At CEP Toronto, we strive to bring together sustainability professionals in the Greater Toronto Area. Due to the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, small businesses need our help more than ever. That’s why we’re using our blog to connect our community with Canadian small businesses who are doing good for the environment by providing products or services that help us live and work a little greener.
In our Eco-Business Connections journey, we’ve mostly spoken with consumer-facing products that help us be a little greener around the home.
In this post, we are very excited to tell you more about a very different type of “eco-business” - a B2B SaaS (software as a service) company that is making waves in the tech world.
We recently got the chance to speak with Katie Allen, Sustainability & Social Impact Manager at Fiix Software which creates modern maintenance software that’s easy to use, flexible, and affordable. Its cloud-based CMMS is disrupting the market by revolutionizing how thousands of companies worldwide schedule, organize, and track maintenance.
Katie ensures business outcomes align with sustainable, positive impact. She started over four years ago when they were a small startup of only 20 employees, and that was when she pioneers what was known then as their corporate social responsibility program.
Fiix’s vision was, and still is, to create a blueprint for growing tech companies to incorporate more inclusive, sustainable, and responsible business practices. She says her work is extremely rewarding, especially when you learn how much it resonates with employees and customers.
Read on to learn more about Fiix!
Tell us, what’s the story behind the business?
Like any start-up, Fiix began as a problem that needed a solution. Maintenance and reliability of assets and equipment in industrial settings is critical to operational excellence for so many reasons. The unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of breakdowns are typically the main source of safety and environmental hazards. When things aren't running properly, they consume more energy than necessary, and may result in a shorter lifespan, creating more waste and leading to more consumption of natural resources. Enter: Fiix, the maintenance management platform that combines mobile asset management, work order, and parts management.
Why is being sustainable important to Fiix?
Sustainability is a long-term business strategy. If we want to build a successful, Canadian technology company, we are going to have to do it the right way. Success is not merely defined by profit margins; we want to ensure we have a positive, sustainable impact. This includes, but is not limited to offsetting carbon emissions from server farms and operations, supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce, protecting data security and privacy, ethical and responsible corporate governance, and nurturing positive community relationships. All of this will help us attract and retain talent, influence our customers purchasing behaviour, and increase employee engagement. It's a positive feedback loop.
How does your business plan to adapt to a post-COVID19 world?
In response to COVID, we made the decision to make Fiix a digital-first workplace, where the office and remote experience are built to be identical. We have an incredibly diverse set of individuals at Fiix, all with different working styles and personal situations, and we need to bring them all together under a common work environment. Our organization needs to be flexible for our people, not the other way around. We will reopen our offices in 2021, where the physical space will be completely redefined. Our office will be a hub for our Fiixers and the community at large.
How will you continue maintaining OR enhancing sustainability considerations of your business post-COVID19?
If COVID has taught us anything, it's that the way we were doing things before wasn't working. We need sustainability now more than ever and we will continue to integrate it into everything that we do. Post-COVID, we will be working with customers and partners to explore the relationship between maintenance and sustainability, and the ways in which our product can help them leverage their maintenance departments to achieve more sustainable outcomes. It's important for us to go outside our four walls and use our position to empower others.
Learn more about Fiix’s products and services at fixsoftware.com. As a part of our commitment to transparency, we are always open to discussions, questions, and conversations around our framework and how we got to where we are today. Email Katie Allen, socialimpact@fiixsoftware.com, or visit fiixsoftware.com/csr to learn more.
This blog contains information, views, or opinions expressed by a business owner (or employer) and its associated product(s) and/or service(s). While the information has been presented with all due care, CEP Toronto makes no warranty, guarantee, or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this blog and has edited the interview for length and clarity purposes.
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