About Us

About Cooperative Synergies Inc

Co-operative Synergies Inc. is a Co-operative corporation owned by Telecom operating companies dedicated to providing the best possible services to its member companies at the best possible price enabling them to succeed and thrive in their businesses.

Co-operative Synergies Inc History

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 1994

Co-operative Synergies Inc was born out of a realization by industry leaders that managing the increasing pace of technological change was becoming very costly and was also detracting them from their core missions. A consultant was retained to review the current situation and the expected changes over the next 3-5 years and prepare a plan. The proposed plan involved gathering together 15 Independent Telecommunication companies to build one data centre, hire one set of staff and install one computer system to provide Billing Support and Operational Support Systems for all member companies allowing even the smallest companies to take advantage of economies of scale.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 1995

Co-operative Synergies Inc was incorporated in June 1995 and J. Stuart Smith was hired as General Manager. Over the summer, land was purchased for a data centre and a building was designed. Ground was broken in October 1995 for this new building.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 1996

Co-operative Synergies Inc and its staff moved into the new building in February 1996 and in March of 1996, bills were printed for our first member company. By December of 1996, bills were being printed for 4 member companies.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 1997

1997 was a very active year of new implementations with 11 more members being implemented by the end of the year.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 1998

Three additional members joined CSI in 1998 and together with several non-member customers, by the end of 1998, CSI was billing for 19 member companies.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 1999

With the rapid approach of Y2K, upgrades were done installed to enable our systems to handle the new century and two more customer came on board bringing the total to 19 companies.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2002

Co-operative Synergies Inc celebrated paying off the last of the debt incurred to start the company.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2006

At the request of the board, Co-operative Synergies Inc and its member companies undertook to create a Business Functions Inventory to enumerate all functions performed by its member companies whether they were on a platform provided by CSI or not. The intent of this inventory was use it to evaluate the current 10 year old platform as well as any potential replacements.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2008

The incumbent software vendor that was selected in 1995 contacted CSI to inform us that they were getting out of the business. This began a process to select a new platform. Following the selection process, negotiations were begun with National Information Solutions Co-operative of Bismark, ND to license and install iVUETM Enterprise.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2009

A contract was executed with NISC in April 2009 and in October of 2009, our first member company was converted to the iVUETM platform.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2010

By December of 2010, we had completed the conversion of 14 member companies to the new iVUETM platform running on a state of the art Linux based server farm.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2014

The now 5 year old infrastructure was refreshed by installing a Virtual Cluster increasing the redundancy, reliability and performance of our data centre.

Cooperative Synergies Inc History 2015

All of our member companies began the process of installing SmartHubTM a user facing app to increase engagement with their customers and to give end users ready and convenient access to their Telecom Providers. Also in 2015 an increasing number of our members implemented AppSuiteTM which is an app used by our member’s staff to interact with iVUETM in a paperless fashion leading to measurably greater efficiency and higher levels of customer service.

Cooperative Synergies Inc Services

Co-operative Synergies Inc. is a Co-operative corporation owned by Telecom operating companies dedicated to providing the best possible services to its member companies at the best possible price enabling them to succeed and thrive in their businesses.

Customer Care & Billing

 

Co-operative Synergies Inc hosts a resilient industry leading BSS (Billing Support Solution) and OSS (Operations Support Solution) platform called iVUE Enterprise. This platform is used to provide services to over 130,000 service points in Canada. These services include Cellular Voice, Text and Data, Landline Voice, Cable TV, IP TV, Voice over IP Service, Security and both fixed and wireless internet.

Because of the services that Co-operative Synergies Inc provides to our member customers, our members are able to focus all of their energies and efforts on serving their customers and growing their businesses in a profitable and sustainable manner.

IT & Support

Co-operative Synergies Inc has skilled and experienced staff that provide all first level support to our member companies and their staff. This provides a one call solution for any issues that our member staff might have with the hosted platform.

Our staff also provides assistance to our member companies in designing and implementing new products and services and streamlining their delivery to customers.

We welcome all questions from our member companies and do our utmost to assist our members in arriving at satisfactory and innovative solutions to enable them to seize the abounding opportunities that surround them.

Operations

Co-operative Synergies Inc and its staff provide all of the operational care and support for the server infrastructure. Our members do not need to have staff trained to keep the server and network infrastructure up to date nor to they have to be responsible for backups.We also maintain production printing and inserting facilities to print, insert and mail monthly bills as well as any other periodic mailings that our members wish to do.

Utilizing the SmartHub platform, Co-operative Synergies Inc enables its member companies to provide secure, convenient and powerful paperless billing to their end customers increasing customer satisfaction and dramatically reducing recurring costs due to paper, postage and payment handling.

IT Infrastructure

 

Co-operative Synergies Inc maintains both a Production Data Centre and a High Availability Centre and uses replication software to replicate data to the HA site in near realtime basis. These Data Centres are equipped with UPS and Generator backup ensuring near constant availability.