It's no surprise that many of today's most innovative companies from across the globe have chosen to establish facilities in Canada. Here they can take advantage of a skilled and educated work force, low operating costs, and R&D incentives that rank among the best in the world, while enjoying an enviable quality of life. A pro-business government — at both the federal and provincial levels — that is committed to fostering economic development also supports these firms.
What follows below is a roundup of "success stories" from all across Canada. Company spokespersons explain how they made "the executive decision" to set up facilities in Canada — and in specific Canadian locations. They tell their stories in the hope that others will learn from their experiences and also find success in Canada.

The Ultimate Success Story
In June 2005, Toyota announced that it would construct a state-of-the-art flexible assembly plant in Woodstock, Ontario, employing 1,300 team members to build the RAV4 sport utility vehicle. The new plant represents an approximate C$800 million/US$650 million investment and will be Toyota's second Canadian assembly plant.
"This announcement is a watershed moment for the City of Woodstock and represents perhaps the single-largest industrial investment in North America in 2005," says Woodstock Mayor Michael Harding.
The new plant will open in 2008 and will have the capacity to build 100,000 units annually. Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Canada, Inc. (TMMC) in nearby Cambridge, Ontario, will manage the plant. TMMC builds the Toyota Corolla and Matrix and the Lexus RX330 in Cambridge, where it employs 4,300 team members. This new facility will boost Toyota's manufacturing employment in Ontario to about 5,600.
Atsushi Niimi, a senior managing director of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), noted the benefits of the Woodstock location: "This location allows us to capitalize on our outstanding operation 40 kilometers away in Cambridge. Its proximity to suppliers on both sides of the border will benefit both countries, and it will mean new opportunities for those suppliers. Jobs will be created across North America," he explains.
TMMC President Ray Tanguay, a TMC managing officer, applauded the efforts and success of the existing Canadian work force and the job-creation efforts of government officials. "Today's announcement is truly a milestone," he says. "It is recognition of almost 17 years of manufacturing success in Cambridge, Ontario, and opens the page to a whole new chapter for Toyota in Canada."

Alberta, You're Getting A Dell
Dell Inc. has selected a site in Edmonton, Alberta, for a contact center to serve customers throughout Canada and the Americas. The Texas-based computer giant is working closely with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) to recruit and train approximately 500 new Dell employees from the Edmonton area. Additional staff is expected to be hired as business grows.
With its corporate headquarters in Toronto and offices in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver, Dell Canada chose Alberta's capital for its newest site because the city met all necessary criteria.
"We looked for a location in Canada that offers a good quality of life, highly skilled workers, and world-class training programs. Edmonton has it all," says Ro Parra, senior vice president, Dell Americas. "We are also very impressed with the incredible cooperation we have received from all levels of government, the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, and NAIT. Canada is a very important market for Dell. Our success here makes this expansion possible, " he says.
During the first quarter of 2004, Dell unit shipments to Canadian customers increased by 26 percent. A Fortune 50 company, Dell has offices and manufacturing facilities in 41 countries worldwide.

eBay Bids On British Columbia
The world's online marketplaceTM has chosen to locate its new customer-support center in Burnaby, B.C., part of the Greater Vancouver metropolitan area. eBay had 100 other communities vying for the center, but company CEO Meg Whitman, who had input into selecting the location, says the deciding factor was a combination of the skilled and educated work force and the area's quality of life. In addition, the location offers easy access to eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California.
The 70,000-square-foot facility opened in April 2003 and will employ more than 1,000 people over the next two years. It operates 24/7, serving its community of users through e-mail and online chat.
"Our team in Greater Vancouver continues to be an excellent part of eBay's customer support offering," says Wendy Jones, vice president of customer support for North America and Australia. "Part of what appealed to eBay the most about the area is the highly educated and tech-savvy work force. A high percentage of our team, at least 80 percent, are university graduates, and over 95 percent have completed two years of college. The site's easy access to San Jose, eBay's California headquarters, was another key factor."

In Any Language, Manitoba Is Top Pick
Convergys Corporation has recently chosen Brandon, the second-largest city in Manitoba, as the site for its newest call center. The Cincinnati-based company provides integrated billing and customer and employee care services through outsourcing or licensing. It has been active in Manitoba since 1994, when it launched Convergys in Winnipeg to deliver technical and customer services support to Fortune 500 companies. Since then, the Winnipeg work force has grown to more than 1,700 employees, making it the city's largest inbound call center. Another 300 jobs will be created at the new call center in Brandon by the end of 2006.
Convergys' reasons for expanding its Manitoba operations included geography and the quality of the local work force. "Manitoba's location in the central time zone allows our telephone associates to be in contact with more clients and prospects from coast to coast every day, within their regular business hours," explains Gloria Griffin, senior director of site planning and development. "Furthermore, the verbal and language skills of our employees are superb. Their ability to speak French and a number of other languages enables us to better serve our customers throughout North America."
Other important factors were the province's telecommunications infrastructure, high-tech know-how, low operating costs, and quality of life. "Manitoba's telecommunications infrastructure is second to none," adds Griffin. "This was critical in our decision, along with the province's advanced expertise in information technology, low electricity and other business costs, and the healthy and affordable lifestyle it offers our employees."
With 13,000 people working in 14 centers across Canada, Convergys employs more than 55,000 people in 57 customer contact centers, data centers, and offices worldwide.

CenterBeam: A New Pillar In New Brunswick
Ranked by Canadian Business magazine as one of the top-three cities for business in Canada, Saint John, New Brunswick, has a business climate shaped by the innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit of those who live, work, and invest in the region.
A recent example is Silicon Valley-headquartered CenterBeam. Its North American Solutions Center, initially creating 30 positions in summer 2003, now employs about 100 people and is expected to continue its strong growth.
CenterBeam's president and CEO Kevin Francis, a Nova Scotia native, had worked in Saint John as president and CEO of Xerox Canada. He knew the area had the skilled work force and technological infrastructure and could also attract the talent the company needed to grow. "Opening across the continent from our headquarters in San Jose meant we would be able to deliver a level of business continuity services typically found only in the world's largest corporations," says Francis.
Another consideration that played into the site selection decision was the city's overall cost competitiveness, including unique and affordable real estate options. Its namesake building, "CenterBeam Place" in the historic Trinity Royal district, provides an authentic atmosphere that not only blends the old with the new but has also kick-started a new wave of investment in the central core of the city.
With $3 billion in new energy projects under way, an anticipated $100 million in planned new uptown waterfront investment, and a burgeoning technology sector with 75 diverse companies, Saint John will be the "hottest new business address" in the country.

URBAN MACHINERY FINDS Size Doesn't Matter
Low labor costs, low employee turnover, and assistance from the New Brunswick government were just a few of the deciding factors for German parent company Urban Machinery GMBH to set up a production facility in the Greater Fredericton region. Urban's production manager, Harald Kopp, says the decision to locate in Fredericton was an important step for the company.
According to Kopp, the Greater Fredericton region proved to have the right formula for business success. What was most helpful, he says, was the fact that the provincial government was anxious to support new business coming into the region regardless of the size.
"We started out very small [just six employees], but here in Fredericton it doesn't matter how large you start off," says Kopp. "The New Brunswick government will be there to support you along the way. In some locations, you have to have 1,000 or 10,000 employees before they'll talk with you about assistance. That's not what happens here."
Today, Urban Machinery Corp, which is now solely Canadian, dominates over 30 percent of the North American market. The company currently has 64 employees operating a 7,000-square-meter plant that is responsible for all North American product. It is one of the largest manufacturers of vinyl-welding machines and corner-cleaning machines on the continent.

New Manufacturing Concept in Newfoundland and Labrador
Julie Static Controls Inc. (JSC) headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, has selected Seal Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, as the location for a new manufacturing operation known as Conception Design and Manufacturing Inc. JSC manufactures industrial static control products and will manufacture a portion of its product line at the Newfoundland facility.
With many government agencies from the northeastern and southern United States and Canada vying for the manufacturing facility, Newfoundland and Labrador became the preferred location for several reasons. CEO Jim Patterson says, "The decision to set up in Newfoundland was easy. It has low labor rates and operating costs, and being so close to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, it provides a strategic location from which to do business."
The principals at Julie Static Controls Inc. believe that their product line will continuously grow over the next three to five years. The company is destined to become a high-volume, low-cost producer of various static- and contamination-control products, and its Newfoundland and Labrador facility will contribute to this growth.

Nova Scotia 's Cost-effective R&D Environment
Versata, Inc. (Nasdaq: VATA), a leading independent provider of rapid automated application development platforms, headquartered in Oakland, California, has transferred its development lab and resources from Bangalore, India, to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The strategic shift brings development and engineering positions to one of North America's most promising near-shore locations. Nova Scotia Business Inc. will provide Versata with a maximum C$2.49 million payroll rebate over seven years based on its locating up to 85 new positions at its Halifax location. Versata currently employs 15 people in Halifax.
"Our Nova Scotia team represents one of Versata's most valuable developmental assets," says Brett Adam, chief technology officer and vice president of engineering. "The location has proven itself to be a cost-effective, creative, and reliable development environment. In addition to the province's highly educated work force and top-rate broadband infrastructure, we were pleased to discover a progressive business climate characterized by a mature alignment between the government, academic, and business communities."
Versata provides solutions for automating and simplifying the building, maintenance, and ongoing evolution of large, complex, data-intensive enterprise applications. The Versata solution effectively and efficiently replaces time-intensive hand-coding efforts with simple, intuitive business rules and graphical process flow specification. Versata Global 2000 customers include Bank of America, BT, Cendant, CGI-AMS, JPMorgan Chase, Meridian Health Care Management, Merrill Lynch, and Union Bank of California.

Mississauga, Ontario, Breaks the Trend
With the shift of U.S.-based firms outsourcing software and IT development to India, why would an Indian company do the reverse and select Mississauga instead? Just ask Satyam Computer Services, a leading global consulting and IT services company. It recently opened a new Canadian development center in Mississauga.
With a strong, diverse, and well-established business sector; a rich pool of talent; well-maintained infrastructure in the heart of a major air, road, and rail network; and competitive costs, Mississauga is strategically positioned for business.
"This was a sound, return-on-investment decision. The City of Mississauga offers a highly skilled labor pool at competitive rates, close proximity and time zone overlap with the U.S. market, and a stable, business-friendly environment. This allows us to service our customers with a context-specific optimal mix of local, near-shore, or remote resources," says Sai Mandapaty, senior vice president of Satyam Computer Services.
The Satyam Development Center focuses on software development utilizing high-tech computing equipment with secure high-speed connectivity linking its Canadian, U.S., and Indian development facilities with local and global customers.
Since Satyam has customers from more than 149 Fortune Global and U.S. 500 corporations, the company was also seeking a city with the same fiscal responsibility and entrepreneurial zeal for business as it has. "We wanted to be where other successful firms were located. Mississauga has more than 50 Fortune 500 companies located here. The companies are industry leaders and consistently voted by employees to be the best firms in Canada. We wanted to be part of this thriving business community," comments Mandapaty.
In fact, 57 Fortune 500 companies have Canadian head offices in Mississauga. These include Baxter, DuPont, Federal Express, General Electric, General Mills, Gillette, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Kimberly-Clark, Microsoft, Office Depot, Oracle, Pepsi, Pitney Bowes, Tech Data, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo Financial, Whirlpool, and Wyeth, to name just a few. With a positive, pro-business environment, and debt-free financial standing, Mississauga is well-positioned for the future.

P.E.I. Flies High For Honeywell Aerospace
Honeywell Aerospace's products can be found on virtually every type of aircraft in use today, from the nose to the tail. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, the company continues to invest in its Slemon Park facility in Summerside, Prince Edward Island (PEI) — a key resource in the global aerospace market.
As the result of a $1 million expansion completed in June 2004, Honeywell's staff in PEI has doubled. The 40,000-square-foot facility now employs more than 120 people in the manufacture, repair, and overhaul of a comprehensive range of aircraft components and accessories. The expansion was undertaken in order to service the Woodward line of fuel controls and to move Honeywell's formerly U.S.-based fuel pump and fuel-control business to Canada.
Honeywell's decision to further invest in its Slemon Park operation is a testament to the region's robust business climate and the expertise of its work force, according to Keith Wheeler, the site leader at Honeywell Aerospace's Engine Systems & Services. "With one of the best business environments in North America, PEI has the infrastructure, the work force, and a strong economy, as well as a government committed to business development," explains Wheeler. "Our growth is also a direct consequence of the excellent reputation earned by our employees for their expertise and fast turnaround times."

Quebec Is Clear Winner for the Gaming Industry
As proof that it seeks to cement its presence in Quebec, U.S.-based Electronic Arts is investing $2.6 million in a training program that will generate 100 new jobs in its Montreal studio. The program will provide the company's growing work force of game creators with the skills required to fully develop the next generation of interactive entertainment. The set of courses will feature classes in areas such as performance technology, graphics, engineering, and project management. Electronic Arts, one of the world's leading independent developers and publishers of interactive entertainment software, has been successfully established in Quebec since 2003, when it inaugurated its Montreal creative studio. It presently employs 100 people here.
Why Montreal? According to Electronic Arts Montreal's Vice President and Studio General Manager Alain Tascan, "The density of the multimedia sector is conducive to our development. People here understand international entertainment, but have a special flair; that's what creates the originality. One of the most obvious examples is Cirque du Soleil. You also have to remember that the cost of living here is very competitive, compared with Europe and the United States."
On Quebec's government incentive programs, which are among the most generous in the world, Tascan has this to say: "For me, they're the least important factors. They help expedite our development, but we don't include them in our business plan because they're not within our control. We're not here because of the programs; we're here because we believe Montreal will become the video game capital within the next 10 years."
Gaming giant Ubisoft has also created its training facilities, the Ubisoft Campus, through an association with the Matane College, the University of Sherbrooke, and the University of Quebec in Montreal. A graduate program is also being developed in collaboration with the University of Montreal and will be launched in September.
The Electronic Arts and Ubisoft projects have received Quebec state support and constitute a model for future specialized and industry-specific training projects. These initiatives also complement the training opportunities offered by traditional educational facilities as well as those of world-renowned private institutions such as the National Animation and Design Center (NAD), the Institute for Computer Graphics Creation and Research (ICARI), and the National Audio-Visual Institute (INIS).
North American hub of the digital entertainment industry, Montreal offers unparalleled R&D infrastructures, low operating costs, and — most of all — the talent to propel the growth of innovation-rich businesses.

StarTek Beams Down On Saskatchewan
When selecting a site for one of its call centers, StarTek, a $200 million company, chose Saskatchewan hands down. The Denver-based organization specializes in Internet, e-commerce, and communications. StarTek's 800-employee center in Regina provides technical support and customer care for cell phone users.
The competition in 2003 to win over StarTek was steep. Twelve cities on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border were being considered. Everyone wanted the new employer that Forbes magazine included in its top-200 list of small American companies. According to then-CEO William Meade, the center's location in Regina, Saskatchewan, offered all StarTek needed, and more.
"We are delighted to be part of the Regina business community," he says. "The decision to locate to Saskatchewan was based on several factors, including the number of potential employees, the concentration and level of education in the work force, and the fact that the province had such a solid telecommunications structure in place and available to us."
StarTek is one of many companies to find that where competitive advantages are concerned, Saskatchewan just makes sense.