Dan Roberge:
Ed, I've known you guys for a while. Surge learning, and I know Tulia, and you've been in the industry for a while, but how long have you been with Surge?
Edward Robeznieks:
I came across from skill soft and global knowledge about two months ago.
Dan Roberge:
Okay.
Edward Robeznieks:
I'm new to the healthcare space, learning a lot about it.
Edward Robeznieks:
We're doing a lot of exciting things at surge, and you know, launching new platforms. So there's a lot going on. So it's a good time to be here.
Dan Roberge:
Nice. So this is this your first show, though, then, I guess.
Edward Robeznieks:
Yeah. Here it is. Yes it is.
Dan Roberge:
This is always the biggest one that used to be downtown. But now they brought it to the airport. It's a little easier to access, but maybe not as much fun. I guess.
Edward Robeznieks:
Sure, I guess access is more important.
Dan Roberge:
I think the access that's true. So now you said you were in a different industry. What was the industry you were in before?
Edward Robeznieks:
The training industry, but I wasn't focused on health care.
Edward Robeznieks:
So when we, when I ran Global Knowledge Canada, we were doing high tech training. So cyber cloud based training, instructor led. Then we went to virtual after Covid and then we were acquired by Skill Soft. So then we did all their high tech stuff and then skill soft did leadership and business training and things like that. And I was running North America for them. So I was on the high tech part of it.
Dan Roberge:
nice.
Edward Robeznieks:
And then I was helping a company out of India that was trying to develop a platform in North America. Did that for about a year, and that sort of didn't... they didn't have the investment dollars that they needed to do what they wanted. And, so then I parted ways with them, and then Serge contacted me and that's how I am here.
Dan Roberge:
Excellent. And so what do you like about the surge product and offering? What's the thing that attracts you to their offering?
Edward Robeznieks:
Yeah. So it's having a wonderful brand recognition, we have about 75% of the Ontario marketplace, which is a tremendous, big market. We're growing in the West. We're growing in the East. What I love is, we've got an integrated platform, that takes your learning management system along with your policy professional capabilities, to upload all your policies, and manage them through our LMS and all of our quality response. Our QRM system, and the, policy professional on the QRM are coming on to our new platform over the next 4 to 6 months. We're migrating people on the LMS with having this integrated platform, I think is really important for organizations versus having an LMS, somebody else doing QRM, somebody else doing policies, and then trying to integrate all of that.
Dan Roberge:
Yeah. And so what's the focus of the learning? What's the subject matter mainly that you're focusing on.
Edward Robeznieks:
We're focused on the compliance of as you know, in Ontario there's strict regulations. You have to follow rules. So we have all of that. When you go to the other provinces, they have rules too. But there's less. It's not as stringent as Ontario is. So we do create our own content to help organize organizations if they need that. So we have a content creation team, and then we obviously upload all the requirements that are government driven in all the provinces, and that's in our LMS. So it's really a compliance.
Dan Roberge:
Okay. Excellent. So what's been your strategy? I know you're new, but what what do you think is going to be your strategy from going out to get new people out there out west, out east, you know, outside of Ontario, what is the business strategy?
Edward Robeznieks:
Ok, I don't want to give away too much here. But yeah, no, clearly we want to obviously have the kind of market share that we have in Ontario in all the provinces. Some of them have stricter guidelines, or they have relationships with government agencies that make it a little trickier. But in general, we see, rural hospitals, long term care facilities, in provinces like BC and Alberta, in Manitoba, all of the East Coast. I'm toying with the idea of focusing a little bit more on the Quebec marketplace, but there are challenges there too, because the Quebec government provides free compliance training for publicly funded organizations, private though they don't. But again, the majority are public. So your market is a little bit smaller. So then you've got all the French content you've got to create. So there are challenges built into that. But that's really the focus. And you'll see us expanding west and east, quite aggressively.
Dan Roberge:
Okay. And is there any plans of going south of the border at all?
Edward Robeznieks:
So we have talked about that. We looked at states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, kind of blue states that are health care focused. States had large health care organizations. Again, the challenge there is just creating the content. Content is expensive to create. And you have to have all of it. And each state in the US is different. You can take some generic content that goes across Canada, outside of Quebec, let's say with the French, but across Canada, when you get into the US, each state is very unique in what their content is. So you're really developing something for all of Canada, you're developing for Ohio, but then, you know, when you go to Pennsylvania, you're not taking that. You're starting all over again in Pennsylvania. So there are challenges built in the cost to develop that is quite high.
Dan Roberge:
And what is the process for building that? Like how did you do it in Ontario? I mean, through time, and obviously research and interaction. But what is the process of creating that content for you guys?
Edward Robeznieks:
You work with the with the government agencies. Everybody has health care agencies, whether you're US or Canada, every province, Ontario they create their own content that they want. These are mandatory. So they then they go to people like us and say, okay, upload this. This is something that everybody has to do. So we facilitate that. That's the compliance piece. The next piece is okay. Now if you want to create content, now I've got to work with the government agency to create something. So we have a back and forth on what needs to go into the content. That's how we formulate it. And then once we get their blessing. Then we go live with it.
Dan Roberge:
Wow. So you have the hardest job dealing with government agencies and waiting for responses back.
Edward Robeznieks:
It can be challenging.
Dan Roberge:
Yeah. And that's why it makes your product so unique too. Because you've done the work and it's hard to get that information. So you've put it all in one place and now people can get it easier.
Edward Robeznieks:
Exactly. And I think that's the big advantage. As I said, you've got, integrated platforms that cover everything that you would want in the compliance space. You have content development teams that can help you customize if you want to add it, or if you want to create new policies or if you want to create audits. We can help you do that so you can get going. All of that is in housed in one LMS and one platform. And I think that's a big advantage.
Dan Roberge:
Amazing. So now, where can people find you? And you know what? Where should they go to get more information?
Edward Robeznieks:
Surge Learning dot ca. So Surgelearning.ca and certainly you can reach out to someone like me. It's Edward at Serge learning dot ca. We would love to talk to anyone who either has our platform and wants to grow with it and do other things, like our policy, or anyone new that is interested to find out more. But certainly go to our website and all that information's there.
Dan Roberge:
Awesome. Well, you know, like I mentioned, I think we should do this again on a full length feature, and we can talk a little bit more about Surge, and the partnerships that you have, and so on. So good luck in the new role, and look forward to talking again.
Edward Robeznieks:
Thank you very much.
Dan Roberge:
All right. Take care.
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