Tangentia, an artificial intelligence technology firm founded by Vijay Thomas in 2003, became a CAMSC certified supplier last year. Already, Tangentia has won the Technology and Innovation Award at CAMSC’s annual Business Achievement Awards Gala, which, to Vijay, is a welcome acknowledgement of the accomplishments Tangentia has had over the past 18 years.
Business has been uncertain for the past two years, regardless of the industry. Rather than scale down like many had to do, Vijay saw an opportunity in the pandemic, saying, “We pulled out all the stops, increased investments, hired more people, and diversified.”
Investing in technology, and specifically, Tangentia’s own TiA (Tangentia Intelligent Automation) platform, paid off. Tangentia provides digital transformation solutions to businesses, offering industry leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Ecommerce, and Digital Product Engineering. As human interaction rapidly declined in the pandemic, people became more dependent on automated processes to perform daily tasks. “We got tailwinds in terms of people embracing a digital transformation during this time, so a lot of things went in our favour.”
The innovative thinking that Tangentia’s culture fostered allowed the business to not only survive the pandemic, but to grow. Vijay believes this success is due to some luck, but he gives most of the credit to the company’s tight-knit team, saying that the right people made the right decisions.
“We work hard, and the harder we work, the luckier we get.”
Globally, Tangentia employs approximately 300 people across Canada, India, and the United States. Vijay hopes that as his company continues to grow and evolve CAMSC’s supplier certification will help them expand further, especially to U.S. markets, as CAMSC is closely affiliated with the American National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). He describes CAMSC as a well-kept secret and notes it’s a secret more businesses should be aware of.
“CAMSC has allowed us to sit at the table in places that might have taken us years longer to get to. Certification shows corporate partners that we can stand on our own, that we add value,” he says.
As businesses emerge from the pandemic into a different world, Vijay says he is prepared to evolve and tackle new challenges. “The glass ceiling is where I think the next level of opportunity lies, so you have to have audacious goals. Audacity is what makes you start, and it’s what gets you past that ceiling,” he says.
Vijay is anticipating a busy next few years, and he’s ready for an evolution to take place in the AI technology industry. He believes AI robots are the future of the workforce and Tangentia will be the firm to build them, estimating that by 2025, 200-400 million will enter the workforce. “Artificial Intelligence is going to become ubiquitous, and every company (large or small) will be using it.”
It’s this kind of innovative and bold thinking that helped win Vijay and his team CAMSC’s Technology and Innovation Award. As we look forward in our relationship with Tangentia, we are eager to see the transformational changes they will bring to the technology industry, and to the rest of the world.