BLUE ARROW AWARDS ONE YEAR LATER – HERE’S WHAT WE LEARNED

Building a successful software company requires more than a team of developers and a product roadmap. At Zervant we’re constantly asking ourselves “how are the things we’re working on adding real value to our customers”? This question is essential to our strategy, whether it relates to our product, marketing or customer care.

So last year when we heard about the Blue Arrow Awards, and the fact that there was an entire category dedicated to Best Customer Experience, we just felt we had to apply!

As this was the first time anything like this had been arranged we didn’t really have any expectations about how things would unfold. The application process was very straightforward - a series of short descriptive questions about our business. There was a small entry fee, but we felt it would be totally worth it. Also what made our decision easier was the fact that we knew we had a good product and nice looking growth charts!

A few months later we received a message saying that Zervant had made it to the finals. Our efforts were being rewarded. Time to celebrate! Because by now we were starting to see some of the real benefits of the Blue Arrow Awards:

– Our software was going to be tested and reviewed by real influencers and professional judges

– We were going to get positive visibility and PR (important for any start-up company)

– We were getting recognition from the wider developer community

And last, but certainly not least, we got invites to the Blue Arrow Awards gala event in May. Once we’d penned the date in our diaries it was time to party 🙂 The sense of excitement was huge!

Networking in the Helsinki tech scene

It’s no secret that many startups are fighting hard to find skilled developers who want to come and work for them. So in order to improve our chances of success at Zervant, we felt that the Blue Arrow Awards could help us with giving us a positive spin on this front.

Establishing a good work culture with proper company values, flexibility and nice perks are one thing. And they’re all important when you want to attract the best employees. But as an employee you can only really experience these once you’re on the inside, in other words once you’ve already joined the company. And before that happens there’s a lot of other types of work to be done.

So this is where we felt the Blue Arrow Awards fit in. Because not only did the competition put Zervant on map on the developer scene, it also lifted our software up as a benchmark against some of the other best companies out there. The increased visibility combined with other PR activities led to an increase in job applications we received following the success we had with Blue Arrow Awards. This was really one of the key takeaways from our perspective.

The journey continues

The organisation behind the Blue Arrow Awards has a manifesto that is all about improving the quality of digital services. In fact, the organisation itself is called Better Digital Services Finland. One of its main objectives is to encourage the creation of services that have a positive impact on users’ lives and make the software developers feel more proud of their work.

This is something we can strongly relate to at Zervant. After all, our mission is Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed, and we want to do that by providing them with excellent digital services that make their life easier (e.g. by handling all their invoicing needs online).

Following the positive experience we had last year with Blue Arrow Awards, we felt we wanted to contribute to the Better Digital Services Finland -organisation also in the future. So we applied for a membership and got accepted. Now the journey continues with Zervant taking an active role in organising this year’s event together with the other companies involved. Let’s raise the standard of digital services in Finland together!

Hope to see you at the Blue Arrow Awards 2017!

Matias Vahtola
Zervant