State-Of-The-Science Environmental IT Solutions
Based in Waterloo Ontario, Lakes Software supplies robust and easy-to-use environmental software solutions and data services to industry, consulting companies, government agencies and academia. Having recently been recognized by AI as the Best Specialist Environmental Software Solutions Firm 2019 – Ontario, we profiled Lakes Software and caught up with the firm’s Bryan Matthews (US Operations Manager) who provided us with a glimpse into the innerworkings of the award-winning company.
Since their inception in 1995, Lakes Software has focused on providing state-of-the-science environmental IT solutions to help its clients solve their most pressing environmental regulatory challenges. In addition, the firm has established a reputation for providing clients with cost-effective environmental data services, such as global availability of specialized meteorological data and hands-on environmental software training courses led by their senior training instructors and subject matter experts.
Lakes Software’s clients are faced with the challenge of successfully managing compliance with extensive environmental regulatory requirements for air, water, soil, and solid waste. The consequences of not successfully managing regulatory compliance have significant negative impacts. Lakes Software’s customers have reported that benefits from using Lakes software solutions have included an increase in staff productivity, continuous regulatory compliance and avoiding costly compliance violations, and adverse offsite impacts such as exceedances of regulatory limits. As an example, one of their clients is saving on average $40million annually, employing their forecasting system, which avoids plant shutdowns.
From the very beginning, customer service has been a critical focus of Lakes Software, as Bryan explains. “Here at Lakes Software, we work closely with existing and potential clients to fully understand the challenges that they are facing. It is our goal to identify solutions that, not only solve their environmental challenges, but also generate opportunities for clients to increase productivity, reduce financial risk, increase production, and ultimately increase the ROI potential of the client’s investment in our cloud IT solutions.
“Another significant benefit to our customers is that we never stop inventing. Lakes Software invests heavily in research and development to ensure that our software solutions remain cutting edge, providing our customers with powerful new features and capabilities that provide ongoing benefits, such as recent advances in machine learning. Our clients have direct access to our senior subject matter experts and senior product specialists to ensure their immediate questions are answered correctly and in a timely manner. Finally, we provide our clients with onsite hands-on training to ensure that all staff are knowledgeable and proficient in their areas of responsibility.”
Speaking of the team, the staff which form the backbone of Lakes Software work tirelessly to ensure that they not only deliver a service which meets the requirements of their clients, but also one which exceeds their expectations. When discussing the internal culture at the firm, Lake Software’s Founder and CEO, Dr. Jesse Thé says, “We painstakingly invest time and resources into developing and retaining our most valuable asset – our dedicated staff.” Adding to Dr. Thé’s point, Bryan continues to highlight the significant role the team plays in the overall success of the firm.
“The uniqueness and continued success of the company comes from the organic interaction that has developed between its most valuable assets, including our dedicated and hardworking staff to our state-of-the-science products, all the way to our commitment to excellence and unmatched customer support. In addition to this, the overwhelming majority of our staff have been with us since the company was founded over twenty years ago.”
Lakes Software strives to support disadvantaged communities. In one these efforts, they virtually provide free of charge, extensive environmental management tools to over 1000 native American tribes in the USA. Armed with these tools, the tribes can protect themselves from external sources of pollution, degrading land and human health, moving onto their lands.
“Through our R&D efforts and exceptionally talented staff, we have developed state-of-the-science technologies that have tremendous value outside the environmental sector. For example, we have created advanced encryption capabilities, secure online messaging, file storage and scheduling applications. Recently, we have combined these applications into a single solution called Zebu that runs across multiple platforms including iOS and Android. The new product offering will benefit all business sectors, providing significant advantages over existing messaging and file storage systems, which includes competitive pricing and secure end to end encryption.” Visit Zebu.io to learn more.
Over the years, Lakes Software has received countless accolades for their extraordinary services and the innovative solutions they provide. From being selected as the Best Environmental IT Solution Provider by the United Nations Development Program for its AQMIS Web – a Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) technology – a tool which was managed by the UNDP for the State of Kuwait, to being recognised in AI’s Global Excellence Awards 2019 where they were awarded the accolade of the Best Specialist Environmental Software Solutions Firm 2019 – Ontario.
Moving forward, the team at Lakes Software hopes to build upon the remarkable success that they have had so far, as well as continuing to further establish themselves as a global leader in environmental IT, security, and business productivity applications.
