Each week we interview one of our members to find out a bit more about them and their work in the Greater Manchester digital sphere. This week we're speaking with cloud engineering specialists, D55.
What does your organisation do?
We are a cloud engineering company working with disruptive entrepreneurs, CEOs or CTOs looking for help with digital transformation. We offer a complete service for outsourced software development focused on solving technical issues. D55 either delivers the outsourced product directly or partners up with a company's internal teams to enhance their skill set and supplement resources on cloud transformation projects and cloud system architecture.
Our diverse team includes professional software engineers, architects and product owners with many years of experience from across a range of sectors including energy, supply chain, finance and gaming.
What do you think is currently the biggest issue facing the digital and tech industry?
Finding the right talent with the right skills and experience continues to be one of the most challenging issues that businesses face in the tech industry. We have found that it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit for specific skill sets in areas such as cloud computing and systems development, particularly in the North. In order for tech businesses to sustain growth and success, it is vital that they have access to a creative, innovative and diverse talent pool. While addressing the skills gap and finding a solution to attracting and retaining talent is nothing new, it is a very real challenge across the region.
Consequently, we have realised that start-ups have to be a lot smarter at recruiting talented individuals, especially when it is harder for them to offer the competitive salaries that larger scale companies can provide. As we grow, we are continuing to build our team and explore how we can improve our offering so we can attract and retain great talent. For instance,other benefits such as flexible remote working, opportunities to work on creative and innovative projects, learning new skills and promoting a good office culture can serve as a more attractive proposition for the right candidate.
What is your organisation’s biggest achievement?
Since we launched the business last year, we have partnered with a number of large, well- established clients and we have also collaborated with other innovative businesses from the Tech Incubator, in which we are based at the Manchester Technology Centre. The business continues to grow and two people have joined the team since we started. We are recruiting at the moment and hoping to add more valuable expertise to the business. As a result, we will be able to offer our clients even better solutions for improving their business processes.
We also hosted the first in a series of events at the Manchester Tech Incubator, where we were joined by some of the best disruptive innovators, including James Morgan from BlockRocket and Matt Squire from Fuzzy Labs. We discussed a wide range of topics such as AWS Step Functions, Blockchain, Web3, Decentralised technologies and the use of AI in wearable tech.
What would you consider to be your organisation’s biggest challenge?
Many businesses seem to be quite fearful of digital transformation and can be resistant to change. While they may be confronted with obstacles in their current systems because they are not working as effectively as they could be, taking the next step and committing themselves to changing how their systems work can actually be a major turning point in any business.
Embracing digital transformation is about utilising digital tools to improve the business process while focusing on delivering valuable services and meeting customer needs. CEOs and CTOs often find it difficult to move forward with digital transformation as they are often restrained by outdated legacy systems or the lack of experience and skills within their teams. Ultimately, if a business is unable to react to market needs and is at risk of losing customers to its more innovative competitors then this can have a lasting impact on its future success.
We aim to tackle these issues head-on by building trust with the teams we support and finding the ideal technology that works for them, while approaching the development process in an efficient and lean way.
What do you think the future looks like for Manchester’s digital and tech sector?
The Manchester digital and tech scene is continuing to thrive and it’s an exciting time to be an active part of it. Manchester has the largest presence of tech based businesses in the North West and with 72% of businesses in the region experiencing growth in the last year, it makes sense that there is a really positive outlook for SMEs working in the North. Despite the uncertainty of the current economic and political landscape, there is still a great opportunity for us to work with some of the most forward-thinking and innovative businesses in the UK.
Tell us something we might not know about your company?
Our founders, Jonathan Rothwell and Rhys Jacob have well-established track records in the tech industry and met while they were working as consultants for a software company. As part of that project, they had brought together such a talented and skilled team that they then decided to spin-out the company to form D55. The original team has managed to successfully retain the same positive culture that we have had from the very beginning of working together.
About D55:
At D55, we help you enact change by engineering applications that allow you to quickly respond to market and business needs. We provide a complete service for outsourced software development, freeing you to deliver your strategy and grow your business. We love working on both greenfield projects and legacy system challenges. This includes: guidance on best practice cloud architecture, consultancy on re-architecting legacy applications for the cloud and provision of expert cloud engineers to internal teams.
For more information about D55 visit their website or email solutions@d55.co.uk or call 0161 399 0257.
D55 Manchester Technology Centre Oxford Road Manchester M1 7ED
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