Delivering complex and highly personalised projects that allowed Zest to expand their business
Executive Summary
Challenge: Zest intended to work with a technology consultancy and software development partner to improve its IT capabilities to secure bigger projects and expand in a rapidly growing market.
Approach: We provided teams of Business Analytics, software developers, security engineers and QA engineers. The partnership involved regular team visits, and seamless integration into Zest’s processes.
Result: We delivered complex and highly personalised projects that brought innovation and enhanced application performance and security, enabling Zest to meet obligations to more clients.
Services we used:
Table of Contents
About the client
Zest offers an employee benefits platform that combines fresh, creative thinking with over a decade of industry experience.
The company believes it’s time to reinvent employee benefits technology.
To build a future where any organisation can offer employee benefits without compromising on the cost of technology, user experience or performance.
A future where every employee remains fully engaged through intelligent scheme design, an exceptional user experience and precisely targeted communications.
Business challenge
With a desire to win bigger projects and maximise the contribution to the rapidly growing market, Zest decided to outsource an element of its engineering and development to increase its IT capabilities.
Zest’s starting point was to find a partner where effective communication and collaborative working were the priority.
20
subprojects running at the same time during the course of our partnership
23
people in the team, including 15 developers and 8 UX designers
Scope of work
In the course of our long-standing partnership, we provided highly scalable teams, allowing Zest to take on more projects, supporting their growth and helping to build competitive advantage.
- Ellipse
Enabled data exchange between applications using web services. One of them is the benefits portal while the other is for the provider of benefits.
- Staffcare WebAPI
The goal of this project was to create a network platform that shares XML messages to third parties with the proper use of a security model.
- Mustang
We delivered a single, online interface to an employer’s total reward offering, including their company pension. It also offered a simple way for employees to browse and select their benefits.
- Holiday and Absence Tracking System
Thanks to this project it was possible to plan and schedule employees’ holidays and absences.
A true partnership
We work very in true collaboration and partnership, handling development, testing and adding new functionalities to adjust the applications.
Our team members bring a diverse point of view to each development, which is beneficial for both teams. Regular contact is paramount and we have visits every six weeks and daily communication.
The partnership has been so successful that Zest is now one of Future Processing’s longest-standing customers.
Future Processing’s Quality Assurance people interact directly with our client’s staff and we are comfortable that the people provided could be put out as our own. We’ve been open with our clients that these are Future Processing’s staff and I didn’t feel the need to shadow them or attend meetings with them, I could put them forward directly in client-facing meetings.
Watch the interview
Craig Kritzinger explains how nearshoring became the chosen alternative and what benefits working with Future Processing brings to the company.
Main benefits of our partnership
- Improvement of the performance of applications so that Zest is able to successfully fulfil obligations to more clients
- Ability to solve problems and adjust to changes in law and possibility to focus on core business
- A dedicated team of software developers, QA engineers and a Business Analyst to deliver a complicated and highly personalised project that had over 20 subprojects running at the same time
- Engaging new tools and processes which brought some innovation to our client’s in-house team and reducing costs compared to developing the projects in-house
- Introducing security enhancements, automated imports from FTP servers, a new registration process and integration with multiple external systems
We’ve been working with Future Processing for years and absolutely they’ve become a part of our team, the cooperation is seamless. We’ve undertaken and successfully delivered projects we simply couldn’t have tackled with our own employees, within shorter timeframes than we could ever have dreamed of. Future Processing’s staff has directly liaised with our customers and been seen as an extension of our own team. I’d recommend them at any time.
Technologies we used
Successful IT partnership
After many complex, successful projects Future Processing and ZEST expect their partnership to go from strength to strength.
We’re planning to continue the relationship we have with Future Processing and as a part of that relationship we do tend to flex the size of our team and we do change what Future Processing delivers to us from time to time. Where we stand today, our team’s size has just grown again, but we absolutely intend to continue the relationship and continue to leverage that ability to flex.