OakWood wins Award for Technology and Innovation
High Performance approach backed by a state-of-the-art Design Centre, and strategic partnerships with Mpower Tesla and Mike Holmes make OakWood a winner
Every year, Orleans takes a moment to recognize and congratulate the most innovative eastend businesses (east of St. Laurent) with its Business Excellence Awards. Organized by the Orleans Chamber of Commerce, and now in their 16th year, these awards single out the most outstanding businesses in several categories. Amidst glitz and glamour, this year’s gala introduced an exciting new category to recognize technology, innovation and leadership. The winner of this prestigious award: OakWood, a family run business; and one of Ottawa’s most established residential and commercial builders with over 60 years of experience. “We are deeply honoured to be the first recipient of this important award,” observes John Liptak, President and CEO, OakWood. Liptak was proudly joined at these prestigious awards by daughter Patricia Liptak-Satov, OakWood’s COO. OakWood won in part because of its High Performance approach to the design and build of new custom homes and major renovations. Launched in January 2017, the OakWood approach identifies four areas of fast changing innovation: energy-efficiency, technology enable ment including the Smart Home and intelligent building automation; a healthy living environment; and environmental leadership. These four areas are like “planks” in an innovative design and build solution, with technology running like a thread through each. “Technology touches most product and material options at some point,” confirms Liptak. For example, if energy-efficiency or living off-thegrid is a priority, OakWood’s high performance approach may recommend the Tesla Powerwall – through its partnership in Ottawa with MPower. An inverter, solar panels and even geothermal might round-out a comprehensive technology-based energy solution. OakWood’s long-standing partnership with Mike Holmes is also an important part of the High Performance approach. OakWood and the Holmes Group announced at a major media event in September 2017 an agreement to collaborate on the continuous evaluation and testing of innovative new products available for residential construction. Essentially, the “homework” and due diligence on some of the most innovative products coming to market today has been done by two trusted sources. Liptak-Satov notes that being recognized for innovation and technology is particularly rewarding given the Liptak family’s significant effort to not only embrace the most innovative materials, technologies and solutions available today but to showcase these options in a stateof-the-art, award winning Design Centre. “We’re very passionate about technology,” she says simply. A visit to the Design Centre quickly punctuates this understated fact. Design and Project Consultants are equipped with tablets that respond to QR bar codes on over 7,500 products showcased in beautiful, fully functioning displays. Scanning the QR bar code reveals the product, a description, supplier, and price with the option to include that item as part of a high-tech enabled material selection process. Or maybe you would like to swap that out for one of over 150,000 product choices in a database of partners and manufacturers from around the world. Any changes are updated in real-time using Oak- Wood’s proprietary customer relationship management software – the backbone of the company’s processes – bringing unmatched accuracy and efficiency to pricing and scheduling. The Liptak family has been in the software business for over 20 years and is very successful with its’ 123worx construction management software platform. For more information on OakWood – and to see for yourself why it won a Business Excellence Award for technolog y and innovation – visit the Design Centre, call 613 236-8001 or visit OakWood.ca