The approaching holiday season is a great time to sit by the fire and let yourself be rocked by a story. Meeting with Etienne and Isabelle, who tell us about their investment software during a walked down Memory Lane
What I love about Christmas is the storytelling atmosphere. Tales, legends, or even memories: the holiday season is ideal for telling stories. That is why I’m choosing to share one too: the one from PRIM Logix. You know this story? To get it right, I asked Etienne and Isabelle, the creators of the recruiting software, to tell me about it. It’s a story of friendships, meetings and opportunities. With a hint of romance, and a few twists and turns. Sit comfortably, our story begins in 2004, with two friends who meet again.
The first lines of code.
On this reunion, Etienne and Stéphane discuss the latter’s business, an agency specializing in the dental field. He indeed uses a small application that Stéphane had made developed. And so, Etienne, who was between two jobs, has just returned to settle in the region of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, was asked by Stéphane to improve the functioning of his agency by producing a software for database management.
“This first software was a real in-house creation, coded in the living room. We are still a long way from what PRIM Logix will be, but it’s a good start” recalls Etienne. “From the outset, the goal was to meet a specific need. This notion has become an essential part of the DNA of PRIM Logix.” The first software coded by Etienne was released in 2005. In the process, he began developing a second software for another client.
Software that adapts to demands.
Small leap in time. We are in 2009. Isabelle has joined the adventure – and Etienne’s life – for 2 years now. Together, they created a website to display their product for employment agencies. “It was a really rudimentary site, manually coded in html and without any notion of SEO” admits Isabelle. But suddenly, the phone starts ringing …
On the phone: a staffing agency, which expresses its needs and expectations with regard to a placement and recruitment software. “We then have an awareness, says Etienne: we realize that the product does not quite correspond to agencies yet, but that with flexibility, we could well serve a market in which there was a real need. We are developing version 2, which becomes the first version of PRIM Logix, as we know it. And in the process, a version 3, in which we abandon the menus to use the functionality of the ribbons”.
2009 is also the first call from a client with a very big project: to provide a recruiting solution for 15 to 20 users, who should go from a paper method to the use of software. Such a development takes time, but Etienne and Isabelle are passionate. And if the client temporarily abandons the project for a while, he will come back to knock on the door in 2013.
2010: the decade of maturity.
The following year, PRIM Logix is incorporated and is then owned by 5 shareholders. Business is doing well, and in December 2010, the small staffing and recruiting software company hired its first employee, a web programmer. “We were still working from home” recalls Isabelle, “but suddenly there are 4 of us sharing this space and we realize that we need room to grow”. So, in the summer of 2012, the company moved to its first offices.
New turning point for PRIM Logix: at the start of 2015, the 5 partners separated. Isabelle and Etienne continue the adventure on their own, quickly joined by Etienne’s father as a shareholder. “Until now, it was one of the associates who handled the sales: now we have to hire a sales and development manager” says Isabelle.
A few months later, in 2016, the PRIM Logix family grew with the arrival of a new feature: PRIM Web. It is the completion of a project initiated 5 years earlier, but the first, inconclusive version of which had been extensively reworked to provide a tool that meets the requirements of its creators. It now allows applicants and clients of the employment agency to connect to a dedicated portal for day-to-day operations. “When we saw the first real candidate go online, we were all excited, it was finally getting real!” admit Isabelle and Etienne.
Controlled development
If until then the business development of PRIM Logix followed an organic model, Etienne and Isabelle then understand that it is necessary to call on a marketing director who has both experience and a vision of their own. Since 2016, PRIM Logix has therefore established its reputation in Quebec and reached important customers.
On the strength of its growth, with significant market shares in the province, PRIM Logix is turning to other markets: North America and Europe are currently being considered, “we already have a few customers in Ontario, British Columbia and Switzerland.” But, above all, Isabelle and Etienne want to avoid any rush, any panic: ” We want to develop further, that is for sure, but we want to do it in a safe, controlled manner. By taking our time, without rushing it. It is important that the implementation be smooth and successful, for us and especially for our customers “. The customer is involved in the implementation, it is important that he takes part.
The philosophy behind PRIM Logix
This customer involvement is an important part of the PRIM Logix philosophy. “Many products on the market are developed by people who work in agencies and put together a product that matches their vision. For our part, the development of PRIM Logix has been based on customer feedback and according to their needs.” This gives a product which is much more flexible and which adapts to the realities of each client, because, with each new request, “the team makes a point of honor to meet the specific needs of the client, while reflecting to make this feature useful for all other customers.”
Is flexibility, the cornerstone of PRIM Logix? Yes, of course, answer Isabelle and Etienne. “It’s important to be able to customize the software, to be able to meet a customer’s demand, but making sure that improvements made for one don’t hurt others. “.
This flexibility, which is part of the staffing and recruiting software approach, is also found within the team that produces it. Each of these people who arrive, who join the PRIM Logix team and join the family: “we see it: when someone arrives, they bring their ideas, their practices as well as their culture”, analyzes Etienne. “We are very open to feedback and regularly solicit the opinions of our employees and customers. So, everyone who works or has worked here has brought something personal to PRIM Logix”. Thus, working methods, expertise, different visions which, when confronted and discussed, provide a tool that adapts to any situation.
What about the future?
If every story has an end, PRIM Logix’s one has yet to be written. The future still holds great challenges, taken head-on by Etienne, Isabelle and their team of 18 people. In 2022, the software will initiate a radical style change, with a 5.00 version rolled out later this year.
At the heart of this version, a completely renewed display: an aesthetic youth cure at all levels. From the main menus to the action buttons and the windows themselves, the entire user experience will be enhanced and updated.
To make the user interface more intuitive, significant work has been carried out on the user interface, to present the desired information in modular panes that allow all the desired information to be displayed without having to navigate between multiple tabs. C’est un gain de productivité et une optimisation de l’affichage, qui permettra de tout voir en un clin d’œil “This is a productivity gain and an optimization of the display, which will make it possible to see everything in the blink of an eye.”.
Another essential change: the reorganization of temporary requests. A simplification of the display and procedures which nevertheless does not detract from the possibilities offered by the software and its adaptation to all the realities of employment agencies.
Finally, the team of developers is also working on the tools of the communication module, to integrate PRIM Logix even more into the interfaces and practices currently in progress within recruitment agencies: a complete rewrite of the web platform with more modern technology, entirely “responsive” and with the ability to incorporate the work into a native application that will be delivered at the same time.
In 17 years, the history of PRIM Logix is therefore above all that of a relationship between flexible software and the ever-changing needs of ever-growing customers. And while the majority is reached at 18, the small salon-coded staffing and recruiting software did not wait for that number to reach maturity.
PRIM Logix, in 12 key dates:
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