EDMONTON, ALBERTA | Innovation Centric Group (ICG Team), will participate in the 2019 Canadian Export Challenge (CXC) on May 16th, 2019. CXC is a 1-day global accelerator and pitch competition tour presented by Startup Canada, in collaboration with UPS, Export Development Canada, and the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service.

As a member of the Global Entrepreneur Cohort, ICG Team will pitch to win $2,500 and an expense-paid trip to Toronto for CXC’s final showdown, where they will face-off against representatives from across Canada to win an additional $25,000 and up to $100,000 in in-kind scaling support.

“Can't wait to meet all the global growth partners and entrepreneurs in the region”- Says ICG's CEO Lory Troche.

“As the most connected G7 country with the greatest ease of doing business, Canadian entrepreneurs have a global advantage out of the starting gate,” said Victoria Lennox, Co-Founder, and President of Startup Canada. We are thrilled to see companies like Innovation Centric Group in the Global Entrepreneur Cohort and we aim to provide them with an increase in export-readiness, accelerated access to global markets, and support to ‘own the podium’ globally.”

Innovation Centric Group is a Canadian company with offices and physical presence in Canada, the United States and the Dominican Republic. We specialize in the digital transformation of supply chains. ICG has developed a platform of modular systems with a range of IT tools that are designed to automate the processes and business flows of supply chain management: • Electronic Invoicing • Purchase Orders, B2B eCommerce • Requests • Business Artificial Intelligence. ICG was founded in 2011 by Ovy and Lory Troche.

For more information from Startup Canada please contact:

Maddie Stiles

Media Relations

maddie.stiles@startupcan.ca

613-627-0787 ext. 105

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About the Canadian Export Challenge

The Canadian Export Challenge is a Startup Canada Program in collaboration with UPS, Export Development Canada and the Trade Commissioner Service to support entrepreneurs to become export-ready, connect with the trade and global growth ecosystem, and to gain global exposure through a series of 1-day accelerator events, digital programs, pitch competitions, and an online community. Learn more at startupcan.ca/cxc.

About Startup Canada

Startup Canada is Canada’s entrepreneurship organization. Startup Canada promotes and supports the success and growth of Canada’s 2.3 million entrepreneurs, with a mandate to foster economic growth, competitiveness, and prosperity through entrepreneurship. Since launching, Startup Canada’s programming has directly supported more than 200,000 entrepreneurs and 50 grassroots Startup Community organizations. Working with over 750 ecosystem partners, including accelerators, incubators, research parks, educational institutions, economic development agencies, associations, and government programs, Startup Canada serves entrepreneurs from all backgrounds, industries, and stages of development, with a network reflective of Canada’s diverse population. Learn more at startupcan.ca.

Have you ever made a decision that saved money in the short term only to lose out on a bigger opportunity?

We live in a world where we often get rewarded for short term wins while we lose out on bigger opportunities because we cannot see the big picture.

This phenomenon often occurs when organizations are stressed for economic reasons and decisions are driven by short term priorities.

We also see this in the public markets as companies must perform each quarter and in order to do this, they become focused on short term wins versus long term results.

Technology decisions often fall into this category especially if technology is not seen as a strategic lever for the company.

Our experience shows that if the organization looks at technology from a bigger picture perspective and drives its expenditures strategically it can manage both long and short term objectives together.

One organization we have been involved with over a long term history has invested strategically both in good times and in bad times. There focus has been on using technology to:

Make better decisionsReduce frictional costs between departments and other companiesImprove productivityLeverage technology to reduce overall all costs and per unit costs

Over an 8 year period they have not exceeded industry average spending for technology and they have expanded and contracted their budget in good and bad times while continuing to focus on the main goals of the organization.

They have improved accountability, driven a 30% productivity improvement, established more strategic reporting and reduced rework while building a sustainable long term infrastructure and platform that they can continue to drive value from.

Looking at problems strategically and with the big picture in mind often leads to greater rewards in the long term and also allows you greater flexibility in the short term.

Original post: https://beyondexclamation.com/icg-thinking-different-to-make-a-difference/

For most rapidly ameliorating organizations, manual procurement processes are not viable any more to meet the evolving needs of their growing staff members and supplier base. And when both size and complexity tends to reach a tipping point it springs forward a change. This involves the automation of some or all of the internal processes.

With a vision of automating your procure to pay processes and turning complex into simple and simple into something awesome, Innovation Centric Group (ICG) was incepted. The company’s motto of daring to be different has led it towards success and meet the evolving needs and requirements of its clients.

Herein, we look at the journey, the story, and innovation that ICG stirs through its products and solutions.

Thinking Different; Thinking Out of the Box

It was during the time when Lory Troche, the CEO of ICG, worked as a consultant for a medium-sized oil and gas company in Alberta that the story started. The company found themselves in the need of specific systems to provide a level of automation that was not found readily available in the market. ICG decided at this point to develop these systems for their clients to close this market gap.

The company believes in coming out with something awesome. However, awesome requires different thinking and thinking out of the box is a specialty that ICG is synonymous with.

According to the company, The culture of the company is different as it cares. At the same time, the company accepts that its life is complicated. “We are bombarded with data, reports, information, deadlines and agendas from different groups. We make the complicated simple, we make the hidden, transparent, the manual, automated,” mentions Lory.

ICG saves both time and money of the enterprises by digitalizing all the data, automating all the processes, and integrating the disparate data sources of the P2P process. The company avoids expensive duplications of invoices and late payments and identifies opportunities for cost-cutting.

Ensuring Optimal Client Satisfaction

ICG provides Procure to Pay outsourcing solutions. It helps organizations grow their businesses on demand by simplifying their entire P2P process. It specializes in complex P2P processes i.e. Oil and Gas explicit/non-explicit, HSE compliance, etc. ICG ensures its clients satisfaction by providing outstanding personalized service and helping business to scale on demand.

ICG handles all aspects of the implementation process from change management to integration support. “The ball is always on our court. We are not an ERP, we simply help companies maximize the ROI of their existing systems from SAP to Quickbooks,” exclaims Lory.

An Incredible Platform by all Means

ICG works with an amazing team of professionals and together they have built an incredible Procure to Pay SaaS platform that helps companies break down the silos between their existing systems. When speaking about her team, Lory mentions “Our team is our family. We help each other grow personally and professionally whatever everyone’s goals are. We offer innovative learning experiences and we foster a learning culture.”

ICG makes systems talk to each other for a fully-automated experience that allows companies to have real-time information that can easily display in personalized and interactive dashboards. Through this, everyone within the company has the requisite information that they need to work more efficiently without spending time in non-value-added tasks.

ICG’s biggest achievement was having its products and services market ready for industries other than Oil and Gas. However, the biggest challenge for the company is breaking through the ‘bigger is better’ myth in most industries. “In our case, being small is an advantage that allows us to innovate and move faster than big technology companies,” she adds.

At present, the company is working on several strategic partnerships and has recently joined SAP as one of its partners (only ones in the world in the P2P field), KPMG (implementer), Fujitsu (Implementer) and Accenture (Implementer). Spearheaded by Lory, the team at ICG has been working relentlessly to take the company to the next level.

Turning Experience into Success

Lory Troche brings to ICG system both knowledge and innovation mixed with years of expertise across different industries. She has spent 4 years as the Director of Procure-to-Pay at a communications company. Therein she was the director of operations, purchasing and payables manager, supplier relationship manager, Six Sigma Black Belt Cost Reduction Lead and reduced company bottom line cost by 31%. She managed contract negotiation, business intelligence, business process automation, and strategic sourcing. Add to that, she has spent 4 more years as the Sr. Management Consultant – Project Manager for a Canadian gasoline, oil, and natural gas producing and exporting company. She managed the following: business process automation, business process re-engineering (Six Sigma), systems integration, software development, change management, strategic sourcing and procure to pay automation, and data warehouse implementation project.