Local Farm Gal Returns To Southwestern Ontario for Expansion of FOX GROUP, High-Tech Professional Se
During the heady days of the late 1990s when many Canadians were getting the internet in their homes for the first time, Roberta J. Fox was light years ahead. She can be seen in a YouTube clip of a CTV news piece from 1999 describing how she has both wired and wireless internet all throughout her home.
Over the years, the Ballymote native who grew up swimming in the St. Marys Quarry, continued to learn more about the latest in technology, working at Humber College, speaking at Ryerson, and taking part in advisory committees on telecommunications at Algonquin College. After decades living and working in the GTA specializing in consulting with businesses (such as AT&T, Citibank and Deloitte) and governments to ensure they were using the best technologies available to achieve success, Fox is returning to where she grew up to offer her tech know-how to the agricultural community.
Fox Group Technology, for which Fox is chairman and Chief Innovation Officer, recently announced their expansion to the Southwestern Ontario area with the opening of their London area branch office in Thorndale. The organization will continue to maintain their corporate office at 1 Yonge Street, in Toronto to support their Toronto and National enterprise, non-profit and government accounts.
'This move supports our growth as a digital technology professional services company, with our branch location using a combination of high speed broad-band access, and cloud-based unified communication/collaboration applications," said Fox. "Access to new local technology talent will also enable us to push the boundaries of Fox Group's strategy, allowing us to provide consulting advisory services in strategy, procurement
and vendor implementation of communications technology solutions."
Fox said she is "excited about returning to my hometown, and particularly our ability to access and work with the London, Stratford and Kitchener technology incubator communities to enable us to bring innovative communications technology strategies to the agricorp, non-profit, mid-size enterprise and government organizations."
Fox said she thinks this area "can do some amazing things." I'm hoping our expanded facilities here will help take more businesses online, and inspire other people about what they can do," she said. "If I can get my 87-year-old dad to understand what I do; I can help just about anybody."
She said Fox Group can also help companies working to become compliant with new Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) regulations based on web and phone service requirements.
"It will be particularly interesting to be able to leverage my knowledge of farm operations with my decades of designing and deploying advanced voice and data network communications solutions, including some large agricultural operations in Western Canada," she said. "I believe me and my team of experienced technology professionals can help Southwestern Ontario agri-corps, manufacturers, government and distributed businesses select and deploy appropriate communications technology solutions to help improve their business results."
'This move also enables us to launch our next generation of internet-based consulting services," noted Chief Technology Advocate Stephen Lawson. "As we continue to expand our digital footprint, we have been investing in our ePROcurement Tools and Advisory Services [ePRO+] as our go-forward digital platform."
ePRO+ is a comprehensive suite of applications, e-commerce tools and advisory services that streamlines the acquisition of complex technologies, identifies accurate capital and operating costs and ensures that organizations are selecting the right technology solution and vendors for their future communications technology. These tools can be leveraged by any organization seeking to fully comprehend a total cost of ownership model.
According to Lawson, ePRO+ portfolio and advisory services "speed up th
e procurement process, improves auditability, quickly and accurately identifies current and future costs, and reduces overall risk to ensure the best technology solutions and vendors are selected."
