Iversoft, one of Ottawa’s fastest-growing companies, welcomed Techopia Live into its new offices this week to give a peek into what’s fueling the firm’s expansion push.
The digital consultancy stands at roughly 40 employees today after growing more than 45 per cent since January, according to OBJ’s 2019 Book of Lists. The firm recently moved into a new office on Lola Street in Overbrook, just across the road from Canadian Tire and RCGT Park, to accommodate its rapidly growing headcount.
Before then, the company was split between a few units in the Gladwin business park near the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Chief marketing officer Graeme Barlow told Techopia live that the company kept branching out into additional units across parking lots, but that strategy didn’t make much sense when factoring in Ottawa winters.
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“By the time we were considering we might need a fourth unit, and everybody had to put coats and boots on to get to the right boardroom for the right meeting at the right time, we said no, it’s time to look for something bigger, something that could accommodate the growth we saw coming down,” he said.
The reason Iversoft is adding to its headcount en masse is a reflection of the growing digital demands in the market.
Barlow said the company kept coming across a similar situation with many of its clients: after finishing a project like a mobile app, they’d often ask what happens next – at which point Iversoft’s team would refer their customers to another firm in town for marketing or digital strategy services.
The company realized a few years ago, however, that this disjointed solution no longer suited the mobile-first environment, where the digital elements of a business need to be connected to each other. The company had the technical skills in-house to connect these disparate parts of the business, but in order to deliver the “complete solution” the market demanded, Iversoft set out to expand, acquiring a local marketing agency and then hiring the other skillsets it needed.
“As the world continues to move forward at a rapid pace and everything moves into the palm of our hands, there’s a lot of companies and brands around the world trying to figure out how to stay competitive in that space. And that’s where we’ve been able to carve out a pretty exciting niche,” Barlow said.
“That’s the underlying secret sauce. Bring that together and then deliver, and deliver over and over again.”
To hear more about Iversoft’s growth, as well as tips on finding the right real estate for your growing company from Techopia champion Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP, watch the video above.
