History of Sencia Canada Ltd.
Joe Quaresima and Irene Kozlowski,
Co-founders of Sencia Canada Ltd.
In the 1990's, Irene Kozlowski worked for a global company by the name of iPares Americas, Inc., a full-service e-business company employing hundreds of people in various offices worldwide. While the Head Office was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, iPares, Inc. had numerous offices in the United States as well as in Canada, England, Norway, and Iceland. In the year 2000, Joe Quaresima joined iPares with a staff of approximately thirty people in the Canadian division.
The Canadian division was responsible for almost all of the project management and code development/programming duties for the company. The Canadian office by far had the largest team of Project Managers, Programmers, and Technical Leads. However, the Canadian operation was not responsible for initiating sales. Instead, all sales were initiated from Account Managers at various iPares locations. They would forward project guidelines to the assigned Project Managers in the Canadian Office who, in turn, would meet with the client to develop a complete Technical Specifications. The Technical Specifications document (approved by the client) would become the Development Team's complete guide, including detailed technical requirements and scope.
Irene started out in the Canadian Division as a Project Manager and soon became responsible for working with large-scaled, Fortune 500 clients. Throughout her career with iPares, she continually climbed the corporate ladder and was called on to develop a Project Management Methodology that would be employed corporate-wide as well as developing policies governing Employee Development. In the year 2000, Irene became responsible for the General Management of the total Canadian division.
While Joe Quaresima was originally hired as a Programmer in 2000, he was quickly promoted to the position of Technical Lead with iPares. Soon he was in charge of all technical operations including network and hosting services. It was obvious that he had earned a reputation for working out technical solutions that would bring value-added efficiencies to client's online applications. When assigned to a project as a Technical Lead, Joe would be responsible for his team's timelines and would answer to the Project Manager. As a Technical Lead, his role became more consultative in nature working through technical solutions for major clients.
iPares, Inc. continued to acquire a number of companies worldwide into the year 2000 when the dot com bust hit hard. In the spring of 2001, the company closed its doors abruptly when expenses could not be met, leaving clients scrambling to find alternative solutions for their technical needs and employees looking for work. Less than 24 hours from the company's closure, several of Irene's U.S. based clients contacted her at her residence to enquire whether they could continue working with her. Quickly, Irene contacted Joe to see if he would be interested in going into a business venture with her and so became the birth of Sencia Canada Ltd.
From the outset, Irene and Joe agreed that Sencia Canada Ltd. would have to be a very different firm from that of iPares, Inc. The dot com bust caused turbulence in the market that impacted the industry tremendously. No longer were corporations willing to pay the same price for technical services and online applications as they had in the past. For this reason, Sencia Canada Ltd. began developing various content management systems that could be leased to clients at an affordable annual price. However, in order to provide clients business-specific solutions, it was determined that the base licensing system could be customized in order to fulfill their needs. The first system developed was the Informetica system, a learning content management system. Shortly after, SIMS, Sencia's content management system was developed. This system provides a complete HTML translator with a publishing window that allows a business to create and update content on their site without having technical skills. Today, Sencia Canada Ltd. has six online applications that can be leased at affordable prices to their clients. Large-scaled clients can still count on impeccable project management skills from Sencia's Project Management team. To date, Sencia Canada Ltd. has not gone over scope for any project that they have worked on. Sencia believes in building solid relationships with their clients that include attributes such as trust and integrity.
Today, Irene and Joe are equal partners of this private corporation, Sencia Canada Ltd. They have employed many of their past colleagues from the iPares days. Sencia's attention to client's business needs by providing excellent support and services is Sencia's strength. Sencia works with many clients, large and small, offering an excellent mix of e-business solutions.