Tech Mahindra, an India-headquartered information technology and business process services company established a business services centre in Riverview in 2018. Part of Mahindra Group, Tech Mahindra is one of India’s top IT giants, with over 125,000 employees in 90 countries.
Sunil Tiwari, Site Head, was among those making the move to New Brunswick to launch the company’s Atlantic Canada operation. He says the Riverview team has been warmly welcomed by the community and has already grown to approximately 250 employees in just over two years.
Opportunities NB (ONB) spoke to Mr. Tiwari to learn more about Tech Mahindra’s success in New Brunswick.
ONB: Why choose New Brunswick for growth? What were the main factors?
Tiwari: New Brunswick turned out to be a perfect strategic location for several reasons. While we had a presence in both Canada and the U.S. in IT, we wanted to further expand our global footprint, particularly in business process services. As we scouted locations, New Brunswick stood out as the most cost-effective. Real estate prices were affordable, and things like the costs of living were also very competitive versus other jurisdictions. The availability of both great English and French-speaking talent was also a huge factor. Taken together, New Brunswick had to be the choice.
What has Tech Mahindra’s relationship been like with ONB?
ONB was our key partner through all of this. Your team helped us connect to all the right people within government and industry. Partners like ContactNB for example; we’re a member of that organization now and they’ve been a huge help as well.
What’s great is that even after we established the centre, you’ve been in touch constantly. Helping us ensure everything we do is in line with local regulations in terms of labour, health and safety, and everything in between. We obviously spoke with different provinces and ONB helped solidify New Brunswick as the right choice thanks to all of this as well as the immigration help.
Let’s expand on the immigration piece.
The Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program (AIPP) is a benefit to not only us but several employers in the community. For us, it’s been great in terms of keeping international students in Canada who wish to stay and start a career here. As a Designated Employer in the AIPP, we’ve been able to attract a lot of great talent. It helps these people get their Canadian permanent residence, and it includes international students that graduate from not just New Brunswick schools, but schools across all the Atlantic provinces.
And as you noted, your team has found the Greater Moncton area to be quite welcoming.
Absolutely. We have involved ourselves in the community too, working with groups like the Humanity Project and our food banks. Our experience thus far has been very positive and people in this part of the world are very friendly and welcoming to newcomers. It’s an inclusive community, and there are plenty of resources here to make settling in New Brunswick easier, with MAGMA probably being the most notable in our case.
We’ve heard the Riverview operation has been one of the company’s most productive throughout the pandemic. What can you tell us about that?
The lockdowns that started across the world in spring certainly had an impact on our business, we’re a global company. Fortunately, New Brunswick classified our contact centre services as an essential service, so we were able to keep operations going. Now that included a host of health and safety protocols, but we had no problem implementing them. The coronavirus reached India first, so our operation here was given notice on how to properly pivot to work-from-home while ensuring the office could remain open with limited staff and public health guidelines in place.
New Brunswick’s overall handling of COVID-19 has been good, we never had to panic as we rolled out modified ways to work. They kept us well-informed every step of the way, and it really helped us minimize virus-related losses.
Learn more at TechMahindra.com.
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