
For the second consecutive year, Orckestra, a privately held information technology firm, is among the fifty fastest growing emerging companies in Canada. The ranking is conducted annually by PROFIT magazine and is presented in its October issue under the PROFIT HOT 50 heading.
The success of gaining this nomination relies on the trust that has been granted to Orckestra by its clients since its creation in 2006. Orckestra is a young company and its strong expertise of technologies, mainly e-commerce and advanced search tools, has enabled it to differentiate itself and to find a place among the industry's leaders. This has resulted in Orckestra rising to the 39th place of PROFIT's HOT 50 ranking in Canada. "Creativity, foresight and focus are just some of the traits required to launch a successful business in today's volatile marketplace," says PROFIT editor Ian Portsmouth. "This year's PROFIT HOT 50 leaders have these qualities in abundance, plus many effective management ideas that other business owners would do well to borrow."
In his piece on this year's winners, senior editor Jim McElgunn writes: "the firms on PROFIT's 11th annual ranking of Canada's Emerging Growth Companies haven't merely survived in the most perilous economy in decades, they've flourished. The HOT 50 have shown that even in a Great Recession you can go great guns."
Orckestra continues to focus on its original purpose, that of encouraging companies to move from a traditional business model to one that is digital while orienting and extending its effort towards new markets, more specifically the United States where the market seems ripe to receive and integrate innovative solutions.
According to Louis Fournier, Orckestra's President "consumers have been gradually adopting new ways of researching products and services and now between 60% to 70% of them are ready to go online and use the internet to find them, no matter their purchasing decision. This is also true in Canada. However, Canadian businesses are generally lagging compared to the United States and Europe in the adoption of digital commerce enablement and it is starting to really show. Canadians must initiate this change as soon as possible and adapt to the reality of 'commerce anywhere', including their online and offline presence before the gap widens further."
Mr. Fournier says that "traditional marketing needs to be used jointly with online marketing. This will be the key to success in the coming years, and this is where Orckestra performs best: enabling enterprises to transform their model for the digital economy and to adapt to their changing consumers. With the digital native market especially, those companies won't remain competitive in the future if they don't reach this level."