Kevin Ford- Calian Group Ltd.

In this episode of the Canadian Equities podcast Kevin Ford, CEO of Calian Group Ltd., joins Robert Cooper as they discuss leading a diversified business.  For the full length version of the Canadian Equities podcast connect with us at acumencapital.com/podcast.

Transcript

Moderator 0:01

Welcome to Canadian Equities, a short biweekly podcast series, where we speak with top business leaders and hear their perspectives on the industries in which they operate for the full length version. Find our link in the podcast notes or connect with us at acumencapital.com I'm your host Robert Cooper today. I'm pleased to have with me Calian group CEO, Kevin Ford Calian is one of the last conglomerates, a company with four separate business units tied together by the fact that each unit is relied on by us customers to provide can't fail services. Under Kevin's leadership. Calian has been transformed from a quiet Ottawa company into a growth oriented organization. That's returned 17% annually over the past 10 years. Doubled out of the TSX kevin Ford, welcome to the podcast.

Kevin Ford 0:46

Hi, Robert. Thanks. It's great to be here and appreciate your time today. And looking forward to the discussion.

Moderator 0:52

Great. Well, let's get right into it. So you're at Calian it's the last of the conglomerates. Conglomerates mostly went out of style in the seventies, but Calian has managed to stick with it. And. And sell a good story. And the unifying theme as we talked about earlier is amongst the various business units, is that the produce can't fail mission critical products. However, they do operate in separate markets that have different drivers. So how do you as a CEO stay on top of all of those trends and themes running throughout each business that may or may not be similar and might be totally different from one another.

Kevin Ford 1:28

Yeah, great question. You know, with him, I love the diversity of the company funny because as we've seen, even in a COVID world, you know, having diversity I think is, is going to be something a lot. I think to you, as organizations are going to reassess, especially once I got that, got kind of a lot of headwinds and being a, in a market. Either whether and what you do or, or, or, or a geographic area of where you operate. Um, you know, the diversity to me is going to be the new strength because of whether it's a pandemics blind, the change, all the things we're talking about. I think the resilience of organizations is going to be the ability to do a few things. Um, that, uh, do them well, uh, both domestically and globally, but I would say for me, staying on top of the markets, I recognize that challenge, you know, CEO of the company, I go from my healthcare business to my ground systems and antennas to my learning business and NATO to my it and my cyber business and what I wanted to do when I reorganized the company and create those segments that we go to market with nails, but P and L leaders responsible for each of those segments that have the. Ability to focus on those market trends. And then recently you would have seen that hired a chief commercial officer in the company. That's strengthening our marketing skillset, marketing competencies around things like market research. And these are new investments, for the company. And I think they're warranted and critical because to your point, Robert, we'll be honoring where we have to ensure is that we're not going blind into. New, territory to new geographies that we're doing this with focus, research and whole kit, but we need capacity to do that. So number one, Organize the company give the P and L leaders the responsibility to grow, grow within their sites to make sure they understand that segment they're leaders in that area. They have a team that's our leaders in that area reporting to them, and then supplement that with a corporate role of fel TCO. That brings a lot of marketing capabilities skills in. So we can do market research to serve, to ensure we're staying on top of trends. Um, and, and, and reflecting that in everything we do in our strategies.

Moderator 3:20

So now that we're here, why don't you describe some of the main drivers of each of those business units?

Kevin Ford 3:26

Absolutely. So right now, when you look at our advanced technologies business, we're a center of excellence globally, where we started this journey as a center of excellence for global satellite communications for ground-based, we don't build anything that flies in space. We build all the infrastructure, but as you look at that segment now, frankly, the legacy satellite networks are going through a major, upgrade, more networks, continue to be. Stood up as the competition for bandwidth, with terrestrial based network, whether it's 5g, um, or, or fiber, frankly. So, definitely we see in those geo MEO, orbits and school birth observation, we still see lots of activity and opportunity there. Clearly the Leo constellations, the lower observation constellations that are coming in to put more satellites around the world, lower to the earth, more closer to their, to do with some of the bandwidth and the, uh, Yeah. Th th th the issues sometimes we have with atmosphere, those are opportunities for us as well, so good opportunity and our legacy kind of architecture and a whole branding opportunity at these veils on like, capabilities that we believe we're well positioned for, for Both domestic customers, as well as global customers. So number one, for sure, or the other pieces where their acquisitions, they brought in more pieces there. For example, our acquisition last December brought in antennas that allow us to versus large ground-based antennas, smaller antennas that go on items where precision location is required to think about drones. You think about autonomous vehicles or electric vehicles. You think of a precision agriculture where location. It's going to be critical to ensure that you know, that that device operates. You know, we now have a footprint there and we have conduct discussions going on with customers who've never had before globally. So that's very exciting, finish off advanced Teckler. We have our active business with integrate. We have our nuclear business. There's a whole subset of capability there that we continue to sheet see a good opportunities. Our healthcare business right now, really three forces driving our healthcare business. Number one is our legacy business with the federal government, with national defense, and correctional services. And first, uh, first nations communities, you know, we're seeing still a lot of demand. On our legacy contracts and they continue to grow on number two is we diversify our base in Canada. We were seeing more customers come to us and then, uh, to, to get healthcare services as our healthcare brand grows. And then number three, obviously in the short-term we've seen COVID, uh, COVID reaction with regard to their running testing sites or vaccination clinics. And we expect those three things are going to continue to grow. And with our acquisition of value, all phases, the last driver now working with pharma. On patient support programs and clinical trials, both in Canada and also pilots. Now in Europe and us, we see for, you know, four fundamental drivers there for healthcare business moving forward it business, clearly our cyber acquisition with Dapa soft, uh, and the subsidiary security cyber continues to grow as well as with Davis Safia of healthcare assets. With regard to virtual care platforms and healthcare integration components that we can now bundle with their health care services and go to customers with a much broader healthcare solution. And finally, our learning business, our legacy business with defense again, continues to be very strong and we're taking all those lessons learned in diversifying in areas of globally, such as Europe, with a focus right now in areas such as NATO and other global defense forces. So customer diversification and learning as well as looking as a priority acquisitions to bring more learning. Uh, technologies. And as we think about virtual learning, virtual platforms, virtual reality gaming solutions, uh, you know, that's definitely going to be a focus for him moving forward. So very exciting, all four segments of the opportunities to grow and all four helps and some, some great opportunities, both domestically and globally.

Moderator 6:55

Kevin Ford CEO of Calian thanks so much for spending time with us today.

Kevin Ford 6:59

Robert, thank you for the questions. And again, I really appreciate the time today

Moderator 7:05

Note that this podcast is not making an investment recommendation on any companies discussed. We welcome your comments on today's episode or any other episode. Connect with us at Acumen Capital dot com.