Innovation Key to Opening xwave's Door of Success

NOTE: The following feature story was written by Tara Lee Wittchen for the Nova Scotia "Come to life" initiative. "Come to life" is a public-private sector initiative that markets Nova Scotia as an excellent place in which to live, work, invest, play and visit.

The information and communications technology, or ICT, business is fiercely competitive. To succeed, companies must constantly adapt to changing demands from customers. Innovation is the key, and it is integral to xwave's success, says David Carrigan.

As xwave's director of enterprise solutions, Carrigan is on the frontline of developing teams that address customers' ICT issues.

"Our customers engage our organization when the solution is not that obvious or not that available," he says. xwave creates technology solutions that do not exist yet, "things that you can't go and buy off a shelf."

The foundation of innovation at xwave is a direct result of the relationships that it has with customers. The company's ICT specialists bring together their collective capabilities to develop a unique solution for a customer's needs. That knowledge can then be used to help other customers with similar concerns, Carrigan says.

"That second customer benefits from all of the innovation and all of the learning from that first experience," he says.

xwave, a division of Bell Aliant, is one of the largest business- solutions organizations in Canada, with 1,500 employees and $355 million in revenues. It has offices in the U.S., Ontario, Quebec, and throughout Atlantic Canada. Carrigan believes part of the company's strength comes from its people in Nova Scotia.

"I've been in the industry for a long time," says Carrigan, who got his start in 1984 — the same year the Macintosh computer came out. "We have an amazing information technology (IT) presence in this province. If you just look at the number of IT organizations that exist in Nova Scotia, well, that's a testament to the capability that is here. In order for those companies to exist and thrive in Nova Scotia, there has to be a presence of talent and accessible resource."

Some of those competing high-tech firms try to court a wide range of clients. That's not the case with xwave. Another of its strengths comes from the company focusing on a few key sectors — public and private enterprise customers in markets such as health care, and defence, security and aerospace. xwave's project teams are better able to become specialists in their particular sectors.

Here in Nova Scotia, the company has been very successful in delivering high-end technology, says Allen Dillon, xwave's director of business development and government relations for the defence, security and aerospace business unit.

"Some of this [technology] has never been attempted before -- certainly not in Canada," says Dillon. "In the context of not only Canadian procurement but international defence procurement, we can deliver world-class systems from Nova Scotia."

xwave's staff is a dedicated, talented workforce, Carrigan says.

One of the main reasons for that dedication is the amount of interesting and challenging work at xwave. In 2005, the company signed some of the largest contracts in its 30-year history, for work on the Maritime Helicopter Program, which will replace Canada's aging Sea King helicopters with 28 new CH-148 Cyclone helicopters in 2009.

"It is a new maritime helicopter for the Canadian Armed Forces," Dillon explains. "It will operate from the decks of the existing frigates - the ships that are right there in Halifax Harbour - as well as, in the future, from the deck of the Canadian Joint Support Ship, which is currently in development."

xwave is a subcontractor to the Sikorsky/General Dynamics/L3 Communications team responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of the helicopter information support systems for the next 20 years. The company will provide more than $200 million in mission planning trainers, mission simulators, electronic warfare operational support and a complete integrated information environment.

"xwave, while it's providing the lifecycle and the information systems -- the data management, if you will -- around this program for 20 years, is only one of several in a consortium that are bringing in excess of $1 billion of activity to the Atlantic region as a whole, of which the majority is going to be based right in Nova Scotia," Dillon says.

There are about 65 people on the project team, he says, adding xwave hired locally and also attracted people back home.

"That's one of the things that we really love about the project, being a company based in Atlantic Canada, because it brings people back to Nova Scotia. As well, there is a percentage of, for lack of a better term, new immigrants east."

Dillon says Nova Scotia has a lot to be proud of. xwave is an example of a company that has benefitted from strong relationships with the government of Nova Scotia and other industry players here.

"We are working globally and nationally from the region and we are a success story," he says. "We are a large information technology company born out of the east that is competing with the very best in global technology companies."

"It might be a big company, Dillon says, but, at heart, it is driven by the friendly Nova Scotia way of life."

"A handshake still means a lot to our organization. That's one of the things about doing business down east. It may be perceived as being simple, but it's the complete inverse: it's what's important," he says.

It's the best of both worlds for xwave's employees, says Carrigan. The company offers challenging and rewarding work in a location with a superb quality of life.

"We have a cultural community here, we've got the ability to experience a little bit of city life, but you know, you jump in a car and in 20 minutes you're on a beach. You can have a 20-minute commute and you’re home for supper," Carrigan says.