Service: Firm launches business solution practice
By John Pollack
Telegraph-Journal
A prominent Maritime IT firm is expanding beyond technology.
Traditionally an IT-solutions-for-businesses provider, Ambir recently launched a business solution practice that will offer consulting on business strategy, transition and smaller transitions.
The new line of business was launched after many of the firm’s senior consultants and executives found that they were working on issues for clients that had little or nothing to do with technology, and more to do with improving their clients business.
“The technology is only a small part of what tends to be a broader change initiative,” said Phil Holmes, Ambir’s vice president in charge of the new business solutions service. “Very often it’s about the people and the overall direction of the business.”
To help the firm shape its new business line and shape its clients’ businesses, Ambir announced last week it has recruited former Atlantic Lottery Corp. chief operations officer Adrienne O’Pray.
“It’s sort of in the building phases,” O’Pray said of the new line of business. “I’ll have a lot of opportunity in shaping that, so it’s pretty interesting.”
Prior to her six-year stint at the regional gambling corporation, O’Pray worked for NBTel and was around when the company’s successor, Aliant Inc, was starting to have competition.
“A lot of what I’ve done is to explore strategy and make it come real,” she said.
O’Pray will be working two-days-a-week for Ambir while she spends more time with her young family and other commitments.
The new business line will help Ambir provide “end-to-end” solutions for its clients, Holmes said.
“Very often technology solutions is only in reaction to some broader change or trend,” he said.
The company expects its existing technology clients may be interesting in the new service and future business solutions projects may have a technology component to them and vice versa.
The new service line put Ambir in more direct competition with large international consulting firms such as Deloitte.
“Any large consulting firm can offer advice on strategy,” Holmes said. “Where we believe we have an advantage is that we can help organizations with sustainable business models.”
The business solutions practice will initially focus on the Atlantic Canadian market before expanding to other parts of Canada and the United States.
“There are lots of great businesses out there, but we find businesses which were great when they were set up aren’t necessarily best position to play in an increasingly global market,” Holmes said. “The business solutions practice is about evolving business from where you are to where you want to be, to make sure you have continued relevance in the global market place.”
Ambir, which employs about 55 people in its offices in Fredericton, Saint John and Halifax, only has the two employees working on the business solutions practice compared to about 40 on the technology side, with the remaining employees in executive or administrative jobs.
Holmes plans to hire three more to his team in the next few months and the division could continue to multiply in staff over the next year or two depending on how well it does.
“(But) the technology will still be our core service in the short-term,” he said.
