Perfect Partnership Boosts Victoria IT Company

Publish Date: Fall 2006

"It was like our own 2010 experience, - but on a much smaller scale," effuses Meggan Podgorenko, Business Development Manager for International Technology Integration Inc. (ITI).

Two years after their successful bid to design and implement Information Management Systems for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games her excitement remains tangible. Podgorenko had been keeping an eye on Vancouver 2010 opportunities since Canada was awarded the Games. After reviewing the initial Request for Expressions of Interest (RFI) document, she was convinced ITI didn't stand a chance.

"We had no major event experience - and are a Tier 2 company. We thought we needed to be bigger and more experienced," she explains. Enter Peak Systems. "We had done work on both the Salt Lake City and Athens Games and were hoping to be part of Vancouver 2010 as well," explains John Sloat, Peak's president. "We were looking for a Canadian company to partner with."

A reference from the Province of British Columbia led them to ITI. Despite ITI's extensive bidding experience they quickly realized that the VANOC bids are different. "You have to be very creative, very passionate, and very different from the standard government bid that we were used to writing," explains Podgorenko.

Peak Systems brought to the table a track record of exciting, creative and passionate Games-related projects. Sloat and the Peak team realized that ITI's extensive experience with the Province of BC provided an invaluable awareness of sensitivities specific to government and quasigovernment organizations. And it quickly became clear that the two companies shared a passion for and commitment to the Olympic Games.

They decided to partner and it was a good decision. The ITI/Peak partnership was chosen from an impressive field to develop and implement an information management system to handle over 1 billion documents that would be generated by VANOC between 2004 and 2011. Both companies highly value the partnership. "We've woken up to the possibilities of partnerships and are now looking more to our neighbours to the north as a way to expand our base," explains Sloat. "We are fortunate to have found ITI, and we are discussing opportunities for the partnership beyond the 2010 Winter Games."

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