Thirty days ago I was privileged to be named the President of a new company that has brought together three of Canada’s leading virtual event and collaboration companies: Momentum Conferencing, The Streaming Network, and Evolve Collaboration.
For full information about the merger, read the press release here: www.thestreamingnetwork.com/press/
As someone who has been the President of a company (The Streaming Network) for almost 10 years, it is rare that I learn so much about things I thought I knew in such a short time. But this past month has already been such a learning experience.
Our Competition Won’t Invest in Canada
I’m not sure if it is the weakness of the Canadian dollar or unique nature of the Canadian landscape, but since I have taken over this post I have realized that when it comes Commercial Grade Bounce House to Webinars, Virtual Events and all matters of collaboration, our Canadian market is dominated by US companies who at one point in time felt that having people on the ground in Canada was viable but no longer hold that view point.
Canadians like Working with Canadians
Part of my responsibilities over the past 30 days has included speaking to existing customers as we completed annual reviews, and we confirmed that one of the primary reasons that our customers like working with our various organizations is that the Customer Service, Customer Success Managers, Call Operators and Webinar Production Staff are all located in Canada. Not only is this a big reason why our customers like working with us, it’s also a big reason why they continue working with us.
Customers are Starving for Knowledge
In the prospect calls I have joined, I have found that customers are starving for knowledge. The landscape of collaboration and Unified Communications is extremely muddled right now. The emergence of products like Skype for Business and Cisco Spark and the litany of Web Conferencing and Video Conferencing as a service app’s that have launched in the past four or five years make it hard for even the most educated of buyers to select the right product for their companies internal/external collaboration needs.
We Can Do Better & We Will
Within our three companies there is over 201 Years of industry experience and the average tenure of our sales and support staff is 5+ years! We have team members who have been around collaboration for the better part of two decades and streaming media since before the internet was ready. Our wealth of experience needs to be shared more effectively to benefit our customers and the market; we will continue to get better at that to serve you better.
Matt
