Conventional thinking turned upside down

With COVID-19 derailing economic growth across the country and the world, Alberta -- already battling a recession due to the oil and gas downturn -- has felt the pain more acutely than many Canadian provinces.

At the same time, a once-in-a-generation shift in the province and elsewhere has reimagined the world of work – how people do their jobs, where they do the actual work, and how companies are run. Businesses have been scrambling to adapt their operations and workforce models to the increased need for technology that will sustain and advance their business operations.

In order to drive efficiencies, many Alberta executives have embraced third-party technology to migrate their companies’ work to digital, presenting a welcome opportunity for companies that specialize in critical external services such as colocation and cloud computing.

“We’re seeing an accelerated digital transformation taking place all over the world,” says Paul Fouad, director of sales at eStruxture in Calgary. “The Alberta marketplace had already shifted due to the uncertainty in the oil and gas industry, and that digital shift accelerated due to the pandemic.”

Over the years, the province had maintained standard old-world business practices across all sectors, from employing robust internal teams to minimal outsourcing. Now, the traditionally conservative province has adapted, from diversifying its economy by enticing technology companies to plant roots in Calgary, to embracing the digitization of business and implementing workforce changes.

Fortunately, Fouad said, Alberta businesses understand how to be agile, having grown accustomed to the sometimes volatile, ever-changing economic cycles of the oil and gas industry. The government of Alberta has also made a valiant effort to respond to the global technology shift. In its recent fiscal budget for 2021-2022, the province earmarked funding for the province’s tech and innovation sector as part of its recovery plan.

“Alberta used to be a really traditional marketplace that held its IT cards close,” Fouad said. “Now, the market has a much greater acceptance and understanding of beneficial IT services like colocation and cloud. At eStruxture, we’re also seeing many Alberta businesses consider a hybrid cloud solution, which combines cloud computing with the more traditional IT infrastructure that uses physical servers. Hybrid cloud allows businesses to drive value out of their existing IT resources while being flexible enough to handle the periodic peaks in their data-processing workloads.”

Outsourcing work

One notable shift among oil and gas companies is outsourcing specialized support in areas such as IT rather than relying on internal teams to do everything. When the sector was booming, the province’s largest corporations had robust in-house teams with many divisions across each line of business. Now, internal teams are much leaner due to restructuring.

Now, in-house IT teams’ roles and responsibilities have shifted and businesses have begun doling out more of the work to external partners. Big-name companies now recognize that data centers can help them centralize their corporate data, freeing up their internal IT teams to focus on innovation and strategy work.

That’s where companies like eStruxture are playing a critical role in the market’s shift.

How does eStruxture fit?

As the only remaining major Canadian-owned and operated colocation data center, eStruxture has emerged as a true industry leader and trailblazer, providing more locations, capacity, and connections than other data centers. With now 14 facilities located in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, eStruxture is able to support companies through rapid growth and unpredictable change.

With its vast, secure ecosystem, the company prides itself on a few key differentiators in its custom solutions:

1. Ultimate data security - Committed to the highest level of security, all of eStruxture’s locations apply and maintain security standards that meet each company’s unique security needs.
2. Scalable solutions - eStruxture provides tailored solutions based on its customers’ needs. Its commercial agreement with each company is unique, so customers only need to pay for the resources they require.
3. High-density power with data residency – eStruxture is a network and cloud-neutral data center company. With all of its data centers on Canadian soil, the company guarantees all of its customers’ information will be housed in Canada or exclusively in Alberta.
4. Most advanced and youngest data center in Alberta - Unique to the region, eStruxture’s Calgary data center has a UTI Tier III certification and is the most advanced newest data center in the province.

eStruxture’s down-to-earth and transparent approach to doing business makes the company truly unique and contributes largely to its success in the Alberta market, Fouad says.

“We live by the mantra that we are our customers' neighbours, we are flexible, we are personal and we are 100 per cent invested in the success of their businesses,” Fouad said. "We believe that’s what really sets us apart -- in Alberta, and beyond.”

For more information on our offering in Calgary or to take a virtual tour, please head to https://www.estruxture.com/data-centers/calgary/cal-1/