Helping solve problems with technology has been a lifelong passion for serial entrepreneur Rakesh Tiku, the president and CEO of inField Solutions in Markham. The company’s integrated platform is being used to deliver digital transformation solutions that transform how we work and live.
Its solutions include the inField Business iQ platform that monitors occupancy and environmental data to improve the yields in smart manufacturing facilities. The company also offers a platform for building managers to enhance public facilities by monitoring and reporting cleanliness and maintenance issues.
Tiku has founded over a dozen companies during his career and says he has always been intrigued by the intersection of business and technology. He says his entrepreneurial journey began when he first started exploring internet technologies in the early 1990s.
“I was trying to figure out how businesses could use these emerging technologies to deliver new services. That's been my measure and level of curiosity ever since—how can we take technology and create real positive business impacts with it,” he says.
Tiku’s mission with inField Solutions is to help businesses make data-informed decisions to improve how their teams work. The platform uses internet-enabled sensors, equipment, and vehicle data to understand how they work—and how they want to work.
“It’s about discovering what processes they depend on and then using our platform to automate as many of the processes and workflows as we can that make sense for the business. We're leveraging things like AI to provide insights within the business’s day-to-day operations,” says Tiku.
Tiku and his co-founders launched inField Solutions in 2017 as a spin-off of another venture. The choice of Markham happened thanks to advice from down the 401 in Waterloo.
“We approached Communitech in Waterloo and were accepted into its accelerated program. They said, ‘Look, you guys are in the GTA, why don't you go to our counterpart ventureLAB.’ We did, and that’s how we ended up choosing Markham. It was a great choice. It’s a technology hub at a global scale, and we're very happy to be part of it,” he says.
Community is essential to Tiku’s success, and he says Markham’s business community has helped them connect with partners and customers.
“We get ingrained and entangled in our community, and we find the Markham community is welcoming and entangling in a very good way. We’ve been introduced to clients from Markham, there have been partnerships with several technology companies and other suppliers in Markham,” Tiku says. “The City of Markham has been very gracious and introduced us to like-minded suppliers and customers across the city. It's a very progressive and inspiring community, and we’ve worked to contribute to that community too.”
Today, Tiku and inField Solutions are continuing to help businesses refine and improve how they work. He says making an impact means having the right mix of technology, business goals, and timing.
“If you focus on tomorrow, it's too early. If you focus on yesterday, it's too late. You have to focus on the business today.”
