Harun Hasić
Product Manager
“ZIRA is by far one of the most human-oriented companies I ever known and worked for. Not only for own employees but for customers as well. Now what I mean by this, let me simplify and explain.”
Magical journey of ZIRA Products – Part 1
Both, engineer and craftsman, would say "everything starts with a good idea". But is only the “idea” good enough for the already established world of Telco industries? Can only a fresh new idea help create a product that can find its own place under the Telco sun or is there something more. In this blog we’ll try to cover a journey of ZIRA Product from “birth to production”.
Is it possible to reinvent the wheel?
As a mentioned in my intro, Telco business is an already established world with its own rules and frameworks. There are numerous organizations and forums working on standardization and alignment of technologies, workflows, and business processes. However, on the other hand Telco is also part of the modern IT world in its full glory of innovations. So, where is the truth? As always in life it lies somewhere in the middle. I’ll start with the initial question: “How is typical ZIRA product created?”. Ten years ago, when I started in this company, ZIRA was already long existing and established vendor of Telecom software solutions. Company has already positioned itself in the market with a very clear mission and vision. By my own choice I jumped in the Wholesale department – dedicated to creating software solutions for full scope of telecom processes. I started with Revenue Management solutions, but over the years my personal development focused on Interconnect Trading, Routing and Billing. As a young engineer, of course, I came with a bunch of what I thought were new ideas to the meetings. Now imagine all my frustration when in response to all my proposals I always got the same answer “it already exists”.
How can this be so frustrating, how to re-imagine something that had a clear way of work for years. Well, the answer to our first question is “with humanity”. And yes, ZIRA is by far one of the most human-oriented companies I ever known and worked for. Not only for own employees but for customers as well. Now what I mean by this, let me simplify and explain.
Let’s take one Billing feature like “Verifying Supplier Invoice”. Yes, this is a feature multiple vendors offer, but how many of them and to what extent take into consideration Customer Experience. The process can take so long, or the setup process is so complicated that the end user eventually gives up. With ZIRA that is not the case. We have this great habit of working side by side with our customers while continuously evolving ZIRA Product Customer Experience.
Or the other problem, one software solution offers me a feature of “Verifying Supplier Invoice” but it does not offer me “Managing Dispute with Supplier”. If I put myself in the position of an end User I would need both. When conceptualizing ZIRA Products, we listen to Customers and Market needs.
And if you are thinking right now “that’s all fine and great, but you only talked about existing well-established processes – what about innovative features in ZIRA Products” – well, that is something that comes down the road and we’ll cover it in part 2 of the blog.
