Wow, its hard to believe it has been 20 Years!
Thank you to everyone for all your well wishes and kind words. When I started out on my own 20 years ago, the catalyst for this decision was as Bell Canada Account Manager when my territory was to change once again due to another reorganization. I loved the industry but grew tired of having to start fresh with a new group of clients every year. I yearned for establishing long term working relationships and friendships that provided a more fulfilling experience for both my customers and myseIf. After learning once again in February 1999 that changes were to happen, that afternoon, I walked out the back door of the London Bell building across the sidewalk into the Government building paid $56.00 to register my company name. I did not hire a Marketing firm to come up with an innovative name for the company, like most IT start-ups today is obvious! I was determined to make a change in my life and there would be no turning back.
My good fortune began with three of my six Bell clients, as I announced I was leaving they hired me immediately for a variety of projects. Those early clients were Contrans Corp, Amway Canada and Siemens AG. Thank you for believing in me.
I didn’t have a business plan which might have helped me get going more quickly. Growth as slow, but steady. My family and friends thought it was a phase I was going through and expected me to regret my decision considering I was leaving a good paying position with a pension. My husband believed and supported me, but others were looking for weakness. I have come to learn that entrepreneurs like myself don’t think about failure, you simply work harder to succeed.
Running a small business is hard, and the Canadian government doesn’t make it easy on anyone, red tape, paper work and regulations that simply adds cost and consumes your precious time each day.
I wish to thank my current and past employees, contractors and my kids who I have had the pleasure to work with. A special call out to Paul Van Dam, we have worked together for 18 years, we’ve been through the highs and lows of the business together.
It’s been a great working with the vendor community, although sometimes decisions that we make in selecting the right solution for our customers, put’s us on the temporary “black-list” from time-to-time. Lastly, I would like to say thank-you to the 200+ clients and many returning customers that have trusted us to provide independent consultation and have hired us to oversee in some cases multi-million-dollar projects.
It’s a small industry and reputation is everything, we’ve worked hard to be recognized as a leader in Unified Communications and Contact Centre consultation and trends. Another lesson that I have learned is that to stay relevant you always need to be evolving. Our consulting firm services and best practices are always changing. We are always learning and embracing change. With that in mind, I am proud to announce that our firm has added to our consulting practice a new line of business. Enterprise Technology Administration Systems (ETAS) is a suite of tools that enables clients better manage their vendor contracts, carrier invoices, mobility usage and inventory. Our SaaS product was a natural evolution for our firm to put our expertise into a service that would help our clients save money on their monthly charges while saving IT departments and staff time. I’m extremely proud that this software was developed by our firm in-house, Paul as the lead software architect and Jose Rivera, software developer.
As I sign off this letter of thanks, as always, I am optimist for what the future will bring!
Emily Nielsen, President
Nielsen IT Consulting Inc.
Feb 28, 2019
