An international tech company opened the doors of its North American headquarters at Landmark Centre in Kelowna this week.
IPMC, which stands for Intercom Programming Manufacturing Company, is a software company that started in West Africa 27 years ago.
It has expanded to now eight countries, with over 750 employees, 30,000 users in 25 countries, and $40 billion USD running through its software annually.
Jasbir Dhillon, director of Canadian Operations, told the Capital News that IPMC has developed a number of products, including enterprise resource planning software called Ebizframe, which provides businesses with one platform to manage their organization, sales, manufacturing, logistics and more, all accessible from a mobile device.
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“They can sit on a boat and actually run their entire business and it helps them improve their bottom line,” Dhillon said.
“We own the IP, we own the source code and we do the implementation ourselves, so we customize it to each individual (client).”
Dhillon said IPMC plans to expand its North America operations to Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and the U.S.
“All those revenues will be reported here in Kelowna, so the City of Kelowna will benefit,” he said.
For now, there are three employees at the North American headquarters: Dhillon, regional sales manager Pierre Piché, and digital marketing associate Dylan Vinci.
Vinci is an Okanagan College business administration program student specializing in marketing. He has been with IPMC since November 2018, working in digital marketing and social media along with some client prospecting with Piché.
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“I’ve learned a lot here,” Vinci said. “I’ve been tagging along at meetings and learning how to bring (business) relationships together, which is a huge asset in the business world.
“Now I have that experience…and I have events like this where I get to meet people in the business world, so it’s been really awesome.”
Piché, who was the first local hire for the new headquarters, said IPMC hopes to continue to hire local staff and do market research in partnership with students.
He said he expects they will start expanding their team toward the end of the year.
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Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran, who attended the grand opening, said he is thrilled to see the tech sector continue to grow in the community.
“The fact that this is an international company that could have chosen anywhere in the world to open up this office and has chosen Kelowna, I think is just another feather in the cap of everyone who has worked hard to open this industry up,” Basran said.
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