FX Innovation + Bell: Reflections on the first-year anniversary

It’s been one full year since FX Innovation (FXI) became a “Bell Canada company” and to mark the occasion, we caught up with Guillaume Bazinet, CEO and co-founder, and Melanie McClure, CHRO, for a quick Q&A about what they think about how things have changed for the two entities, and where things are headed.

Last October, Guillaume, you wrote a nice piece that talked about the natural fit and shared values between FXI and Bell that could help both companies deliver more for customers. Can you tell us how that has manifested so far?

Guillaume:
It’s been incredible! With Bell, FXI is reaching more enterprises across Canada, so we are really accelerating our ability to make a significant impact to help Canada’s business sector transform their IT capabilities.  The cloud expertise that the FXI team brings and unites with Bell’s network, scale and cybersecurity expertise is a real game changer for enterprises.

Melanie:
I think the timing was on our side when this acquisition happened. FXI had matured to a point where we were ready to do more, and Bell was ready to do things differently. The Bell team has been open to our entrepreneurial mindset. They’ve shown a lot of trust and given a lot of flexibility to try things in new ways. And because of that readiness, decision making has been fast, and we’ve been able to move with great agility.

Recently we went live with delivering Incident Management through ServiceNow with a major customer in Québec. Can you talk more about that?

Guillaume:
It’s exciting! This is the first organization where we’re delivering end-to-end connectivity through ServiceNow with Service Bridge. This involved connecting the customer’s instance of ServiceNow with Bell’s, providing them access to their Managed Services with Bell. This is the first phase of the delivery with the client, and it enables us to provide incident management / service assurance through ServiceNow. 

This is effectively an added support channel for the client that streamlines the process by letting customers keeping working within their own system. It will automate the workflow through to resolution and gives them visibility to the progress through that workflow. A much better service experience indeed, and now that we have delivered it to our first client, it is that much faster and easier to repeat with others. It is time and cost effective and it sets the foundation for the next phases of delivery that will provide change management, problem management, and service provisioning all through ServiceNow.

Thinking about the culture at FXI, what has been important to you to preserve?

Guillaume:
It’s important to keep the “start-up” energy of our team. We intentionally, consciously chose to create a very empowered team at FXI, with a team spirit of equality.

Melanie:
Titles aren’t important here; everyone brings an expertise and a perspective that is valued. It’s baked into our DNA.

Guillaume:
And it was important to me that we could maintain this, so that we could continue to make fast decisions. To remain nimble. We like to say “fail fast and fail cheap” in the tech space. There is a healthy tolerance to risk – you know, we “build the plane as we fly it,” co-creating with our clients. I can say that we have successfully kept that spirit, and I can also say that I’m seeing the Bell team rising to meet us there as they adopt a more agile approach to how things get done.

Melanie:
It’s fun to see Guillaume now – we followed him with his dream, and now the dream is growing! There are no limits!

What does that dream look like now?

Guillaume:
The Canadian market is behind the rest of the world in terms of digital transformation – which also means it’s behind on productivity. As we refocus on the IT services space, there is huge opportunity. With the reach of Bell and the agility of a tech company, there’s no limit. My dream would be to become an international leader.

With so many big wins, what are you most proud of over the past year?

Guillaume:
First and foremost, I’m proud of my team. It’s a big thing for a small to medium-sized business to be acquired by a giant like Bell. Things changed overnight, with so many new aspects to what we do and how we do it. Becoming part of Bell has brought so many opportunities for us to become engaged in, we’ve had to learn to be selective and keep our focus. It’s all about finding our balance and I’m amazed at how the FXI team has embraced the change.

You’ve joined Bell, you have some proofs of concept, you have some execution under way… What’s next?

Guillaume:
So many things! We are investing a lot in cybersecurity, which is so critical. We are also putting a lot into the contact centre space with strategic partnerships in place and being negotiated. We’ll do some market-disrupting things in co-development with ServiceNow.

Thank you, Guillaume and Melanie! And joyeux anniversaire!