Continuing our Journey in Calgary

For years we’ve been threatened with stories of machines destroying jobs, but we never heard the one about the virus that would do it instead. Yet over the past 12 months, COVID-19 has done just that – resulting in levels of job loss not seen since the Great Depression. And while it’s true that a subset of these jobs have gone and are likely never to return, as a firm that helps companies navigate their digital journeys we know that not all is [job]lost. The increased adoption of automation will actually create new types of roles. If we invest in reskilling and upskilling, we’ll see net new job creation that can offset what was lost to the pandemic in the past year.

Enterprises are rapidly integrating new technologies into their workflows to meet evolving workplace demands – in fact by some measures the past few months have accelerated digital transformation efforts by seven years. With this trend, we’re seeing increasing demand for talent that can support across the technology stack and we believe that with the right training and upskilling, anyone can fill these new digital backbone jobs. As we continue our journey of hiring and developing talent in close proximity to our clients, we see opportunity to expand our presence and build new STEM talent in Canada.

Earlier today, I was joined virtually by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Mary Moran, President & CEO, Calgary Economic Development, and Dr. David Ross, President of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology to announce our commitment to double our Canadian workforce and to add 500 jobs to Calgary by 2023.

Over the past few years, we have steadily increased our footprint in North America so we can serve our clients through a distributed delivery model – co-innovating and co-collaborating with them in closer proximity. Canada has been an important driver of business growth, especially as we expand our nearshore operations to provide our clients with best-in-class service and meet their changing demands. In the last two years, we’ve created 2,000 jobs across Canada and expanding in Calgary is a natural next step in our progression. The Calgary office will work with retail, energy, natural resources, media and communications clients in the Central United States, California, the Pacific Northwest and Canada.

As we build this new office, we’ll recruit and train talent from 14 educational institutions across the country, including the University of Calgary, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, and University of Waterloo, as well as bring in some experienced hires. Calgary has a lot of experienced professionals with high potential and we hope to leverage our reskilling program to pivot them to jobs of the future. Investing in talent development is core to who we are as a company. In addition to our in-house competencies, we’ll draw on the strength of the local educational ecosystem to bolster our training and equip our workforce with cutting-edge skills in digital transformation, cloud, and data & analytics so these employees they can serve the needs of our clients.

I am thrilled with the progress and reputation that we have already built in Canada. As a 2021 recipient of the Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award for Best Places to Work in Canada, we have a strong foundation on which to grow and I can’t wait to see what the next three years and beyond will bring!