Wauwatosa-based Zywave Inc. has grown significantly in the past year in terms of employees, office space, markets and product development, and the software firm is not looking to stunt its growth anytime soon.
Zywave has added 120 employees to its Wauwatosa office in the last year, and now has 270 employees at its headquarters. The firm has also expanded its sales team throughout the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, largely with sales representatives who work from home. The company has 450 employees total among its office locations in Wauwatosa; Carlsbad, Calif.; and Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, along with staff based in home offices.
The company continues to recruit new employees across all of its departments, said chief executive officer and founder Bill Haack
“We’re just continuing to invest in our business, and we have not come close to selling all the people in our marketplace who would benefit from our products,” Haack said.
The 17-year-old company develops software for both the financial planning industry and insurance broker realm. Part of the software it develops for insurance brokers supports them in helping their customers select the best health and wellness options according to their employment. The company’s original software product was also health care oriented.
To accommodate the recent influx of staff members in Wauwatosa, Zywave, Inc. expanded its corporate office twice this year. The company has operated on the fourth floor of the Mayfair Woods building at 10700 W. Research Drive in the Milwaukee County Research Park since 2007. It leased offices on the third floor earlier this year and expanded to the first floor in September, adding about 18,000 square feet of office space to increase its total headquarters office space to 42,000 square feet.
In addition to growing its employee base and office space, Zywave, which serves more than 6,000 financial and insurance firms worldwide, has expanded both its product offerings and the markets it serves.
“Basically, as much as we’ve grown so far, we have significant untapped market opportunity still,” Haack said.
At the start of October, the company unveiled a new product called the Advisor Briefcase as part of its financial planning software to the U.S. market. Among its uses, the software allows financial planners to segment their client base and communicate to each one personally on topics such as compliance, investing and retirement.
“We’re very committed to keeping our products at the forefront of the industry,” Haack said.
Zywave is also working to expand its current products, both in terms of capability and the markets they cater to.
“It’s not just about growing through these new initiatives,” said Zywave president and chief operating officer Jim Emling. “We’re also growing the product lines that we’ve had existing already.”
For example, the company has tailored its Broker Briefcase software product within its broker insurance software line to better serve the needs of clients in the United Kingdom and Canada. Broker Briefcase, which was launched in the U.S. 15 years ago, is a library of legislative, property and casualty and employee benefits content paired with an email distribution engine. The content housed in Broker Briefcase allows brokers to both market themselves and proactively service their clients.
“Fortunately, our core business has great growth opportunity, and we do keep investing in our current products,” Haack said.
To unify its staff and their goals in the face of so much growth, Zywave introduced a formal, “I am Zywave” campaign in May this year.
“When you’re in a very small work environment, you sort of form your own cultural work habits, but no one puts a name or label to it,” said Emling. “I think as a business grows and the leadership becomes by nature farther removed from everyone in the firm, it just became time to put into words the value system we wanted to espouse.”
Emling dreamed up the campaign, and the entire Zywave management team is executing it. The five basic tenets read: Step Up, Own It, Drive Growth, Have Fun, Bright Future.
Emling said he wanted to keep the campaign simple so that it would resonate with employees, wouldn’t feel overly corporate and would reflect the company’s drive for growth and innovation for itself and its customers.
“The software helps our customers grow and keep the business that they have,” Emling said. “The need to grow and keep business always exists.” n
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