Paul Emond has a goal: Grow from $3.75 million in revenues to a $20-million company by 2020.
If that sounds ambitious, consider that his company, Versature, grew by 55 per cent over the last year alone.
The firm provides cloud-based business phone services and competes against industry giants such as Bell, Telus and Rogers.
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“They’re big elephants and we’re a little mouse,” laughs Mr. Emond. He’s believes Versature’s size allows it to stay agile by integrating new services into its offerings that keep it ahead of its larger competitors.
These include connecting its products with Salesforce, so that the details of the call are saved in the popular customer relationship management software.
Versature is also working with Ottawa-based Klipfolio, adding call features to its graphic business analytics dashboard.
“If you’re a support supervisor, you can see who’s waiting in queue and other kinds of phone metrics,” explains Mr. Emond.
The key to these integrations, he says, is Versature’s publicly available application process interface, or API.
The company currently has 35 employees, but is looking to increase its headcount as it continues to grow.
“Ten years ago when I was thinking about building this company, I was excited about how the phone can be connected to the computer and I think we’re finally here,” he says. “E-mail is easily ignored but phone calling isn’t. So it’s something that’s highly required in the business setting.”
