Source: IDG Connect
When you hear about Canada’s tech sector and some of its major hubs, areas such as Waterloo and Ottawa typically come to mind, largely as a result of the major tech success stories and failures that have shaped these regions over the last several years. While these regions and several others, including the cities of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal all have their own respective tech centres, when you look at each of them across a multitude of industry measures, you’d be surprised to see that Toronto area’s York Region tops them all.
In 2012 alone, York Region saw tremendous growth, leading all major Canadian ICT technology hubs with a growth rate of 23.3%. The Region also continued to demonstrate its breadth of ICT capability, growing to over 3,900 ICT firms, making it the largest enterprise solutions ICT cluster in Canada, as well as the nation’s largest industry cluster relative to population size. Despite this, as well as longstanding success, York Region has had much lower awareness compared to other clusters in Ontario and the rest of Canada. This is now starting to change.
York Region’s enterprise solutions are a major reason why the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is now considered one of the top ICT clusters worldwide. Outside of California most people associate Silicon Valley with San Francisco, but in reality, it is communities such as San Jose, San Mateo, Sunnyvale, etc. that drive the ICT culture of this region. Same can be said for York Region, as it is the most visible ICT cluster in the GTA.
For years, York Region’s ICT cluster has developed a strong reputation for building seasoned solutions that address real world enterprise scale requirements. The area is home to dozens of ICT multinationals including IBM, Huawei, Oracle, HP, GE, Alcatel-Lucent, Qualcomm, AMD, SAP, Avaya, Motorola Solutions, CA Technologies, Compuware and McAfee, to name a few, as well as hundreds of Canadian born companies from small to large. These firms and many others continue to see the benefits that York Region and its local municipalities have to offer, including a central, cost-effective location to access Greater Toronto Area’s and Ontario’s significant B2B market as well as GTA’s 200,000-strong ICT sector workforce.
Many of these companies can also link some of their success to York Region’s strong ecosystem of diversified and mature enterprise focused companies that provide hardware, software, and service solutions across a range of disciplines. OnX Enterprise Solutions, a leading Canadian provider of Managed Services and Data Solutions with over 20 locations worldwide, is a prime example of this, to the extent that it was able to grow from an initial investment of $10,000 to becoming an internationally focused company with over $800 million in revenue. The depth of the York Region ICT cluster, the extensive list of customers in and around the region, as well as the availability of talent, all provided the company with a ‘market lab’ within blocks of its office.
These factors amongst several others have allowed York Region’s ICT sector to grow steadily over time and prosper. Under the fold of the GTA, this ‘hidden gem’ of sorts, is becoming much more well known on the international grid and will only continue to gain momentum and further notoriety over time.
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The Regional Municipality of York is located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to 1.1 million residents and 42,000 business establishments, making it one of Canada’s largest municipalities and the second largest business centre in the Province of Ontario.
Comprised of nine local municipalities, York Region is a premier business location in Canada. The Region is home to operations of 14 Fortune 100 companies, four of Canada’s top 10 corporate R&D investors, Canada’s second largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) cluster and global industry leaders in Life Sciences, CleanTech, Financial Services and Advanced Manufacturing.
As Canada’s fastest growing large municipality, York Region has one of the most educated and diverse workforces in North America, the lowest commercial property taxes in greater Toronto and an exceptional quality of life attracting top global talent.
York Region’s local municipalities include the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan, the Town of Richmond Hill, the Town of Newmarket, the Town of Aurora, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, the Town of East Gwillimbury, the Town of Georgina and the Township of King.