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In Estonia, the word “Parim” means the best. Still, for the Royal Opera House, Chelsea Football Club, Wembley Stadium, and the Birmingham Hippodrome in the UK, it’s the application they used to manage their workforces every day. Using Parim‘s platform, users can import staff, automate scheduling, track time and attendance, automate pay calculation, and export timesheets. It allows users to staff significant events, which is why it has seen increased adoption in conference destinations such as the Gulf States. And because its software-as-a-service business model is based on usage volume rather than user numbers, Parim has managed to outpace its competition, making it worthy, perhaps, of its ambitious name.
“One of our marketing managers asked me how to say ‘the best’ in Estonian, and that became the name,” says Riko Muttik, the company’s CEO and cofounder. “In English markets, people pronounce it all sorts of ways, but it works,” he acknowledges. “Parim is short and memorable.”
Muttik started Parim in 2013 with his roommate and former university classmate Risto Urb. They had both relocated to London from Estonia by coincidence and were experimenting with some ideas, one of which eventually became Parim.
“Our skills matched perfectly, I’m strong in UX and front-end, and he’s great at backend and databases,” Muttik recalls. Originally, Parim was just one of several concepts, but it gained popularity quickly. Today, the company has 40 employees, split between Estonia and the UK, and continues to innovate and expand. “We’re building a broader ecosystem now,” Muttik affirms.
From the forests to the metropolis
Muttik grew up in Elva, a small town in southern Estonia, not far from Tartu, the country’s second-largest city. Surrounded by hilly countryside and pine forests, one can still feel as if they are in a forest in Elva, which is heavily wooded. However, it was in this wild, frontier-feeling place that Muttik became interested in computer science, thanks in part to Estonia’s Tiger Leap Program, an initiative by the state to connect all of the country’s schools to the internet in the 1990s.
“When computers first appeared in my school in 1996-1997, I was instantly drawn to them,” Muttik remembers. “We would stay after school and build our first websites,” he says. “That exposure really pushed me toward computing.”
Muttik was always strong in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and so he decided to study computer science at the University of Tartu. Eventually, he earned a bachelor’s in computer science and economics, which he followed with an MBA a few years later. His academic interests overlapped with his budding business career. Muttik founded his first software company immediately after graduating from high school. The company didn’t last long, but he learned from his mistakes. He also weathered the 2008 economic crisis, which he credits with teaching him a lot.
“It was painful, but I learned a lot, especially about risk management and financial discipline,” he says. “After that, I promised myself that in any future business, finance must be handled properly,” he says. “That became a key foundation for Parim.”
After the market crash, Muttik moved to London, where he connected with Urb. The duo found themselves in a city with a population of nearly 9 million people, roughly seven times the size of Estonia’s population. However, it also provided them with a launchpad to the entire world. “I wanted to go global,” says Muttik. “And I was actively looking for an idea that made sense on a global scale.”
Staffing as a service
A dozen years later, and they are still at it. When asked about what makes the application attractive to users, Muttik points out that it manages the whole supply chain of what he calls “staffing as a service.” From the moment a customer requests staff, the app is in use, helping to manage shifts, attendance, reporting and invoicing. It has also been adopted in a variety of industries, including security, facilities management, and event management.
“There are tons of paperwork” involved in each, says Muttik. “We digitised that entire chain.”
Previously, he notes, users were dependent on Microsoft Excel, paper schedules, paper timesheets, whiteboards or simple calendars. Others used in-house systems they had developed themselves. “For many, Parim is their first modern workforce management platform,” he says.
The UK has been a primary market for the company, which has an office in London. Parim is well-known there, even though most new customers are onboarded through word of mouth. “Once a company starts using Parim, their clients or partners often tell others to use the app,” he says.
Parim is therefore in use across British society, from the welcome staff at Victoria Station to different National Health Service hospitals. Even Buckingham Palace reached out, though data-handling rules prevented adoption, for now. From the UK, Parim has found users in the US, particularly for healthcare staffing, as well as Australia and, increasingly, the Middle East.
“The events industry is booming there,” he says. Event organisers need to manage massive temporary workforces, which makes Parim’s volume-based pricing ideal. The company has even developed an events module, which has been used at World Cups, Olympic Games, and other significant events.
“It’s a big part of our business and continues to grow,” says Muttik.
Building a broader ecosystem
Though 12 years is a long time in the lifespan of a software platform, Muttik says that Parim’s development plans continue unabated. The company is exploring the integration of tools used before and after scheduling, such as recruitment systems, human resources systems, payroll management, and other financial tools.
“We see people using Parim to find jobs already, so we want to expand that,” says Muttik.
Though hesitant to divulge more of the company’s plans, he admits that AI features are another part of the company’s guideline. And Parim is unfazed by recessions and, indeed, pandemics, as businesses often need to streamline their activities in such scenarios. “Parim has always done well in difficult economic times because businesses need to optimise,” Muttik remarks. “That’s when they come to us.”
Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed the firm to onboard new customers. “Accurately keeping records of absences and working hours became a priority at that time,” says Muttik. “Moreover, those who previously did it on paper had to finally think about digitalisation because, firstly, they couldn’t meet people and, secondly, UK law required everyone who used state support to record absences and keep the records accurately,” he says.
There have since been labour law changes in the UK that have mandated the use of designated tools, like Parim, to maintain compliance. The company has also benefited from these changes.
Beyond the UK and Europe, he acknowledges that the continent remains somewhat fragmented, as Parim must be localised to work in each country, taking into account domestic work and rest time laws, which can vary, as well as integration into local payroll software. The company also has users in its home market of Estonia, as well as in neighbouring Finland, where Viking Security, an Estonian security company, and Medimatkat, a Finnish clinic, use it.
“We do not directly market ourselves in the Estonian and Finnish markets, but we have always collaborated with leading local companies that are technology-oriented,” says Muttik. Parim, he adds, has been used by PÖFF, the annual Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia, for the past six years.
