Top10
Most profitable Canadian companies
June 2017
w w w.businessreviewcanada.ca
Helping Canada lead the change to smarter healthcare
TALKING
BIZ WITH: • GE Healthcare • RBC Convention Center
Expanding Vancouver’s technological footprint
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EDITOR’S COMMENT
HELLO and
WELCOME to the June issue of
Business Review Canada. US HEALTHCARE IT solutions provider Allscripts is busy helping transform patient outcomes in jurisdictions around the world. But, as Managing Director for Canada Jennifer MacGregor tells us, the rise of its renowned flagship Sunrise platform very much began in British Columbia. Also in this issue, we take a deep dive into the philosophies driving success for GE Healthcare with three of its top executives, take a close look at the $180 million expansion of Winnipeg’s
RBC Convention Centre, and chart the impressive assent of International Fitness Holdings in Alberta. Finally, we discuss Microsoft’s ambition to build an ‘engine of technological innovation’ in the heart of Vancouver with director Edoardo De Martin. Enjoy the read and don’t forget to join us on Twitter: @bizreviewcanada
Romily Broad Content Director romily.broad@bizclikmedia.com 3
CONTENTS
E H E A LT H
P06
P24
TECHNOLOGY
P10 Microsoft: expanding Vancouver’s technological footprint
P66
RBC Convention Center
TOP10
Most profitable Canadian companies
P16
P46 GE Healthcare
C O M PA N Y PROFILES HEALTHCARE 24 Allscripts 36 International Fitness Holdings Inc
TECHNOLOGY 46 GE Healthcare
HOSPITALITY 66 RBC Convention Center
P80
P36
e-Health Conference 2017: THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTH AND THE PEOPLE WHO BENEFIT This year’s e-Health Conference will focus on the Future of Digital Health and the People who Benefit. During the Conference, attendees will celebrate, grow and be inspired by learnings from the past and present, and look to the future state of digital health in Canada. From coast to coast to coast, e-Health will showcase the many facets of our nation’s digital health journey. As an attendee, you can learn from regional and international speakers, engage with current and future leaders, maximize your networking opportunities during the trade show and social events, and celebrate achievements at the Canadian Health Informatics Awards Gala. Special events such as the Showcase and Hackathon round out the many entertaining and educational opportunities offered this year. More than 250 world-class presenters, this Conference will be your premiere health informatics networking and learning opportunity for 2017. The full conference program is available at: www.e-healthconference.com/program/conference-program
Predicting Excellence: Going for Gold in Health Care Anne Merklinger, Chief Executive Officer Own the Podium Monday, June 5, 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. Monday, June 5, 2017 - Opening Keynote Address
Predicting Excellence: Going for Gold in Health Care
Paul Robinson, Associate Vice President of Credit Risk Management Canadian Tire Bank Tuesday, June 6, 8:30 – 9:30 a.m.
From Fax Machines to 3D Printing – Digital Health at Warp Speed Dr. Julielynn Wong, Founder, Chairman, & C.E.O. 3D4MD Tuesday, June 6, 2017 – Morning Plenary
Harnessing the Internet of Healthy Things
Dr. Joseph C. Kvedar, Vice President Connected Health at Partners Healthcare Wednesday, June 7, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 7, 2017 – Closing Keynote Address
Annual Conference & Tradeshow
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June 4 – 7, 2017 | Toronto, ON Experience a dynamic level of education through world-class June 4 – 7, 2017 | Toronto, ON speakers, cutting edge innovation and unique networking opportunities.
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Hacking Mental Health in the Workplace at e-Health 2017
Calling all hackers, designers, developers and engineers! Join Hacking Health’s biggest hackathon EVER with up to $675k of grants allocated to transform your hackathon prototypes into fully baked and potentially commercially viable solutions. Hacking Health is back at the National e-Health 2017 Conference & Annual Tradeshow and collaborating with CIHR and the Mental Health Commission of Canada to tackle one of Canada’s most pressing challenges: workplace mental health and wellbeing. The goal of this hackathon is to develop innovative, evidence-informed, genderresponsive and culturally-appropriate digital mental health solutions that foster the labour force participation of women, men and gender-diverse people at risk of or struggling with workplace stress or mental health injuries. There are 70 spots open for the hackathon - PARTICIPATE NOW
Showcase
The Showcase has been an integral part of e-Health since 2007. Building on the outstanding success of the regional success stories component introduced in 2014, we will again be featuring some of the great innovations and collaborations between the public and private sector. Attend a Success Story demonstration in the showcase theatres to hear how jurisdictions have implemented innovative e-Health solutions, and topics related to e-Health Innovation. • Monday, June 5, from 10:00am – 11:45am and 2:30pm – 4:00pm • Tuesday, June 6, from 9:30am – 10:15am and 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Start Up Zone
The e-Health Start Up Zone is designed to feature new and innovating start-ups and medium-sized companies that are using emerging technology and new delivery models to improve healthcare in Canada. Visit the exhibit floor to view the latest in digital health innovations! • Monday, June 5, from 10:00am – 4:00pm • Tuesday, June 6, from 9:30am – 6:30pm
SOCIAL EVENTS Welcome Reception | Sunday, June 4, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
The e-Health 2017 Steering Committee invites all delegates to the e-Health 2017 Welcome Reception. Start off the Conference with this opportunity to meet colleagues, network and catch up with friends! Admission to the Welcome Reception is included when purchasing a full conference registration.
Fun Run | Monday, June 5, 6:30 to 7:30 a.m.
Balance all the mental stimulation that you will receive at the conference with some physical activity. All delegates are welcome to take part in this activity at no additional cost but pre-registration is required, as space is limited.
CHIA Gala | Monday, June 5, 6:15 to 10:00 p.m.
The CHIA Gala will begin with a reception followed by a three course dinner and award presentations. These awards pay tribute to individuals, projects, teams and companies. Awards will be presented to the leading individual or team in the following categories. A small commitment fee is being ask of $25.00 which e-Health will be donating the full ticket amount to Daily Bread Food Bank. • Clinician Leadership • Corporate Citizenship • Emerging Leader in Health Informatics • Excellence in Canadian Telehealth • Innovation in the Adoption of Health Informatics • Leadership in the Field of Health Informatics • Project Team – Implementation • Project Team – Innovation & Care Delivery • Project Team – Patient Care Innovation • Steven Huesing Scholarship A complete list of award category descriptions is available at: www.e-healthconference.com/social-events
Mix & Mingle Reception | Tuesday, June 6, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
All e-Health 2017 exhibitors welcome Conference delegates to a reception. This will be an excellent opportunity to visit the exhibition, network and make connections. Admission to the Exhibitor Reception is included when purchasing a full conference registration.
TECHNOLOGY
M ICROSOF T:
E XPANDING VANCOUVER’S TECHNOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT One of the world’s leading technology companies has expanded its Vancouver presence. What does this mean for the city? Business Review Canada investigates
Wr i t t e n by : N E LL WA LK E R
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TECHNOLOGY AS REPORTED BY Business Review Canada, Microsoft recently opened the doors of its Excellence Center in Vancouver. It is a facility intended to create advanced products for the global market, develop British Columbia’s technological talent pool, and inject millions into the local economy.
Business Review USA & Canada speaks to Edoardo De Martin, Director of Microsoft Vancouver, in an exclusive interview about the project, and its current and future impact. The initial question is: why Vancouver? “Vancouver is a terrific place for development,” says De Martin. “It is one of the world’s most beautiful cities, has a growing tech ecosystem, offers access to great computer science talent from local universities, contains a diverse workforce, and it’s close to Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond. “We have history in British Columbia, with game development operations that go back almost a decade, and there’s a lot more we can do here. While tech is certainly 12
June 2017
strong in Waterloo, Toronto, and Montreal, Vancouver has some very unique advantages.” Microsoft made its announcement about the development of the center on May 1st, 2014, but it had been in development for many years. The building was specifically designed to best harness the staff’s creativity – De Martin explains how: “Teams have plenty of open work spaces that are loosely defined by white boards, couches and other seating areas to use for brainstorms and meetings. There are also a variety of meeting rooms that allow for ‘heads-down, focused work’ and small-to-large team collaboration. “We have an Espresso Bar, a
WHILE TECH IS CERTAINLY STRONG IN WATERLOO, TORONTO, AND MONTREAL, VANCOUVER HAS SOME VERY UNIQUE ADVANTAGES
game room, two 150-person multipurpose rooms, and an open stairway that connects our two floors. The Microsoft Vancouver office is also home to a maker space called The Garage where employees can step away from their desks and explore creativity through hands-on project work with 3D printing, laser cutting and even embroidery.” The aim of the center was to gather talented Canadians together, utilizing skills of the best and brightest to help in the development
of future technologies. Microsoft Vancouver will bring over 750 working positions to the local area, injecting more than $90 million in direct investments to the city annually. Across British Columbia, the economic impact is likely to be $180 million per year. But what has the center done already for its surroundings? “Vancouver has a growing tech ecosystem that we are excited to be a part of,” says De Martin. “The video game talent that the city is known for is ideal for 3D 13
development and we’re leveraging that for Microsoft HoloLens development. The potential for mixed-reality tech in redefining Windows 10 and personal computing is tremendous. We’re already seeing the platform impact creativity and productivity in a number of different industries. “We’re also continuing to bring talented people together to collaborate and innovate. We’re hiring across all teams and have an internship program that brings 50 students per year from top Canadian universities to Vancouver for an entrepreneurial program that empowers them to build apps from the ground up.” As it develops its technologies, its staff, and the economy around
it, Microsoft Vancouver will also be working on some of its best-loved brands and franchises, such as Gears of War and NFL for XboxOne and Windows 10, Skype, OneNote, and applications for HoloLens. De Martin sees only positivity in the future of Microsoft Vancouver, a facility which is already influencing the world around it for the better. “Our hope is that Microsoft Vancouver will help the global organization continue to expand its development presence in the city,” he concludes. “The center will serve as an engine for technological innovation, drawing on talent, entrepreneurs and innovators to create product breakthroughs while contributing to Vancouver’s tech ecosystem.” 15
TOP 10
TOP 10 most profitable CANADIAN companies Which national companies generate the most profit? Business Review Canada investigates
AS ONE OF the world’s wealthiest nations, Canada’s economy is primarily driven by the service industry, which employs around three-quarters of Canadians. A member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Group of Seven (G7), Canada also has considerable manufacturing, energy and agricultural sectors. Currently, the country’s GDP per capita sits at $40,400, making it the 10th largest economy in the world. Below, we list the 10 most profitable Canadian companies that are helping to maintain Canada’s place at the forefront of global commerce. W r i t t e n b y : S A N DY C L A R K E
TOP 10
02 TORONTODOMINION BANK Profits: $8,073 million
01 ROYAL BANK OF CANADA Profits: $3,633 million Canada’s largest bank has over 80,000 employees worldwide, serving over 16 million clients across 38 countries. As one of North America’s leading financial institutions, it provides personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. The Toronto-based bank is led by CEO David I. McKay, and has its sights fixed on becoming one of the world’s most trusted and successful financial institutions.
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Established in 1955 through the amalgamation of The Bank of Toronto and The Dominion Bank, over 25 million customers are served worldwide by Canada’s secondlargest bank. As one of the world’s leaders in online banking, it boasts an impressive client base of over 11 million online and mobile users. Brian M. Levitt has been the chairman of the TD Bank Group board since 2011, leading a team that places a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion, community initiatives, and environmental responsibility.
M O S T P R O F I TA B L E C A N A D I A N C O M PA N I E S
03 BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA Profits: $7,093 million Known as Scotiabank, the institution bills itself as “Canada’s most international bank”, with around 89,000 ‘Scotiabankers’ in offices in more than 50 countries serving over 23 million customers. Led by President and CEO Brian J. Porter, the bank is a member of the London Bullion Market Association and one of five banks that participates in the London gold fixing. Due to its international reach, Scotiabank has been able to help people around the world through its corporate responsibility initiatives and employee-volunteer programs focusing on education, health care, social services, arts and culture, sports and environment.
04 BANK OF MONTREAL Profits: $4,444 million Established in 1817 in a rented house in Montreal, Canada’s oldest and fourth-largest bank has more than 900 branches and over seven million customers. In celebration of its bicentennial anniversary, the bank continues to fulfil wishes throughout 2017 – made through its BMO200 initiative – as a thank you to the communities it serves. The bank’s CEO, William A. Downe, was named a Member of the Order of Canada in December 2016, and is set to retire in October 2017. He will be succeeded by current COO Darryl White.
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TOP 10
06 CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY CO. Profits: $3,626 million
05 CIBC Profits: $3,633 million The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has operations in the United States, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. Over 40,000 employees look after more than 11 million customers worldwide. Under the stewardship of President and CEO Victor Dodig, CIBC has enjoyed a number of accomplishments and was ranked by Global Finance Magazine as one of the top ten safest banks in North America. Through the bank’s annual ‘Miracle Day’ on the first Wednesday in December, $85 million has been raised for children’s charities across Canada, and £234 million has been raised globally since the initiative began in 1984.
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Operating on around 20,000 routemiles of track in North America and offering rail connections to three coasts, Canadian National Railway (CN) is the largest rail network in Canada and the only transcontinental network in North America. With over 22,000 employees, the network serves 75 percent of the United States population and all major Canadian markets. Led by CEO Luc Jobin, CN transports approximately $250 billion worth of goods annually for a wide range of business sectors. The formally government-owned network was privatised in 1995 and, in 2011, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was the largest holder of CN stock.
M O S T P R O F I TA B L E C A N A D I A N C O M PA N I E S
08 BCE INC. 07
BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT INC. Profits: $2,981 million With 115 years of investing in real assets, Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) boasts around $US250 billion in assets managed worldwide by 700 of its investment professionals. Led by Chairman Frank McKenna and CEO Bruce Flatt, BAM has over 70,000 employees operating in more than 30 countries. The global asset management firm is strongly committed to serving communities through volunteer programs and charitable giving. As part of its focus on environmental responsibility, BAM has developed expertise in water conservation, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, recycling and wildlife preservation.
Profits: $2,852 million BCE – originally Bell Canada Enterprises – is Canada’s largest communications company, led by CEO George Cope. BCE offers a range of services under Bell, Bell Aliant, and Bell MTS brands. These include fibre-based IPTV and Canada’s fastest high-speed Internet services, 4G LTE wireless, robust home phone services as well as business network and communications services. BCE has a strong commitment to promoting mental health throughout Canada, with national awareness and antistigma campaigns like Bell ‘Let’s Talk Day’ and funding of community care and access, research, and workplace initiatives.
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M O S T P R O F I TA B L E C A N A D I A N C O M PA N I E S
09 GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC.
10 MAGNA INTERNATIONAL INC.
Profits: $2,807 million
Profits: $2,676 million
Founded in Winnipeg in 1981, GreatWest Lifeco (Lifeco) is an insurancecentred financial holding company that focuses on wealth management, life and health insurance. Led by Chairman of the Board Jeffrey Orr and President and CEO Paul Mahon, Lifeco operates in North America, Europe, and Asia. Over 24,000 employees look after more than 30 million customer worldwide. As part of its code of conduct, Lifeco’s corporate responsibility program has three central commitments: to respect and support human rights; minimise its environmental impact; and to make a positive contribution to the communities served by Lifeco and its subsidiary companies.
Magna is a leading automotive supplier with 321 manufacturing operations and 102 product development, engineering and sales centres in 29 countries. Under the leadership of CEO Donald Walker, the company employs over 159,000 people. In the U.S., Magna was ranked in the top 20 percent of the 500 best large employers in Forbes’ list of America’s Best Employers 2017. On Forbes’ list of Canada’s Best Employers, Magna is the top-ranked auto parts company and 2nd in the automotive industry overall.
(N.B: Monetary figures are in Canadian dollars and profits represent most recent four reported quarters, as of May 6 2016) 23
HELPING CANADA LEAD THE CHANGE TO SMARTER HEALTHCARE Written by Stuart Hodge Produced by Quiyonni Borja
TECHNOLOGY
Jennifer MacGregor, Allscripts Managing Director for Canada, talks to us about the company’s Canadian heritage, what lies at the root of Allscripts’ success and what innovations the future holds
A
t the heart of Allscripts Healthcare Solutions’ core mission lies a commitment to revolutionizing the way that digital healthcare is delivered, not just in Canada but beyond our borders as well. That may sound like a very grandiose dream; but, since it was founded in 1986, the company has been building an infrastructure to empower health professionals to provide ‘proactive’ rather than ‘reactive’ care through an open, connected community of health. Allscripts’ Sunrise™, an enterprise-wide digital healthcare platform, is widely used throughout Canada, the United States and around the globe as a premier provider of electronic health records, population health management and operational solutions. The company’s network connects 2,500 hospitals and 45,000 medical practices. Allscripts Managing Director for Canada, Jennifer MacGregor, spoke to Business Review Canada about how Allscripts uses that network to help healthcare providers deliver superior care to every single citizen. And the key distinction therein, is that MacGregor w w w. a l l s c r i p t s . c o m
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talks of ‘citizens’ rather than ‘patients’. She explains: “We are focused on establishing an open and integrated solution across the care continuum and being able to provide the level of insight required to our providers, our clinicians, our citizens – we call them citizens for a reason, because we do not want our people to be ill – and our program administrators, whether it be jurisdiction, governmental or hospital administrators. “We want to provide them with the right information so that they can make the best decisions about the way that they are deploying care from a program perspective. We also want to provide them with the knowledge base to know how they’re generating value out of their investments and how they’re ensuring that they’re providing the best level of service to their patient and population catchment areas across the continuum. “It means we need to have active and dynamic care plans that will enable transition through care, postacute and out into the community – and also establishing a network in the community so that we can provide
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the types of services and access to ensure people get proactive care, not getting ill to the point where they’re needing high-cost services. “That way it’s well people, and not sick patients – that is very important. I would say one of the greatest assets we have is the passion that every Allscripts associate believes in the mission of ensuring that our providers and our clients are looking after well people and not sick patients. That is what permits us to do what we do every day.” It’s all very well and good saying that – but how exactly does that work on a day-to-day basis? MacGregor says: “Okay, let’s look at it in terms of someone who is being looked after in a jurisdiction with access to all of our solutions. Say, perhaps, that the individual may have been identified as potentially having a chronic disease and may not be following appropriate guidelines to take good care of themselves. “What often happens in this situation, is that patients degrade in that situation to such an extent that
TECHNOLOGY
WE WANT TO PROVIDE OUR CLIENTS WITH
THE RIGHT INFORMATION” – Jennifer MacGregor, Managing Director - Canada
Managing Director - Canada
Before joining Allscripts 12 years ago, Jennifer studied for a genetics degree and some of her early roles saw her working in medical clinics, implementing billing and scheduling systems, whilst at university.
they have to come into the emergency room needing immediate help. But with our solution, not only are we able to identify that patient on the premise of potential lab results or diagnoses in our system, but we can see early on that there is an individual in our citizen portal who is engaging with our care providers. “All of these providers have one view of this patient’s health record and their condition and through our interaction with that patient, we can also evaluate that they may not be
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Jennifer MacGregor
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During her first six years with Allscripts, she was very focused on implementation, working across several sites in California, Texas and other parts of the U.S. Her areas of expertise were benefits realization, clinician and physician adoption and computer provider order entry and workflow redesign. She then joined the international business unit just over 4 years ago, dealing with Allscripts’ global business. That role was focused on the company’s professional services and ensuring that solutions were delivered and clients’ expectations and performance targets were being achieved. Then finally, at the beginning of 2014, she was asked to become the company’s MD for Canada, expanding her purview so that she now has responsibility for not just implementation but also sales and operations across the country.
A L L S C R I P T S H E A LT H C A R E S O L U T I O N S
exercising or achieving the goals that we have agreed upon in the care plan, which is also viewable on the citizen portal, and that they may even be missing follow-up appointments. “With our solutions, we can proactively contact somebody in the care team to reach out to that patient and intervene, preventing a potential decline and them having to come into the emergency room or the hospital. “It changes the paradigm, from waiting to deal with the concerns and issues of the patient in a reactive way, to proactively identifying individuals
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who need earlier intervention to ensure a better health outcome.” In order to do that, there has to be a strong infrastructure in place and the backbone of Allscripts offering is the Sunrise platform. MacGregor describes this as the company’s “flagship solution” and also revealed that it was invented here in Canada. She adds: “Sunrise was actually developed in British Columbia and the first market it was used in was Canada. It came out of a
TECHNOLOGY
history of previous development programs that go all the way back into the 1970s in British Columbia. “It’s through that evolution and innovation coming out of British Columbia that we’ve been able to grow and provide a solution base which services hundreds of clients across 15 countries.”
“WE’RE VERY PROUD OF THAT CANADIAN HERITAGE”
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One of the hospitals which uses the Sunrise platform is St Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto, a teaching facility in the west of the city which treats more than 20,000 patients a year. The hospital’s Deputy CIO Purvi Desai told us that Allscripts is one of their biggest IT vendors, and that the relationship remains strong due to the company’s flexibility and responsiveness. She comments: “As we take on major initiatives in any clinical area,
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Allscripts is a key resource to help us understand the capabilities in the application and to provide us with options in terms of how we leverage functionality in the system. “For my team, they help us with how to configure and manage the application for the end users. Then, once functionality is operational, they are our tier-two level of support. My team would do preliminary troubleshooting and if it was something that wasn’t with the realm of our understanding we
TECHNOLOGY
would escalate over to Allscripts so that they could assist us with our troubleshooting. “Sometimes they need a bit more information in terms of how it’s impacting our end users but we articulate the priority of the need, so if it’s something front-facing, impacting clinicians and patients, they certainly understand the important of providing a resolution as quickly as possible. “As we’re exploring opportunities or new projects within our clinical programs we reach out to Allscripts to find out what solutions will be available to us and to help us strategize if we have a business problem in front of us – how do we best tackle it for our end users? There’s a constant dialogue in
terms of planning, implementation and execution and then ongoing support and maintenance. Those are the key areas where we work together.” But it’s not just Sunrise that is at the root of Allscripts’ success. The company has four key areas of focus which allow them to offer such a comprehensive infrastructure for health providers and patients to benefit from. The third “pillar”, as MacGregor likes to refer to them, is Allscripts’ CareInMotion™ population health platform where data is aggregated from across various systems, harmonized and then served up to a clinicians within their workflow. She says that’s “a significant
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TECHNOLOGY
IT CHANGES THE PARADIGM,
from waiting to deal with the concerns and issues of the patient in a reactive way, to proactively identifying individuals who need earlier intervention to ensure a better health outcome. – Jennifer MacGregor, Managing Director - Canada
differentiator” for clinicians, because they’re not going to have to go anywhere else to find the information, it comes to them. CareInMotion is where the ‘citizen portal’ that MacGregor mentioned earlier is used, and the backbone of it is a platform called dbMotion™, which is in use across the province of Manitoba and Fraser Health Authority (the second largest health region in Canada). But the fourth area of focus is the one that sounds particularly exciting, the company’s precision medicine platform. MacGregor’s background is in genetics, so you
can understand why she speaks with genuine excitement about the company’s work in this field. She says: “Allscripts’ wholly owned subsidiary 2bPrecise is about being able to incorporate genomic information into clinical practice, so building the last mile from medical research to clinical practice at the point of care. We’re just at the forefront and it’s not just going to be Allscripts, as you can imagine. “As we’re looking down the path of using sequencing information to guide treatment decisions and ensuring an understanding what it
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“We reach out to Allscripts to find out what solutions will be available to us and to help us strategize if we have a business problem in front of us.” – Purvi Desai
TECHNOLOGY
Senior Vice President and General Manager of Allscripts Acute, Rich Berner, visiting St. Joe’s Hospital
means to practicing clinicians. For example, from a pharmacogenetics perspective if a different drug will be more effective for a patient because of a biovariant we can identify that and provide guidance to the provider. We are at the precipice of being able to incorporate that information into clinical decisions whilst our clinicians are seeing patients, very exciting.� The 2bPrecise platform became
generally available earlier this year and the company have partnered with the National Institute of Health. It will be exciting to see the further strides that the company makes with the platform in the years to come, and it also serves to explain why MacGregor is just as excited about her work now, if not a great deal more so, than when she first joined Allscripts some 12 years ago.
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International Fitness Holdings -
benefiting Canada’s lifestyles Despite Alberta falling on hard times during this recession, the health and wellbeing company continues to attract new members and grow its footprint. We find out how this has happened Written by Leila Hawkins Produced by Quiyonni Borja
I N T E R N AT I O N A L F I T N E S S H O L D I N G S
T
he Canadian province of Alberta is going through one of the worst recessions in its history. Yet against these odds fitness group International Fitness Holdings is not only riding it out, it’s prospering with new sites and a growing customer base. Catering to all lifestyles International Fitness Holdings operates three separate fitness clubs, each with very distinct identities. World Health Calgary specializes in its industry-leading personal training program, offering free trials to guests and with a large proportion of their members signed up to it. Spa Lady is its women’s only fitness club, with zumba, hatha yoga, barre and cycle classes among others, at competitive prices. Bankers Hall Club is the high-end executive health club, with nutrition coaches, massage therapists and squash courts in addition to personal training and group exercise classes. With these different operations the group can cater to all adults (18-81+), of all fitness levels, shapes and sizes. Each club has several sites, and Scott Wildeman, Senior Vice President of Operations, explains that three are in downtown while the rest are also in locations convenient for people to visit to and from work. “The no 1 factor in exercise endurance is making it a habit” he says, “and it will only become
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H E A LT H C A R E
ifhinc.ca
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H E A LT H C A R E
a habit if it’s able to fit in to somebody’s life.” The very ethos of the company is that it’s not just intent on making a profit, it also wants to improve people’s lifestyles. “Our focus is on building the habit of exercise vs. just selling a membership,” he says. “We’re focused on results but also the behavioral change of coming to the club on a weekly basis. We understand that to be successful we also have to work synergistically with things outside of the club like wearable technologies, so we can actually keep people active when they’re not in the gym. We don’t need people coming to the five days a week, once or twice is great, and as long as they’re active outside the gym we’re all happy.” This isn’t a practice that’s naturally ingrained into people’s lives here, he says. “Changing exercise behavior is very difficult. Most people will relapse, so we focus on how to get them back on if they fall off.” Overcoming the great recession Wildeman oversees all the group’s personal training programs, group fitness classes, therapies and nutrition, as well as the company’s human resources. He started working here part time while training to become a Physical Education teacher for schools, but then decided to stay on full time as a personal trainer. “I loved it so much. I pretty much am [still] a teacher, I just teach grown-ups,” he says. Wildeman is part of a dedicated management team who are steering through one of the worst
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recessiona Alberta has ever experienced. The region’s main industry is oil, and since 2015 prices have plunged dramatically causing tens of thousands of job losses. This collapse hit the exact areas where International Fitness Holdings have sites. As Wildeman explains, “it’s been localized in Alberta, and primarily localized in Calgary, and
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in Calgary primarily downtown. We’ve seen less volume in terms of new membership sales and higher cancellations than in the past, so our member volumes have changed, and then the amount of people taking part in programs such as personal training has also changed.” Yet in spite of the downturn of the local economy, in 2016, during
H E A LT H C A R E
the worst part of the recession the company opened three new clubs. This was thanks to the new measures it’s put in place. “We have new pricing structures so we’re trying to make our services more affordable for people on a consistent basis. We are trying to have member-friendly options like freezing memberships for a period of time. We’ve implemented a number
of policies that way, and we try to add value to each membership to focus on people getting their money’s worth.” Because of this the company is ready should it happen again. “The recession, everybody is saying it’s not going to bounce back, it’s going to be a slow climb, so we have to be prepared to thrive in the current environment, not just survive.”
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In fact the group is on the upswing, looking to expand into further locations as well as internally, with new programs and products which will be disclosed in the near future. Increasing competition Even though the region’s economy is depressed, the market is becoming increasingly competitive. “We are in Calgary and Edmonton, so between the two cities there’s probably 2.5 million people that are available for
fitness services. There’s a good demand in the industry, about 16 percent of people seek out fitness services. However in the last few years we’ve seen many competitors enter our market both in national chains and boutique studios,” he says. These include the large national brand GoodLife Fitness, which is fast expanding, and the smaller chain Gold’s Gym. Wildeman also cites boutique studios, municipal recreation centers and branches
H E A LT H C A R E
of YMCA as competitors. Another reason International Fitness Holdings has succeeded despite these challenges is having an everpresent awareness of being in a sector that keeps transforming. “We have to accept and embrace change – that’s the one constant in the fitness industry. The industry is fairly young and there are always new things and fads and ways to do things. We have to always be looking into the future and not being afraid of change.” Coping with the recession and changing people’s lifestyle habits may be challenges, but Wildeman says they’re very good at handling them. “Getting people to come back every week is our major focus and point of differentiation.”
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Making healthcare digital Written by Nell Walker Produced by David Kulowitch
G E H E A LT H C A R E
As a business composed of digital natives, GE Healthcare is well placed to make great technological strides. We speak to Charles Koontz, Jon Zimmerman, and James Richards about how GE Healthcare has transformed both itself and its industry
“We
are digital natives. We are purely about people, process, information, and IT. We speak, eat, and breathe digital.” Jon Zimmerman, Vice President and General Manager at GE, is animated and eloquent as he describes his responsibilities over GE Healthcare’s valuebased solutions portfolio. GE Healthcare exists to leverage its best-in-class technology and digital expertise to deliver outcomes for its customers, with a core focus on value-based care: enhanced care quality, increased practice efficiency, lower per capita costs and provider
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satisfaction. Zimmerman is hugely excited by GE Healthcare’s ability to ensure that “the right people are in the right roles, with the right skills, in the right quantities, at the right time.” But it takes a detailed and sophisticated strategic vision to achieve the standards GE Healthcare has set itself – a vision that has led the organization to consolidate resources into a tight, streamlined, horizontal platform, as described by Charles Koontz, CEO of GE Healthcare Digital and CDO of GE Healthcare. “We’ve created horizontal capabilities, which we’re driving at several levels,” he explains with a passion borne of experience. “There’s the Internet of Things, which we take advantage of using our Predix analytics platform – it connects devices, collects the data,
TECHNOLOGY
Central to GE Healthcare’s digital strategy is the use of cloud technology – to collect, analyze and process data and to serve as a common founda
WE SPEAK, EAT, AND BREATHE DIGITAL – Jon Zimmerman, Vice President and General Manager at GE
Jon Zimmerman Vice President and General Manager, ValueBased Care Solutions
Zimmerman is the VP and GM of Value-Based Care Solutions at GE Healthcare. He was previously at Availity, where he served as the General Manager of Clinical Solutions, leading the strategic development, planning and delivery of clinical information exchange via the Availity Health Information Network.
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G E H E A LT H C A R E
Charles Koontz President and CEO of GE Healthcare Digital and CDO of GE Healthcare
Koontz is Chief Digital Officer (CDO), GE Healthcare, and President and CEO, GE Healthcare Digital. In his roles, Koontz leads the horizontal implementation of analytics, cloud technology and deep learning solutions across all of GE Healthcare, and the strategy and operations of the Healthcare Digital business, which includes software solutions for enterprise imaging, workforce management and financial management.
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and ingests it into the cloud. We do a lot of what we call Advanced Preventive Maintenance, which is driven across the company and applied to healthcare. Plus, we are driving two dimensions of horizontal: the internal IT system that we call Digital Thread, and a consortium of third-party developers.” The Digital Thread is, quite literally, what connects all operational processes within GE Healthcare. The thread automates processes and enables insights and actions that improve performance. This lies within the remit of James Richards, the company’s CIO, who summarizes its purpose. “The simplest phrase I consistently use to explain ‘digital’ is that we need to get more output with less input,” he says. “Most companies that have been successful in digital have not entirely built their own technologies; they have leveraged existing capabilities and put them together in a way that drives customer benefit for far less input than would have been required in the past. I also need to make it eminently easier for our employees
TECHNOLOGY
GE Healthcare is building digital twins of hospitals, mining data to improve performance at the individual asset and entire network level
to perform their jobs, with better tools and better applications, and in some cases this means completely eliminating non-value-added tasks that no longer need to exist.” Artificial Intelligence as a service For GE Healthcare, technological advancements are a staple of its operations. However, there is particular excitement around AI something the business has been hard at work developing and is now deploying to tremendous effect. “We’re partnering with hospitals around the country. They have
millions of patient records, and in those records are millions of images collected from GE machines,” Koontz explains. “Let’s say, for example, you have a lung condition – we provide algorithms that can identify an issue that might need immediate intervention, allowing the radiologist to more rapidly provide a diagnosis and begin delivering treatment. We use these clinical partnerships to help create the algorithms, and then the radiologist will give us a thousand images of nodules in the lung, creating what’s called curated data. The potential accuracy
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James Richards CIO, GE Healthcare
Richards is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for GE Healthcare, based in Chicago, IL. He was appointed to his current role in March 2016. Prior to joining Healthcare, Richards was the CIO, Finance. This role was created in Jan 2014, and was responsible for Enterprise & Finance Systems strategy, operations and deployments across the company. He partnered closely with the Finance, IT, and Global Operations teams in driving these priorities.
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of these algorithms is over 99 percent.” GE Healthcare now has clinical partnerships that address a number of disease states and focus areas, including lung, brain, cardiovascular, pelvic and women’s health. The company is leveraging its existing advanced imaging capabilities alongside the clinical expertise of its partners to develop algorithms that will aid physicians in the speed and accuracy of their diagnoses. “This is going to be critically important for emerging countries, many of which have
TECHNOLOGY
Through a partnership with University of California San Francisco (UCSF), GE Healthcare is developing a library of deep learning algorithms, one
a shortage of radiologists. This is real, and the solution is being developed today,” Koontz adds. For Zimmerman, ‘artificial intelligence’ is no longer an appropriate term for what the technology has become. “I personally do not believe in artificial intelligence,” he says with a touch of humor, before swiftly expanding on his position. “It’s because A) there’s nothing really artificial about it anymore,
it’s real intelligence, and B) it really doesn’t have any value unless it’s applied to something. Our team and our customers think of it more as applied intelligence. If you apply machine learning to the various data types, insights and intelligence will be born. That intelligence then has to be planted into the workflow of, or the experience of, a consumer, a clinical professional, or a revenue cycle person. So, as
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Qvera & GE Healthcare Customers Shoulder-To-Shoulder for More Than 15 Years Qvera is proud to be the trusted go-to interoperability partner for GE Healthcare customers through the most revolutionary time in healthcare IT.
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ver our 15 years of collaboration, interoperability has evolved from interfacing in-house systems to sharing patient data across communities, regions, and states. Qvera’s founding partners began working with GE Healthcare customers back when the products were known as Logician and Paradigm. Today Qvera provides universal interoperability solutions such as bi-directional health registry connectivity in all 50 states, and bi-directional data exchange between GE Centricity® sites and hospital systems such as Epic, McKesson, Cerner, and MEDITECH.
Qvera’s workflows go beyond checking the box to meet government requirements and enhance the GE Centricity user experience, providing doctors what they need at the point of care and improving patient health outcomes. As the healthcare IT landscape continues to mature, we are on the forefront of evolving interoperability standards. Working with HL7 and IHE, we are helping define the standards of the future and driving down the cost of healthcare interoperability.
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TECHNOLOGY
we invest in understanding data and what it’s telling us, we try hard to do things that make a difference and create better outcomes.” A common source of truth Through its Digital Thread, GE Healthcare has aggressively rationalized its application landscape to achieve these levels of technological advancement. Like any large enterprise, it had evolved from an operation that ran its own data centers and databases and deployed point solutions, leading to thousands upon thousands of applications speaking to each other, making IT incredibly complex. “The mission of Digital Thread is to turn that spaghetti of applications into a consistent global set of pillar applications, which form the foundation of the business,” Richards explains. “When you have a consistent data set across the organization, you have a common source of truth. Then, you can start building applications and analytical tools which sit on the foundation, allowing you to do
incredibly powerful things.” Fully harnessing the data driven by this cleaner, more uniform process is, in Zimmerman’s words, “a wonderfully large, hard problem to tackle.” With 37 years of experience in this industry, he is still thrilled by the advancements he has seen and is continuing to help develop, because he is able to see the ever-improving outcomes from the inside. “One of the biggest challenges is the fact that data is largely defined by individual health systems, meaning there’s a huge quantity of it and it is often highly fragmented. This isn’t just in healthcare, of course – this is across the world at large, and really, it’s only in the early stages of being tackled. You have to be able to understand data in all its forms, so that it can be correlated and applied.”
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TECHNOLOGY
The art of growth regarding how important technology Part of what helped GE Healthcare is and how increasingly pervasive it grow into its current status as an is, is the intelligent harnessing and industry giant is acquisitions, meaning application of it to make a difference,” a lot of systems have been cleaned up he continues. “To embrace quality, to create consistency. That, combined efficiency, and the ability to be rewarded with the streamlining for the work that you do.” of GE’s own data An example of good systems, meant IT that GE Healthcare a concerted drive has firmly embraced is towards consolidation. cloud computing. Since “The whole idea part of the company’s here is that some digital consolidation was IT energies are the funneling of huge good, some are volumes of information bad,” Koontz says. into taut, legible “We’ve consolidated streams, an effective – James Richards, hundreds of vendors data storage system CIO, GE Healthcare down to four primary was key, and cloud ones, and we’re standardizing our technology met that need. processes into something horizontal.” “Three years ago, if you went to The good and bad IT energies a CIO in a hospital and said, Koontz mentions can be found “What about cloud?”, across the entirety of the digital they would have been landscape, reaching far beyond hesitant,” Koontz GE’s own in-house technology. In says. “Now, Zimmerman’s words, “technology with the in and of itself is a very powerful and dangerous intoxicant.” “I think the challenge we have
“When you have a consistent data set across the organization, you have a common source of truth”
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volume of data, they are more than willing to talk about cloud. Whatever the type of data – be it operational, financial, lab, or clinical – hospitals are wanting GE and others to help them process that data in an applicable form.” But it’s not just the elevated level of service it enables GE Healthcare to provide, Richards says. It’s fundamental to GE Healthcare’s success in the future. “If you think about what legacy organizations look like – doing everything ourselves, setting up in our data centers, deploying our own applications across multiple functions and various regions – that complexity does not enable sustainable growth,” he says. “That’s one of the major reasons why we’re pushing for a common foundation for the entire enterprise. By moving to cloud – and 40 percent
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of our applications are already there – we’ve made huge progress. The real value here is when you build a core foundation where you can rely on data integrity, that enables you to build things that may be very specific given new markets, new customers, and new regions. We can build lightweight capabilities accessible across the globe through a smartphone. That’s how you do sustainable growth.” Change from within None of GE Healthcare’s incredible work toward peak operational efficiency and top-level digital technology would have been possible without the initial step of changing minds from the top down. “There are major change management processes and methods that need to be put in place and should never be underestimated,” Koontz says. Looking at who the company can count on and how the organization moves forward is where change management comes into play, and the vision must be laid out for all. “You say ‘here’s the objective, here’s what we’re trying to achieve,
TECHNOLOGY
here’s why it’s important to the business, and here’s the role I need you to play in that vision’. That communication must be frequent and cascading,” he continues. Of course, all of this would mean nothing without GE Healthcare’s customers, and their patients in turn. Part of Zimmerman’s job, and one of his favorite elements of it in his own words, is engaging deeply with customers: “Those hospitals, clinics, and physicians give me the great privilege of understanding their operations, their challenges, and their needs,” he says. “I am blessed to bridge those two worlds. I get to
bring the best technologies to life, in a way that customers can adopt and use them to achieve better outcomes. That’s my role in life and I’m thrilled beyond words to be able to do this.” Richards adds: “We have to push a willingness to think through what the art of the possible is. There’s an insatiable demand for better patient outcomes, which is what we’re really after here. This goes beyond advancements like making it easier to make restaurant reservations – we’re talking about real lives at stake. “So I think that’s the exciting part – that the demand will always outstrip the supply.”
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Winnipeg
n r o reb
Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by Quiyonni Borja
Expanded building now spans two city blocks
RBC CONVENTION CENTRE WINNIPEG
The newly-named RBC Convention Centre has undergone a $180 million expansion, allowing it to host events on larger scales and in bigger volumes
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innipeg is a city on the up. The past decade has seen enormous investment in megaprojects designed to attract tourists and rejuvenate local communities. From the construction of a state-of-the-art football stadium and new airport to the renovation of green spaces and the opening of a world-renowned museum on human rights, the Manitoba capital is putting itself back on the map. The RBC Convention Centre is emblematic of this journey. Now the fourth largest such public facility in Canada, it serves as both a community hub for locals and go-to destination for conferences, trade shows, concerts and other large events. Under the stewardship of President and CEO Klaus Lahr, now in his 24th year as boss, the centre
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H O S P I TA L I T Y
Set for a dinner for 2,300, the City View Room is breathtaking
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has gone through two major and much-needed growth spurts. “I started here in 1993 at a time when the convention centre was around 20 years old and in dire need of a major renovation, which we embarked on just about immediately,” he recalls. “It took two and half years, and then we took on a very aggressive marketing and sales program – over the next three to five years we more than doubled our revenues. “Fast forward to 1999 and we realised that if we kept on growing at the same rate then we would need more space. We were facing challenges with customers who needed bigger spaces; or if we were running a small event this might stop us from hosting anything else at the same time.” It was another decade until Lahr could see what he describes as “the light at the end of tunnel” regarding expansion mark II. Having secured public funding from the Federal, Provincial and City authorities, the enlarged convention centre project had lift off and has been completed for more than a year.
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For Lahr, it is a vital component of the wider revival of Winnipeg. “Winnipeg also added the MTS Centre downtown, a new concert and ice hockey venue, home to the Winnipeg Jets,” he adds. “The site is quoted by Billboard magazine as one of the most booked out venues in North America.” On budget, on time That a public project of this size finished ahead of schedule and within budget is something of a rarity, and a testament to the smooth running of the process from start to finish. This involved the construction of a new South Building, taking the overall amount of meeting space above the 260,000 square feet mark. Other new features include 22,400 square feet of pre-function, lobby and registration space, a new underground car park with 150 spaces, a street level plaza with a weather protected gathering area, and a stunning City View Room located in the middle of the 131,000 square foot third floor exhibition hall. Evidently this is no mean logistical feat, and to carry this off with almost no disruption to activities in
York Ballroom can host large galas or be divided into four meeting/conference rooms
H O S P I TA L I T Y
KLAUS LAHR President and CEO
Klaus Lahr was educated and trained in the Hotel & Hospitality Industry in Germany, Switzerland and the USA, gaining experience in 5 star resorts and on a luxury cruise liner, before immigrating to Canada in 1977. Klaus’ hospitality career continued with Hyatt Hotels, Westin Hotels, Radisson Hotels and other 4 and 5 star hotel chains before joining the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg as General Manager in 1993. As President & CEO of the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg, Klaus has championed the facility’s role as a social, hospitality, and economic driver.
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“Our future is very, very, bright
and we are more than confident that we can continue to grow our share in the marketplace” - Klaus Lahr, President and CEO
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Memorable moments from the City View Room
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the existing North Building makes it all the more remarkable. “In the entire building process we received just one minor complaint,” says Lahr. “An audio visual company were among many partners that commented a number of times on how busy the convention centre was while the work was going on. They had budgeted downturn in revenue and that just didn’t materialise. “What made it work was that the contractors and the trades and our own operating department met on a weekly basis, going over in meticulous detail what could be done day by day, hour by hour. Some work had to be done at night, other times we had to take a break in order to reduce noise and dust. We worked hand in glove with all of our trades, contractors and architecture team. The customer remained number one throughout.” Among the key partners involved in the construction phase were primary contractor Stuart Olson Construction and the design team LM Architectural Group and Number TEN Architectural Group, whose insight helped address the challenge
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of stitching together a 40-year-old building with a brand new construct. The new build also carries with it sizable sustainable perks, helping it to achieve LEED Silver accreditation. “In the first year of operating we have seen a massive decrease in utilities consumption, which in turn has handsomely helped our bottom line,” explains Lahr. “The improved insulation factor is very important as well, especially given the dramatic temperature ranges seen here. It can
Third floor Carlton Concourse creates beautiful pre-function space
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be as low as -40’C and as high as 35’C degrees in the summer. This places a tremendous stress on buildings which must be adaptable to both extremes.” Bigger and better The expansion has undoubtedly solved the conundrum facing Lahr in the late 1990s. RBC Convention Centre is now in a position where it has the space for repeat customers to grow into, and the return to Winnipeg of The Skills
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Canada National Competition is a perfect demonstration of the site’s renewed appeal. “The last time they were here was in 2004 when they took over the entire facility,” Lahr states. “Now we have effectively doubled in size so they are coming back to us. We have a substantial outdoor facility and they are taking over every square foot of that as well as every square foot of indoor space on all three floors. Had we not expanded we simply would
not have been able to host them.” RBC Convention Centre can also run events concurrently - as well as the main exhibition space, it has three additional ballrooms, supporting a projected climb in revenues to the $20 million mark and beyond. On top of simply being bigger, the centre has modernised several technological aspects with the help of consultant partner Tetra Tech. The most notable enhancement is the access to free superfast WiFi
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H O S T P I TA L I T Y
throughout both buildings, installed in conjunction with TELUS. With the physical groundwork complete, the focus for Lahr is very much centred on service, this having rebranded and renamed to reflect the close relation with RBC Royal Bank. “We need to back this up with improved customer and guest services, “he adds, “and we are now embarking on a five year improvement program through the whole organisation.” Food and beverage and other product improvements are also being looked at closely. Revival The expansion has already had a direct impact on Winnipeg both socially and economically. The ability to run multiple events at once resulted in the convention centre accounting for 145,000 hotel room bookings in the year since completion, a massive increase on the 80-90,000 annual average seen before. “National Geographic has listed Winnipeg as one of its top destinations for 2016 and 2017,” continues Lahr. “There is a myriad of things
to feel proud about at the moment and the public is responding.” So too is Tourism Winnipeg, with which RBC Convention Centre is working closely on a program called ‘Bring it Home’. This involves approaching local influencers – Winnipeggers on national and international boards – and getting the foot in the door of their boardrooms in a bid to bring more business to the city. Those groups which are successful are awarded special Winnipeg Ambassador Plaques at the convention centre. Our discussion finishes with a nod to the future, and what Lahr thinks lies in store for both RBC Convention Centre and Winnipeg at large. He breathes and speaks energetic optimism, and is determined to maintain the momentum gathered over the course of the past decade. And he has every reason to feel optimistic. A $400 million office and retail complex is being built adjacent to the MTS Centre, while a new hotel is being developed next to the convention centre on the north side. Lahr concludes: “The building of
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our expansion will continue to be somewhat of a catalyst in the greater neighbourhood here. There is a real economic buzz taking place in the downtown area with new high rises being built. What happened 20 or 30 years ago was a downtown flight – people were leaving for the suburbs but now they are coming back, which is a wonderful development.
“The convention centre plays a very important role in being an entertainment and local community hub and we are very active in the non-for-profit sector, helping them to raise funds. Our future is very very bright, and we are more than confident that we can continue to grow our share in the marketplace.”
“We worked hand in glove with all of our trades, contractors and architecture team
The customer remained number one throughout” - Klaus Lahr, President and CEO
THE PATH OF
RESILIENCE The seventh annual Uptime Institute Data Center Industry Survey shows that businesses are as wedded as ever to their data centers, cloud or no cloud Written by John O’Hanlon
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T
he cost of not having a robust plan for managing your company’s data properly can be very high – a major outage at a data center is an existential threat to any business that has relies on it to store and manage its operational and transactional processes. Even if recovery is possible, the consequences can set the business back severely through loss of productivity and the consequent dip in revenue. Down the line, customer relations may sour as a result of system unreliability. The list goes on and any senior executive should be concerned about it – after all, top jobs may be on the line as the dominoes fall. If they want to sleep better at night they should be moving towards IT-based resiliency, says Matt Stansberry, Uptime Institute’s Senior Director of Content & Publications. Uptime Institute is best known for its Tier Certification, accepted as the design, build and operational standard for data centers round the globe. Furthermore one of its key roles is to
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help business assess and improve their strategies in respect of data management. Any colossus of the digital world, Google or Amazon, for example, could lose an entire data center and nobody would notice because the affected traffic would be re-routed elsewhere in the world. This is the paradigm of multi-site application resiliency, and the world of enterprise is moving towards it though it may take some time before that tanker turns to its new heading. This year’s Data Center Industry Survey, drawn from the perspectives of more than 1,000 international data center professionals and IT practitioners, reveals that IT resilience is growing and that 68 percent of businesses rely on it. The extent varies from sector to sector – for example 85 percent of logistics companies have a multi-site resiliency strategy that incorporates multiple data centers and relies on live IT application failover. Surprisingly, retail can only muster 58 percent and is one of the sectors with the lowest adoption rate. What really surprises Matt
CONSTRUCTION
Stansberry though is that only a third of companies say that they will meet the demand for increased data center capacity by shifting workloads to the cloud. “Many people don’t seem to be willing to throw out their legacy systems but are still investing in diesel generators and backup power.” One statistic thrown up by the survey has changed very little over the last four years. 65 percent of organizations deploy their IT assets in an enterpriseowned data center; 22 percent use a colocation or multi-tenant data center provider and only 13 percent have moved their assets to the cloud. “It
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Matt Stansberry is the Uptime Institute Senior Director of Content & Publications and Program Director for Uptime Institute Symposium. He has researched the convergence of technology, facility management, and energy issues in the data center since 2003. Mr. Stansberry operates the Uptime Institute social media outlets (Blog, Twitter, and YouTube channel), conducts the annual data center survey, and develops the agenda for Uptime Institute industry events including Symposium and Charrette. 84
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“Many people don’t seem to be willing to throw out their legacy systems but are still investing in diesel generators and backup power” – MATT STANSBERRY, Senior Director of Content & Publications
CONSTRUCTION
is moving slower than I’d have thought,” he says. “It is probably because it’s not easy to re-architect their legacy applications for a cloud environment.” Digital transformation is a seismic and traumatic operation for a large organization, and it can be costly too, but it does clear the way to future growth. So don’t expect an exodus of enterprise data centers’ workloads to co-location or the cloud. Inertia is an enemy to change. Stansberry predicts that investment in traditional data centers will continue for some years to come. Though Uptime Institute still earns its bread by monitoring the design, build, commissioning and operation of data centers, it has a big role in promoting effective management policies to its clients and across its network. More than 70 percent of respondents to the 2017 survey admit that their organizational processes for evaluating colocation and cloud providers left room for improvement and at worst were incoherent. “Managers may
VIDEO: Uptime
Institute’s 2017 Data Center Industry Survey Results
not have the breadth of vision to make effective decisions. We are really going to work on helping people look across silos.” The survey does show that there’s a much more realistic awareness of the business critical nature of data to a business and the consequences of outages. However, though 90 percent of organizations say they conduct root cause analysis of any IT outage, only 60 percent report that they measure the cost of downtime as a business metric. There still seems to be something of a gap between perception and action.
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