The Createch Group, specialized in optimizing business processes and improving business performance, was acquired in March 2022 by the French company Talan, which decided to make it the beachhead of all its activities in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Createch CEO Hélène Kyriakakis now heads Talan Americas and has the mandate to accelerate the group’s growth through acquisitions.
Createch was founded in 1993 by engineer Jean-Marc Leboeuf, who grew the company until 2005 when he sold it to Bell Canada, which continued to operate it as an independent division specializing in the implementation and management of production planning software.
Hélène Kyriakakis, who joined Createch in 2011 to become its CEO in 2019, began strategic reflection on Createch’s development potential upon her appointment, which was not fully optimized, according to her.
“We were a division of Bell, but not a priority. We operated autonomously. We wanted to invest and make acquisitions, but it was not in Bell’s plans, which rightly prioritized the deployment of 5G, but we saw growth possibilities,” explains the CEO.
This is because over the years, the Createch Group has managed to acquire significant expertise in process re-engineering and performance improvement, mainly in the manufacturing and distribution sector, with more than 300 active clients, such as Canam, Exfo, Structube, Mondou, Nova Bus, Énergir…
“There were also groups that were interested in buying from us. I went to the people at Bell and asked them: are we selling? We then set up a call for proposals process and Bell selected a short list of three companies, taking into account the possibilities for expansion and the new expertise that we could bring to our customers,” summarizes Hélène Kyriakakis.
Founded 20 years ago by four partners, Talan has a strong presence in Europe and Tunisia, where the company has created an innovation center. Bringing together more than 5,000 change management and digital transformation specialists, Talan has also built a solid data management and artificial intelligence team.
“Today we find ourselves with three pillars: consultation, cloud applications and artificial intelligence. We will be able to share this latest expertise with our customers,” anticipates the CEO.
Talan already had an activity in Montreal and New York, where she follows her large French financial clients such as BNP, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole. These activities are now overseen by the Talan Americas office.
In addition, the French company completed – six months before that of Createch – the acquisition of the Montreal firm Insum, specializing in application solutions for Oracle management systems. The firm of 60 specialists, which generates more than 70% of its sales in the United States, will continue to operate under its own internationally recognized brand, but will become part of the Talan Americas group.
“There will be nearly 600 specialists, including around fifty in New York. Next year we will bring together all our Montreal employees in the same building, either here on McGill Street or elsewhere, we are evaluating different scenarios. We also have offices in Quebec and Toronto,” explains Hélène Kyriakakis.
“Talan is associated with the British fund TowerBrook, which already has two acquisition targets in the United States. We are in discussions with these companies. We want to acquire firms that, like us, have expertise in the manufacturing and distribution sector.
“We are targeting the American Midwest markets in Chicago and New York. We want to export our Quebec expertise and bring wealth back home,” wishes the CEO of Talan Americas.
The consolidation of the group’s activities in Montreal began last July, and the management of the French group is counting heavily on Quebec leadership to quickly penetrate the United States and Mexico market.
“We know the English-speaking market well and we know how to work with our French colleagues. We are the product of different cultures, as I am myself, having been born to a Greek father and a Quebec mother and who grew up in Trois-Rivières,” explains the CEO.
The company is just starting to tackle the Mexican market, but also wants to raise awareness of the Talan brand, which is not known in North America, and that is why the CEO quickly appointed a vice-president of marketing specialized in positioning.
“We are an engineering firm, we are not very visible. We are here to improve the performance of our clients, but we want to take advantage of our name change to make ourselves better known,” says Hélène Kyriakakis.
