Solving complex software development challenges at pace

Background and challenges: The need to accelerate development

Zellis is the UK and Ireland’s leading provider of AI-enabled HR, workforce management, and payroll software and services, working with many large top-tier organisations.

The company’s flagship HCM suite is used by millions of employees every month to view interactive digital payslips, book annual leave, submit expenses, and more. Zellis’s clear ambition is to power exceptional employee experiences through a consumer-grade and engaging user experience.

To support and strengthen product development as part of a major investment programme, Zellis decided to engage Damilah as a near-shore partner.

The key selection criteria were set out as follows:

• A partner that could resource quickly, with talented employees, when additional scale was required
• A company that believed in investing in its own people in order to attract, develop and retain top talent
• An industry leader when it came to delivery, with a strong background in developing quality software at pace using agile methods
• A near-shore firm that was easily reachable from the UK, without the need for long flights across multiple time zones, and where cultural alignment would be straightforward

After a structured RFP process, Zellis were impressed by our capabilities and our ‘partner-shoring’ approach – where a client and near-shore partner work seamlessly together towards common goals – so selected us as one of their development partners, beginning in early 2024.

The solution: Our proactive approach with a strong focus on delivery

Zellis were looking for a new and unique way of presenting a more visualised version of employees’ salary information, using a very specific design structure. This was complex work – but rather than tackle some of the easier elements of the project first, we decided to lean into this task straight away.

And, by the end of our first two-week sprint, we were able to deliver a working demo.

“So, we’ve benefited from a real mix of work from Damilah,” Bob adds. “The high-profile parts that make it into the corporate videos; and also, in the background, the real nuts and bolts of delivering the product.”

Throughout, the Zellis team have been particularly impressed by our:

• Proactive approach: We have demonstrated a can-do attitude to everything we undertake and a relentless focus on delivery using agile methodologies. “They’re able to deal with ambiguity very well – so they can take hold of problems, figure them out and get to a solution more or less autonomously,” says Phil Brown, Director of Engineering.

• Outstanding people: From day one, we’ve employed talented people to work on the project. In particular, we went to great lengths to hire someone who is a specialist in the relevant business domain.

• Strong relationships: Everyone from Zellis and Damilah feels as if they’re working on the same team, pushing towards the same goals. To set the foundation for this, we invited key members of Zellis’s team to our HQ in Skopje, North Macedonia, to ensure there was face-to-face contact early on in the project – which we believe is always valuable to ensure cohesion.

• Clear communication: We are always transparent with our partners and share any issues or blockers as soon as they occur, in order to find solutions as rapidly as possible.

• Added value: Our willingness to support beyond the specific project deliverables, sharing expertise in a range of areas in which we have specific experience.

The outcomes: Enhanced productivity, enthusiasm and added value

The project is now close to launch – and Zellis have been delighted with what we have helped them to achieve.

In particular, the following outcomes have stood out for them:

• Meeting critical deadlines: We have hit crucial phase gates on time.
• Enhanced productivity levels: We have delivered more and faster outputs than they had previously experienced with other partners.
• Passion and enthusiasm: Our positive, can-do energy has been appreciated by Zellis’s own team, who have described us as a “breath of fresh air”.
• Leveraging AI: We have helped to develop AI-driven functionality that explains to employees why their pay has changed – which will potentially save the HR teams served by Zellis many hours of handling employees’ queries.

In all, Zellis fully expect features like this, and the overall redeveloped product, to drive added value for their customers.

As for the future, we are exploring further ways to help Zellis achieve further growth, especially in areas where they may need to flex rapidly.

“In particular, Damilah are ideally suited where we have a critical deliverable with challenging timelines, and a high degree of technical uncertainty and ambiguity. We describe them as being like our ‘special forces’, whom we can rapidly deploy to solve the toughest problems.” says Phil.

In summary, Phil has the following to say about us:

“They’re great to work with, and they really value their people. Generally speaking, in software engineering, a small number of very bright people will outperform large teams of mediocre people. Damilah truly demonstrate that – it’s their philosophy.”

Bob adds:

“I’ve been impressed by their honesty throughout. They’re not afraid to challenge our thought processes or to push back, and they don’t sit on problems until they explode. It feels like they’re a natural extension of our own team, which is exactly what you want from a partner.”