Ever since they turned heads at Red Hat’s North American Partner Conference in 2017 by winning the Canadian Partner of the Year Award and earning the trust of large Canadian enterprise customers along the way, Toronto-based solution provider Arctiq has been on a tear.
On top of earning some stage time at Google Cloud’s Accelerate conference in 2019 and additional recognition from software giants like Red Hat and Hashicorp, Arctiq has also cracked Channel Daily News’ Top 100 Solution Providers list and is climbing the ladder steadily.
Executives in the boardroom still make many technology decisions, but Arctiq has been able to win over the hearts of the developers and architects working a few floors below. Container orchestration software, service and configuration policy management are becoming regular discussion topics when it comes to technology procurement, according to Arctiq president Mike Morrison.
The added pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to this trend as well. Forrester suggests the application container market will register a compounded annual growth rate of 29 per cent over the forecast period of 2021 to 2026. The digital-first experience the world is now accustomed to is putting enormous pressure on core applications to be more flexible and scalable.
But according to Morrison, it was time for Arctiq to reach another major milestone.
“Customers didn’t just want us to consult and guide them. They wanted us to own their problems and help them achieve something closer to guaranteed outcomes,” Morrison told Channel Daily News in a recent interview. “Our people haven’t changed at Arctiq. What I’ve been focusing on is bringing that leadership and structure so that we can take some of those edgy proof of concepts further.”
To reach that next level of managed services, Arctiq recently hired a chief executive and chief technology officer.
Hailing from Deloitte Canada, CDW Canada and Scalar Decisions, Eric Ng brings a wealth of leadership expertise to his new role with Arctiq.
“I was part of a growth story with Scalar Decisions. We started there with 20 people and got up to 390 people,” Ng told the publication, adding the opportunity with Arctiq also intrigued him from a technology perspective as well. “We want to be at the forefront of core technologies. I couldn’t say that at CDW or Scalar, but I can say that here.”
He also described Arctiq’s consultants as the “number one” attraction.
Arctiq’s new CTO, David Briand, most recently spent five years as head of software for Nest Wealth. The company during that time grew from three people to 75.
When asked what separates Arctiq from larger MSPs dumping resources into software and DevOps consulting, Briand pointed to Arctiq’s head start and proven success with large clients.
“We’ve proven ourselves in the market,” he said. “Your traditional partner might fumble along and learn while you’re learning.”
