It’s always been about how we can add value

This year Papaya celebrates 13 years of making compliance and learning easy. Soon to relaunch our new brand identity, we share a recent blog conversation with our Founder Nick Edwards and Head of Operations Georgie Dronfield. Where they reflect back on a journey that has always been about adding value and a passion to simplify the complicated.

Nick begins…

“Papaya came about because I wanted to make things easier and at the same time more robust. Having worked for food brands for my most of my life I knew there had to be a smarter way to manage compliance and training. A way to streamline everything.

The other driver for me was the food manufacturing industry itself. I’m passionate about a sector that has given me opportunities and contributes so extensively to local, national and international economies. The UK food sector, for example, is the biggest employer after the NHS. Governance around food is also understandably complicated. Having experienced my own fair share of audits, training and regulation I could see how a software solution like Papaya could add value by saving time and money.

I knew in Papaya we’d come up with a solution that could really make a difference and stuck with it.

The challenge was always going to be about encouraging businesses to put their faith in a different way of working. To give people the confidence to step away from the comfort of the paper trail and invest in a different type of software solution. Things have evolved so much since we first started. The work environment is a very different place. Back then the majority of companies managed their compliance and training data in a multitude of jam-packed paper files. The word audit tended to send people into a head spin. I wanted to move past that.

For example, E-signatures (something most of us now use on a regular basis) were practically unheard of back then. So, when we introduced them as a feature of Papaya, we had to ensure auditors were happy too. A big part of the last 13 years has been about gaining trust and communicating how doing things differently could bring real benefits for people.

It also helped that some big and well-respected names, like ready meal specialists Bakkavor, saw Papaya’s potential and came on board early doors. I remember that initial meeting like yesterday. They were sold on the fact that Papaya gives the ability to track all the different compliance and learning disciplines in one and were impressed by our computer says yes not no approach. “

Georgie adds;

“People can see Papaya’s strength quite quickly because it offers everything a forward-thinking company wants to achieve: collaboration, transparency and productivity. That coupled with Papaya’s ethos about being a partner not a provider is what makes our offer really different.

We make it our business to understand each company we work for. We then tailor our compliance and learning expertise with specific business needs to create the ultimate software solution. We care about the companies and people we work with. There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing how Papaya has made their life easier. It speaks volumes that so much of our new business comes from organic referrals. To me that proves we’ve created a software solution that works, and a partnership people trust.

As Nick said, the work environment has changed so much over the last 13 years. But we’re not complacent, our partnership with clients means we are consistently learning, refining our technology and offer. Our E-learning module, for example, offers over 120 accessible accredited training courses and our dashboard design gives every business a complete compliance and training snapshot.

It’s a positive time for the team at Papaya, things are going from strength to strength. We’ve built up a strong reputation in the food manufacturing industry and we’re now working with big brands in other sectors. Our new brand identity has been a chance to reflect on our ambitions – it’s a clear message to the world that we are the compliance and learning experts and we’re here to help.”