Techopia Live invited the team from Napkyn Analytics to the show this week to share some of the best practices that have placed the firm on numerous fastest-growing companies lists over the past decade in business.
Napkyn Analytics acts as a full digital analytics department for some of the world’s biggest e-commerce brands and financial services companies. The Ottawa-based firm’s clients are names everyone would know, but they’re often bound to confidentiality agreements that prevent them from spilling the beans.
“They have more lawyers than we have employees,” CEO Jim Cain joked to Techopia Live.
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Napkyn generates analytics through tools such as the Google stack of services and then translates that data into usable “stories” for its executive clientele. While other digital services firms offer data and analytics services as part of their full suite of services, Napkyn president Jen Batley said the company’s narrow focus allows it to be “truly organic” in its work and create a necessary element of trust with its clients.
When asked why Napkyn has stuck around for 10 years and counting, Batley had a fairly standard answer: it’s the people. But Napkyn’s workforce is anything but typical for a STEM business, operating with a roughly 50/50 gender split of its employees and numerous women in positions of leadership.
While many businesses around the world today are looking to crack the code of crafting a diverse workforce, it’s been uncomplicated for Napkyn. Cain said the firm focuses on hiring the best people, and, in the end, women and immigrant workers are often the right candidates. Batley noted that the company deliberately widens its hiring funnel to get a diverse slate of candidates applying for each position, and at the end of this process, Napkyn’s team ends up better reflecting the population at large.
“I think we’ve just been fortunate to make some really great hires,” Batley said.
To hear more of Napkyn’s best practices from the firm’s 10 years in business, watch the video above.
