Ottawa-based DataKinetics announced Thursday it has started a new company to deliver omni-channel customer engagement solutions to Global 100 retail companies.
The new company, called omNovos, is a “logical extension,” DataKinetics CEO Allan Zander said. Mr. Zander will also be at the helm of omNovos.
Mr. Zander said his company, a 35-year-old data performance and optimization solution provider, has been creating its ecosystem for banks, credit card and insurance companies for years.
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“We help those customers identify problematic areas within their mainframes that are making it difficult for … applications to run, maybe costing them additional capital and money. We help them find the areas and fix those areas,” Mr. Zander said.
Mr. Zander said DataKinetics also has retail customers. Those clients helped trigger the idea that a spinoff was necessary to concentrate solely on that market.
The company spent the last 18 months analyzing the retail space, which is more mobile. It discovered that while the issues retail companies face might be different than in the financial sector, the skills and capabilities required to solve the problems matched nicely with what DataKinetics could offer.
The new company will focus on retail problems with the omni-channel, which Mr. Zander said is the ability to bridge together what a retailer’s online store is doing with what its bricks-and-mortar location is doing.
“We can help the clerk in the store make recommendations to you that are a lot better suited to you,” he said.
The new company will build customer engagement solutions that are as hands-on or as hands-off as the retailer wants them to be, he said.
Mr. Zander said omNovos is “very interested” in expanding its footprint in Ottawa, with openings in sales, marketing, finance and research and development. The company is also launching a Vancouver office in the near future. It currently has a staff of five in the capital and three on the west coast.
The spinoff announcement comes on the heels of a summer acquisition of SoftwareOnZ, which Mr. Zander said at the time would help DataKinetics break into the Australian market. He said that pipeline has started to develop.
“I’m extremely pleased with the company. We’ve got a lot of very good things happening right now,” he said.
