At FX Innovation, dreaming big has always been part of our DNA. From our origins as an independent IT service provider to becoming one of the first in Canada to provide full cloud-management services, we’ve always been ready to capitalize on opportunities to get closer to our ultimate goal.
What is that goal?
To be a leading enabler of digital transformation – not just in the Canadian market, but globally. And we want to help businesses become leaders in their own fields by accelerating their digital transformations and empowering them to get the most from the cloud. Now that we’re part of the Bell family, we can do that. With FX Innovation’s expertise in cloud-managed and professional services, combined with Bell’s national scale, resources, and world-class fibre and 5G networks, we can deliver end-to-end solutions to help businesses innovate and grow.
Together, we can dream even bigger – offering more comprehensive and widespread value to our clients.
One part vision, one part luck
When we founded the company in 2002, my business partner and I were fresh out of university and full of ambition. Although the internet bubble had just burst, we still saw a lot of potential in IT consulting, and we wanted to build something more agile than other large consulting companies. This gave us the ability to be more innovative and adapt faster to shifts in the market.
One of those shifts was the advent of cloud services. I’ve always been interested in technology, but even more than that, I’m interested in its impacts and in how and why companies choose to adopt new technologies. In the case of the cloud, I could immediately see its potential. But I also knew that disruptive technologies like the cloud can take decades to catch on, which gave us a huge opportunity to be an early mover in the space. We were young and fearless, with systems and processes we built from scratch, which allowed us to make the leap to full digital operations quickly and efficiently.
By focusing on implementing the right platform, forming the right partnerships and building the right skills, we made sure we would be well positioned when other companies were ready to go all in on the cloud. We adopted the ServiceNow platform to optimize our own operations and help our clients move to the cloud. We also focused on forging strong partnerships with all the major cloud providers. In the beginning, it was almost all small American companies because cloud services weren’t even available in Canada yet.
Today, that’s all paying off. Between 2010 and 2020, the cloud market grew by more than 500%, and it’s still growing. Nearly every company has a roadmap and a target date to be fully cloud-based. Many of them are using ServiceNow on their own, but have turned to us for professional and managed services to help them optimize their cloud environments. Our clients now include companies of all sizes, on both sides of the border.
Bell was a natural fit
Bell had been actively transforming from a legacy telco to a tech services and digital media leader – expanding their focus to include more of the technology services that clients are looking for. Many of those clients are also using ServiceNow, so our deep expertise with the platform caught Bell’s attention. They approached us about joining the Bell family, and we were thrilled with the opportunity to be part of Bell’s transformation.
Our excitement continued to grow when it became clear how closely our visions and values align. Where we value being kind and respectful, Bell is committed to creating an environment that fosters a sense of belonging for everyone. Where we stress the importance of a growth mindset, Bell supports every employee to fully immerse themselves in new opportunities. Where we strive to be proud of our accomplishments while retaining a sense of humility, Bell encourages each team member to make an impact. Living these values helps us be excited about what we do and about winning as a team.
For us, that team includes the customer. We’ve always treated our client relationships as long-term partnerships, with a focus on establishing a high level of trust so that we can dream together to develop the digital solutions to help them achieve their goals. Bell works the same way, always focused on being a true partner to every customer.
We’ve seen these values reflected in every interaction we’ve had with Bell. From the very beginning, every Bell team member we met was welcoming and supportive, and their enthusiasm for having us on board was evident.
The best of both worlds
Beyond shared values, we’ve also brought key synergies and complementary, mutually beneficial offerings that will help deliver more for all our customers. FX Innovation brings to the table deep expertise in cloud services backed by a true cloud-first mindset. Because we made the move to the cloud so early, we weren’t encumbered by the need to maintain historical offerings based on legacy hardware. That makes us the ideal partner to help Bell expand and enhance its cloud service offerings.
At the same time, joining forces with Canada’s largest communications company provided us with a host of benefits, too. Our dream of becoming a true leader that could compete alongside the major global players required resources that we simply didn’t have. By joining Bell, we can offer more services, including IoT and security. We can deliver those services through a world-class network. And thanks to Bell’s reputation and partner network, we can expand our reach farther than we ever could on our own.
Together, I believe we can deliver the best cloud services, and there is no doubt in my mind that we will continue to find innovative ways to advance these services, making them even better. We started FX Innovation with the dream of supporting a strong ecosystem of successful Canadian companies in every industry. By teaming up with Bell, I know we can achieve that dream. I can’t wait to see what else we can do.
Authors
Guillaume Bazinet CEO and Co-founder