Elfware, founded by Hamish Cameron, is a platform that utilises knowledge synthesis and mapping to translate decision making to code. Instead of writing code, Elfware allows analysts and non-technical people to make decisions which then generate app-based code.
Elfware provides a patent-based code that is already robust and pretty much tested, which takes out a huge chunk of the IT out. Additionally, Elfware speeds up the delivery of the software applications and reduces the cost and effort that’s required by the business to do it.
Hamish says “The IT world has pretty much spectacularly failed to deliver on its promises. There are far too many people involved in IT, there are far too many meetings, far too many decisions going around in circles. And what Elfware found over a very large period of time is that there’s a combination of issues with most third-party software packages.” On top of this, the cost of building software, and maintaining them can become more of a pain among businesses long-term. Elfware is simplifying this in many ways.
Hamish also said “There’s no clarity between the organisations involved in what’s required by a client, how to find a solution and how to implement it. So what we do is that we simplify that process by, on the one hand, crystallizing out what the decisions are that are required to implement software, whether it be a third party software product or a custom-built one. We simplify those
down.”
Hamish started the business when he got sick and tired of having so many organisations, getting very large projects and the IT division was getting bloated. Since starting the business, Elfware have achieved some noteable success thus far.
When asked if people underestimate how stressful it is to be a startup, Hamish said “Yes, I think people believe it’s just going to be exciting and they don’t realise that the startup is just like any other. Yes there are some really exhilarating moments, but, but it’s just like any businesses, you really need to be relative and fairly hard-nosed around the fact that a certain amount of money has to come in and the expenses have to be lower than that. And you’re going to go through troughs and peaks, and at the peaks, don’t over-extend, don’t over-commit, because that can change very quickly and promises don’t necessarily turn out to come to fruition.”
Some of Elfware’s biggest successes include; delivering in 1 day with 1 team member an initial Retail ERP data migration activity for a 250 store. US mid-market retailer usually taking a small team 2-4 months (at least 100 person-days). Additionally, Elfware delivered the assisted decisions, patterns, automated testing and generated code to support a large scale, multi-phase, complex ERP system transition and parallel run for a UK based eCommerce giant. This resulted in a code customisation overhead for our team of less than 1% of modules, a fraction of that in lines of code customised and a very, very happy customer.
When asked what is ahead for Elfware Hamish said “We aim to establish ourselves as a global provider of Business Agility as a Service to a broad range of customers. To do this we will expand our: Domain Services and the range of supported application domains Delivery platforms to continue to improve decision support, speed, scale, robustness and breadth of code patterns Team and office representation beyond Australia and the UK, first to the US and then beyond as it makes sense’.
Find out more about Elfware here.
