Habanero announces layoffs
Sad news for Vancouver’s tech community as Habanero Consulting Group recently announced they’re cutting 12 positions from the company. Given that the company is centred around Microsoft’s Sharepoint platform and that the American economy is in such dire shape, news of this sort comes less as a surprise than an inevitability, and it stands to reason that Habanero is only the first of many tech firms across Canada that are starting to pare down to increase efficiency and ride out the downturn.
In fact, Habanero president Steven Fitzgerald stated in a press release that “ We believe that when the economy rebounds, solid companies will be in a strong position to grow and take advantage of market opportunities. These cost reductions are necessary to ensure our viability and prosperity in the future.”
Habanero is paring down by reducing the number of areas they practice in, and are incorporating business intelligence into their Dynamics ERP and collaboration practices. Going forward, business intelligence will be part of an overall consulting package. Microsoft’s integration of BI into the Sharepoint platform was also cited by Fitzgerald, who expressed a desire to stay closely aligned with Redmond’s practices.
One of the prime advantages of Vancouver tech firms is that they are for the most part light and agile to begin with, and hopefully the recession will present more of an opportunity for those firms than an obstacle to continued growth and innovation.
