like the Cuban one, where there are over 6000 companies, but that remains a small ecosystem, we have to rely heavily on each other. Collaboration is essential here”.

Not everything has been a bed of roses in the eleven years of sustained growth of Deus Expertos Contables, even though it might appear to be a bulletproof venture.

“We have found a lot of bumps in the road: with financing, the pandemic, when a lot of our clients had to shut down, the constant changes in laws, a lot of instability, and general uncertainty around business… All of that affects the companies, especially one like ours, that offers a service if the client’s business exists and is going well, because if it’s not, it’s the first thing they’ll have to go without. You have to be very adaptable, be creative, see other business opportunities, be flexible, and most importantly, pay close attention to what is happening in the country regulation-wise”.

In the future, Deus Expertos Contables will focus on the company’s expansion, but from a perspective that they describe as conservative: “The client’s trust is the cornerstone of our work, if we start creating cafeterias and other spaces, they might think: these people are drifting away from what they are, and it could make them nervous”, the specialists explain. Therefore, Deus is currently focused on improving the communication with the clients, having a safer passage way for information, expanding their reach to foreign companies, and keeping its professionals updated in legal and financial matters.

“We work on constantly improving the services that we provide – Marta sums up – so that we can keep going for eleven years more.