Orium is a software studio with a global presence specializing in creating digital experience platforms using best-in-class technology to support seamless, data-informed journeys.
Based in Toronto, Orium has experienced a point of high growth and sought to tap into the Latin American talent pool.
Because of the pandemic, Orium was encouraged to adopt a remote-first work arrangement. The company saw that the talent they needed to continue scaling was developers located in Latin America. The company needed a solution for providing equipment on time to their growing distributed team.
But expanding the team in new countries meant dealing with different rules and expectations, not to mention language barriers. One of the challenges for Tim Fernihough, Cofounder & Standards & Compliance Director, was to find a solution in a short amount of time to provide equipment for new hires that were outside of Canada. A process that Tim describes as very stressful.
Orium’s corporate policy requires all employees to operate on company machines, as a result, Tim found it incredibly taxing to remain compliant.
“The challenge I faced was, ‘Hey, Tim, we're hiring someone in Brazil. They start in three weeks. What can you do? Tim, we're hiring somebody in Colombia in two weeks. Can you get them something?’ And our corporate policy requires that team members be on machines we manage.”
The pressure to find partners to procure and deliver equipment on time also implied that the recruitment process could fall through and prevent the company from retaining talent. Any hiccups during the onboarding process could mean losing that talent to competitors.
“I need to get equipment into these people's hands and on time. Because it's a candidates market, if I can't hire them on the timeline they want, they'll go work somewhere else.”
One of the more difficult aspects of managing equipment for a global team is procuring devices locally so they can arrive on time for the employee’s first day. Being able to do so requires strong relationships with local partners, something that is difficult to do for a single person.
“I won't know what country a person lives in until they're a couple of weeks out from becoming an employee. If I haven't built a relationship with a reseller in that country, it's a very painful few weeks to build the relationship and get equipment in time.”
“There have even been times I have flown a laptop to somebody because I didn't have a better solution.”
Orium needed a solution to procure equipment for their new remote employees in Latin America while staying compliant with company equipment policies and retaining top talent.
Tim researched services that would export and import their existing equipment in Canada but found it cost-prohibitive. He then looked at personally building relationships with vendors in other countries. However, that option was not scalable and required navigating language barriers.
In this scenario, Tim understood he needed a solution where he did not have to build relationships with vendors whenever they hired someone in a new country. He also needed a service that would take care of equipment procurement and shipping outside of Canada on time.
“I can trust GroWrk to have those relationships for me. I have one central place where I can come and say I need a laptop in Brazil, Peru, Chile, or Uruguay, and trust that GroWrk has the relationships to find those fulfillment partners quickly.”
Orium trusts GroWrk to traverse the differences of each country while delivering a consistent process. Thanks to GroWrk’s portal and efficient team of account managers, Tim knows that the outcome will be the same every time.
GroWrk has quickly and compliantly delivered 30 devices for Orium’s remote employees in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Chile, giving the company the resources to keep scaling. In two years of working together, GroWrk has made it easy for the IT team to procure and manage IT equipment even on short notice.
“GroWrk is not a tool to me. GroWrk is a partnership and an extension of my team. I know that because GroWrk is aligned with our company in terms of values and philosophy, any experience that my end users have with GroWrk will accurately reflect who we are as a company.”
Orium’s value system is based on humanity, so maintaining a human touch throughout the onboarding process was crucial for the company’s culture.
“Having another friendly person, such as Arlette, or anybody else from the company that's helping fulfill an order, and all the people that do the deliveries and the recoveries, it helps provide a point of continuity in person that I can't manage by myself,” Tim explains.
“When you involve other organizations, you want to partner with organizations with the same philosophy and attitude. I believe that I have that with GroWrk.”
Before GroWrk, the responsibility of delivering equipment on time for remote new hires fell on the whole IT team. Sometimes, this meant forgetting to email employees, not providing their devices on time, and, overall, not being able to give them a great end-user experience.
“I have a single email that says, ‘You're going to hear from GroWrk. They will take care of this for you, end to end. Once you receive the laptop, let us know, and we'll take care of the rest.’ It's been very helpful because the onboarding experience, which begins with receiving your equipment, would have been severely impacted, from an international perspective, if I didn't have GroWrk,” Tim says.
Orium trusts GroWrk to have the necessary relationships with fulfillment partners in each country and a fantastic team of account managers that provide a seamless IT equipment management experience.
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