2017 Resolutions from New Brunswick Companies
It’s that time of year again. The gyms are full and everyone’s on a healthy eating kick after binging on turkey and chocolate over the holidays, resolving to get their lives together for 2017.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick businesses are making their own resolutions. We talked to folks at a few companies about what they hope to accomplish in the coming year and what opportunities they think 2017 will hold.
Brent Scrimshaw, Atlantic Lottery Corporation president and CEO
What new opportunities do you think 2017 will hold?
The beginning of 2017 will be the last leg on our journey to modernize our technology footprint. Sometime in the spring, we will launch the most technically sophisticated gaming platform in North America.
Over the past 40 years, Atlantic Lottery has returned $8.9 billion to the four Atlantic provinces. The core of who we are as a corporation hasn’t changed, but the industry sure has. There’s no question that in order to continue to return profits, we need to keep evolving.
Responsibly changing our game roster and expanding the space in which we operate is critical to ensuring that lottery profits returned to our governments do not decrease, necessitating the need for higher taxes or a reduction in much-wanted services for Atlantic Canadians.
What hopes do you have for the upcoming year?
Innovation is critical for us as a lottery. We have to think, adapt and operate differently due to ongoing market changes. At Atlantic Lottery, we’re confident we have the right people to do that. They are experts. Thanks to our people, we think we are equipped to compete with anyone.
In 2017, we’d like Atlantic Canadians to continue to learn more about their lottery. We’re proud of our commitment to openness and transparency. We regularly post salaries, expenses and policies online.
We learned a lot in 2016. We are a better company now than we were five years ago and we will be an even better company next year by adapting to a shifting market and by being a competitive and commercial Crown corporation.
Pat Whalen, LuminUltra president and CEO
What new opportunities do you think 2017 will hold?
In one word: growth. We are looking at new growth related to growing awareness amongst the general public and the industries to which we sell our products about the problems microorganisms can cause in water. We have been working for more than a decade to educate people about this, and are now seeing that effort come to fruition.
What hopes do you have for the upcoming year?
My hopes for 2017 are centered around a successful and wide adoption of two brand new products we have created: LuminUltra Academy, a self-service certification platform, and LuminUltra Cloud, our new cloud computing platform.
Erin Flood – HotSpot Parking COO
What new opportunities do you think 2017 will hold?
New opportunities for HotSpot revolve around investing more heavily in Atlantic Canada. The energy inside and out of the business world is contagious for the region, and we hope to play a large role in building on that energy. We started HotSpot in Atlantic Canada, and have been successful because of the people around us. It’s our time to return the favour and show the rest of the world how strong we are as a region. Our current secret sauce to success? Using data to build stories that drive change.
What hopes do you have for the upcoming year?
My hope each year is the same, and that is the hope that we never stop learning.
Dhirendra Shukla – Dr. J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship chair
What new opportunities do you think 2017 will hold?
We expect to see a significant increase in startup activities because of the growth in the TME Program, the Summer Institute and Energia Ventures. [We expect] deeper relationships with our current corporate, governmental organizations, research partners while developing new partnerships. Finally, we also expect to see growth in investment in startups.
What hopes do you have for the upcoming year?
A dramatic increase in the startups in the growth stage, [for] New Brunswick [to be] recognized for innovation, entrepreneurship and research [and to] bring highly qualified people to New Brunswick.
Bernard Lord – Medavie CEO
What new opportunities do you think 2017 will hold?
We’re looking forward to 2017. 2016 has been generally a good year for Medavie and we want to continue our growth in 2017. On the Medavie Blue Cross side, we certainly want to continue our growth and expansion in the Ontario market, which is very significant for the future sustainability and strength of the organization. On the EMS side, first of all we’re going to be changing our name from EMS to Medavie Health Services and we want to continue to focus on primary care and hopefully work with governments to improve home care, whether it’s in New Brunswick or other provinces as well.
The third component for us as well is our foundation. We want 2017 to be another year where we can contribute significant amounts of money to our foundation and support our key causes of youth mental health and type 2 diabetes.
What hopes do you have for the upcoming year?
In 2017, for the Blue Cross side, we want to continue to strengthen our relationships we have with our key partners. We want to grow in our key market of Ontario and Quebec while continuing to serve our clients here in Atlantic Canada. That’s very important.
I also want to streamline if we can and strengthen the relationship that we have with the other Blue Cross plans across Canada. I think we would collectively all be stronger if we worked more closely together.