GE Canada Call Out to Remote Community Businesses – Opportunity to Win an iPad2!
Congratulations to the winner of the first ipad2 who shared their story on working in a remote community. We have extended the deadline for the second ipad2 to Friday, June 24th.
Tell us your stories about operating your business in a remote community and you will be entered for a chance to win an iPad2! Share your story in the comment section below. The submission deadline is now Friday, June 24th, 2011.
What is unique about operating your business in a remote community?
What is your biggest business operating challenge?
What is your greatest business operating success?
Not sure what constitutes as a remote community?
Remote communities can have one or more of the following characteristics:
• Limited transportation access (road, air, rail),
• Limited access to a commercial/service hub,
• Limited infrastructure: water, off-grid, broadband access, healthcare, schools, library, other institutions, and/or
• A single, primary employee
The Business Case for Investing in Canada's Remote Communities
Key Data for Canada's Remote Communities
E.A. Doleman Says:
What is unique about operating in a remote community?
You decide how good your life will be, you can be a village that works together to make things improve.
What is your biggest challenge?
Commercial land release from the provincial government.
What is your greatest success?
The Oil Sand Secretariate when Heather Kennedy ran it.
Posted May 30, 2011 AT 9:41 am
Keegan Says:
As a native of Northern Ontario, it is my home and brings much pride and enjoyment to help the many remote communities in the north. The uniqueness is in the land and the people, every community has different needs, values and goals. The ability to balance tradition with progress is perhaps the most challenging aspect of working in the north. My greatest success has been to leave home, gain an education and extensive skills and network, and to bring these new assets home.
Using these traits and sharing them with the often neglected remote communities and offering them greater capacity to negotiate contracts and bring in developers that respect the land and the indigenous people.
Posted May 31, 2011 AT 12:04 pm
kim Says:
Some of you are asking what defines a remote community – for our purposes we have said remote communities can have one or more of the following characteristics:
• Limited transportation access (road, air, rail),
• Limited access to a commercial/service hub,
• Limited infrastructure: water, off-grid, broadband access, healthcare, schools, library, other institutions, and/or
• A single, primary employer
Posted May 31, 2011 AT 5:21 pm
Duane Says:
The best thing about working in a remote communitty to getting to know your customers you will get to know all their needs and concerns and that will help bring a more personal touch to your buisness
The biggest challenge to to make shure to keep a good inventory of what the customer needs and dont always wait for them to come to you go see them first
My greatest success is having happy customers that always come back
Posted June 1, 2011 AT 7:42 am
lisa Says:
The biggest challenge of living in a remote community is the area that you service is larger. You are covering the area of the town and the outskirts. We are a healthcare company and face the challeneges of getting to all the people’s homes to provide healthcare in the event of an emergency. Limited transportation. The tools you use to communicate with your staff and customers are key. Thank God for technology. The biggest operating challenge. Also weather plays a big role in our community. Limited road access in a true emergency is always a challenge also if the gas stations are closed or no gas is available dependig on if there is power or not or if they a sold out and you have no way to get to that person’s home you are left to communicate by phone or computer. Greatest sucess is finding a way to service those people. No matter what the emergency is. In por weatherw have walked and used snow mobiles to get to peoples homes.
Posted June 1, 2011 AT 10:37 am
Bob O’Beirn Says:
One of the unique things of operating a business in the near North is the limited access to what would be considered as “normal” services. Everything costs more and takes longer to get. Having said that, the expectation from our customer base does not change from anywhere else. Customer expect that their need are met when the ask for service. There really is no acceptable excuse for not being prepared to offer superlative service.
Our greatest difficulty is finding and keeping well trained workers. Employee retention is a big issue.
Our success is based on our commitment to an extremely high level of customer service. We push our paradigms on a consistant basis and challenge the status quo.We seek to be the employer of choice so that we can be the supplier of choice. Our customers respond to this approach.
Posted June 2, 2011 AT 12:06 pm
Douglas McArthur Says:
I’m an online marketing consultant for Auto Trader. I am responsible for consulting with clients all across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, including ones in many remote rural locations.
What is unique about operating your business in a remote community?
I have to give presentations over the internet, which requires me to either grab the data connection from my mobile phone or to run the presentation remotely via webinar. Both technologies have allowed me to reach out to customers in remote rural locations.
What is your biggest business operating challenge?
Getting in front of all our clients in remote locations.
What is your greatest business operating success?
Helping my company’s sales reps roll out a new product line to all our customers with a high rate of success.
Posted June 6, 2011 AT 11:32 am
Dave Trifunov Says:
When I accepted a position in Thunder Bay, Ont., everyone kept asking me one question: “So, when are you leaving?” It’s not that they wanted me out, it’s just that people living on the western edge of Lake Superior, an eight-hour drive to west to Winnipeg and 16 hours east to Toronto, were accustomed to people using the Bay area as a stepping stone to bigger and better. When I didn’t leave after six months, or a year, or two … they realized I was serious about my job and my place in the community.
That’s the great thing about working in remote areas of Canada; because you don’t HAVE to work there, those who choose to are embraced. As a journalist, it made life that much more enriching. The people I relied upon for information were happy to help me, because they knew me after just a short time in the city.
As for the challenges, well, they are nothing new for many Canadians. The sense of isolation you feel, in late January when the mercury dips to polar-bear weather, is sometimes overwhelming. Relying on happy, productive colleagues and associates often hinge on external factors (especially the external temperature!); some people just don’t stick around for very long.
But, as for success, just look at the numbers. In the digital age, when most people choose smart phones over face-to-face conversations, the newspaper I worked for was judged one of the most read in Canada by NADbank. It gave me immense pride knowing I managed to contribute something small to that.
Posted June 8, 2011 AT 5:24 pm
Barry S. Says:
Working remotely became a way of life in Saskatchewan when I moved two hours away from the capital city of Regina to one of the distant communities. As a Senior Project Manager for a global information technology consulting firm, my team was scattered across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific regions so it did not matter where I was located. The unique thing about the community I moved to is that they are comparatively small in size but think big in terms of how they operate their businesses. I quickly realized everything I needed was here but on a smaller scale. The challenging part is that service delivery is not consistent. However, I overcame this through the use of technology that allowed me to communicate effectively with my team and service providers. All I needed was a telephone line and high-speed Internet access. As for the greatest success, it was taking advantage of the community facilities to facilitate a remote training session for project managers. The event was well attended, as the first of its kind for the area.
Posted June 11, 2011 AT 11:32 pm
Dimitrios Roufos Says:
What’s inherently unique about operating our business in our remote community of Kincardine, Ontario (Pop. approx 12,000) is the main employer being Canada’s only privately run and North America’s largest nuclear station site, Bruce Power. With the current state of the nuclear industry in question, the Fukushima Plant in Japan has caused ripples throughout the world questionning the validity and safety of nuclear power. We still believe that nuclear power plays a very important role in today’s increasing demand for electricity, especially in Canada.
We are situated on the beautiful shores of Lake Huron, the sunsets are marvellous here, and that is why my wife and I, at the tender ages of 29 and 30 respectively, formed an investment company two years ago and are currently engaged in operating a Real Estate brokerage (namely Royal LePage) with plenty of competition from the likes of Re/Max, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and other private companies, all of whom have been operating here for over thirty years successfully.
We are excited and ready for the bumpy road ahead.
The challenges ahead will indeed be accompanied by some failures but hopefully more successes and our ultimate goal is to focus on serving the community first with providing the best possible experience when buying and selling homes in the area for many many years to come.
Posted June 12, 2011 AT 4:15 am
Donita Lohnes Says:
Our business, “Our Place Bulk Foods and Gifts” in La Ronge, SK is very unique in our community. We offer food products as well as a mix of arts and crafts and giftware. As a northern community that hosts many Canadian and international tourists to the Canadian Shield and Lac La Ronge, we have carved a niche for ourselves in carrying products that can’t be found anywhere else. We have worked closely with regional artisans and suppliers to carry a suite of aboriginal craft work (trap line art, paintings, birch bark bitings, carvings, hide tufting, bead and leather work and more) as well as food products (wild rice value added products) that are constant draws for both locals and tourists alike. Operating in a remote community has its challenges, but it has many more opportunities. As an independent businesses in the region, we have been able to diversify our offerings as well as provide better service to our community by bringing in things that our customers let us know are needed.
Our greatest operating challenge has been finding staff that are skilled and able to address the diverse product base that we represent in a professional fashion. We have been extremely successful at growing our team our business wouldn’t be the success that it is without them. One our greatest successes is creating an atmosphere that draws in new customers, but more importantly brings them back regularly. We have developed relationships with all of our customers and enjoy seeing our summer tourists and our international tourists to share stories, help find hidden gems in the community and learn more about how wonderful and amazing our community is for living, working and visiting.
Posted June 13, 2011 AT 1:24 pm
Lawrence Anderson Says:
I started Anderson Muffler and Tire in Air Ronge, SK. 28 years ago. The success of this business in this remote community has been a constant willingness to evolve and change and fill gaps for customers. While the shop sells tires and mufflers, I promote my business as “the best place to take a leak” and customers often bring in their vehicles for any type of service. If I can’t fix it, I know who can, and who can do it right. I believe strongly in keeping business in the community and work closely with other business owners in the region to strengthen our business to business relationships. By supporting each other we strengthen our local economy and help both locals and tourists find what they need here, not four hours away in Prince Albert – or six hours away in Saskatoon.
My biggest operating challenge has been staffing. Finding adequate trained staff is more a matter of training and nurturing people that will stick with the business as part of the family. In larger communities you have a pool of skilled workers to recruit from, but all too often our skilled workers migrate away from our community.
My greatest success has been in my willingness to adapt and find ways to diversify my business to weather the challenging years over the decades. From selling straw bales to build dog houses for the winter, to lumber for home heating, to sandbags, boat storage, scrap metal hauling, selling used cars, etc. Anything that needs to be done, my business will find and fill the opportunity. I love my community and am committed to it – I think that my customers know that and that is why they support me, which is why I am successful.
Posted June 13, 2011 AT 1:36 pm
David Farraway Says:
Being an insurance agent I work in quite a few remote areas. One that stands out is the town of Le Crete, AB. around 13 1/2 hours north of Calgary, AB. It has a population of around 2,000 and the majority of the population is a Mennonite Community.
What is unique about operating my business in Le Crete is that not too many agents go to Le Crete due to the distance and hardly anyone flourishes there. Being of Mennonite culture, most families dont see the need for having insurance to protect themselves. Because they are so far away from society as a whole the community still believes in a different value system. For example:when someone dies they believe that the Church and their immediate families will take care of everything which is the biggest business operating challenge in the area. Its hard to convey to someone who has 6 children that there are programs designed to help his family adjust and carry on after a tragedy hits when they believe its ok to drop the resposibility onto someone else.
Helping the community one family at a time, by protecting them from the tragedies of life (ie Cancer, terminal illness, accdental death, etc) is the greatest business operating success because word of mouth is huge in any business. I remember talking to a member of Government that said one complaint is like the voice of 30,000 people. Likewise, whether it is Linkedin.com, GE Canada or selling insurance, one good experience is worth the same. When people get positive results from the use of our products and share that with others, through referrals we can protect others both in and out of the community.
Posted June 13, 2011 AT 1:42 pm