Bulletproof(ing) for a global marketplace
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
At Nova Scotia Business Inc., we celebrate local, homegrown businesses experiencing growth and welcome firms from around the world who are expanding their operations into our province. It’s what we do – help grow business.
We recently caught up with Bill Parsons, VP of Corporate Development at Bulletproof - a local cybersecurity company specializing in Cloud Security that has seen three-fold growth over the past twelve months.
In this ever-increasing digital world, we need to know our information, whether personal or business, is safe. As a result, the cybersecurity industry is experiencing considerable growth. A recent report from BCC Research estimates the global cybersecurity market to grow to $187.1 billion by 2021 – a compound annual growth rate of 17% from 2016 onward.
In Canada, there is a federal commitment to make the nation a global leader in cybersecurity and Nova Scotia is at the forefront of this effort. In fact, Bulletproof is one of three companies who has announced growth in Halifax this summer.
Halifax: a place to grow
“In 2017, Halifax’s growth rate was 1.6%, not far behind Toronto at 1.9%. Pretty impressive for a small metropolitan city like Halifax to be able to maintain growth and keep up with Canada’s largest metropolitan city. With Bulletproof tapping into Halifax’s growing infrastructure and workforce, we’re able to close more business on a global scale using local resources – a huge feat for Bulletproof and the Halifax economy.”
–Bill Parsons, Vice-President of Corporate Development
Q: Why is Halifax, Nova Scotia the right place for your business?
A: For Bulletproof, it was never a question of if we should branch off into Nova Scotia, but rather when we would make the move. As Canada’s fifth-biggest tech hub, Halifax presents an exciting opportunity for Bulletproof to position ourselves in the market as the IT and cybersecurity experts. Security has been at the forefront of our offering since the birth of the company back in 2001; it’s basically in our DNA.
In addition to Halifax becoming a growing force in the information technology playground within Canada, the ICT sector has also been identified as a key growth area within the province.
“We knew this was the right climate to advance our growth plans and export capacity; both for current and new offerings.”
Q: What aspect of the ecosystem in Halifax are you most excited to tap into?
A: We are strongly committed to investing in the communities in which we work and play. Halifax has a strong support network and we’re excited to tap into the industry, community and educational partnerships to help ensure Bulletproof’s success, as well as economic growth for Nova Scotia. Our active partnership with Nova Scotia Business Inc., membership with the Halifax Partnership and Halifax Chamber of Commerce as well as participation on the Program Advisory Committee for NSCC have helped to strengthen Bulletproof’s roots in the province.
“Halifax is a big university and college town, with no shortage of new talent looking to test their skills through co-op programs, as well as recent graduates entering the workforce.”
With various specialized education programs in our field such as the launch of NSCC’s cybersecurity 2-year Diploma program and Dalhousie University's Institute for Big Data Analytics, the first of its kind in Canada, we’re excited to tap into the talent pool.
Bulletproof’s $1.5M state-of-the-art Security Operating Centre (SOC). It’s a 3,500 sq ft custom-built facility to provide our managed enterprise-level cybersecurity monitoring and incident response services
Q: What’s the best thing about doing business in Halifax?
A: Right now is an exciting time for Halifax! There's a great deal of growth happening here, and with that, strong support systems within the ecosystem. Both the Province and the Halifax Regional Municipality are committed to fostering economic development and the ICT sector has been identified by the Province as a key target area for growth. Aligned with this focus, we've been able to access tools like the payroll rebate program, which enabled Bulletproof to tap into top local tech talent to build its Halifax team.
“We’ve grown three-fold in the past 12 months.”
This growing team helps Bulletproof leverage Halifax’s stable and skilled workforce to launch our Secure Cloud Services Practice. As Atlantic Canada’s only Certified Gold Microsoft Partner, our Secure Cloud Services practice is focused on delivery capabilities for Microsoft Cloud Services, Security Practice, and Microsoft SharePoint Practice. This is in addition to our core offerings of Security Services, Learning & Training, and Audits and Network Risk Assessment.
A new managed service recently launched, Bulletproof 365, is an integrated solution that combines productivity and protection—far superior to piecemeal fixes, more efficient and cost-effective than subscribing to individual services.
"These services provide an opportunity to build on our regional success and export our offerings outside of Atlantic Canada and into high growth markets across Canada and the United States."
This also helps create new jobs for our university and college graduates, so they can stay and work here instead of going elsewhere to find jobs. Bulletproof’s diverse teams bring and transfer new skills, knowledge, and training to our Nova Scotian talent like the expert background in the Gaming Sector available through our parent company Gaming Laboratories International (GLI).