Johannesburg, 19 Mar 2020
This year, Chillisoft quietly turned 15 years old! Our existence and continued growth prove that it is possible to run a successful human-centred values-based company.
One of our success metrics is that we have never ever retrenched our employees. This is remarkable given the common “boom and bust” software business model of maintaining high profits via rapid growth and then retrenchment. It is also remarkable because there are many examples of corporates that have tweaked their culture to be more people-oriented after they were well known and successful, but there are minimal examples of companies that started out as human-centred organisations and are successful today.
In living our purpose, other successes include the following:
- Employing 65 people in the past 15 years.
- Cross-skilling and training five graphics designers into front-end development.
- Awarding 15 bursaries (tertiary qualifications, excluding professional training qualifications) to Chillisofters, allowing them to further their IT professions.
- Employing 16 individuals with no prior software dev skills, allowing them to build a software dev career.
- Actively ensuring South Africa is able to compete in the future economy by developing, training and building careers for professional software development.
- Retaining a senior development team that has worked together on average for nine years at Chillisoft.
In the 15 years of being in business, Chillisoft has acquired many awards, competencies and qualifications, including being a Microsoft Gold Application Development Partner and a runner-up in the National Science and Technology Forum. We have several accolades and we are profitable, but it is the above metrics that makes us most proud.
The Chillisoft story is proof of why medium-sized companies are often cited as the driving force in creating and maintaining economic and social stability.
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