Nick Rockel

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many B.C. businesses on the ropes, but this is no time to forget your customers. Mark Colgate, professor of service excellence at UVic’s Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, shares some advice on keeping the love alive—and being ready to bounce back stronger than ever...

CEO, BioLytical Laboratories As a teenager in Quesnel, where she was born to Indian immigrants, Livleen Veslemes used to watch The Oprah Winfrey Show with her dad, a shift worker at the plywood plant. “I remember watching her, hearing her story and thinking...

With rent due on April 1, the COVID-19 crisis has left commercial landlords and their cash-strapped tenants scrambling to figure out a way forward. Looking ahead, the outbreak could also see pandemic clauses become a standard feature of commercial leases and agreements. For some tips on dealing with leases and contracts...

As everyone keeps saying, there’s no playbook for the COVID-19 crisis. But you can take steps to manage the financial and other risks to your business—and even seize new opportunities. For some advice, we turned to two partners with PwC...

“I’ve never been in the business of forecasting, but now even less so,” says Iglika Ivanova when asked about the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are going to see a lot of disruption,” adds the Vancouver-based senior economist and public interest researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy...

1. To illustrate the scale of the crisis that has swept the B.C. forest industry, can you share a few facts and figures? We’ve had over 100 curtailment announcements at B.C. operations, some temporary and some permanent. Those are now...

Forestry is struggling, tech is booming, and companies of all sizes can’t find enough good people. As B.C. rings in the new year, those are just a few of the factors that will affect businesses across the province during an...

In his long jacket and tall black boots, John Fluevog still looks every bit the dandy who started making his mark on the fashion and retail worlds five decades ago. He glides down into the showroom of his gorgeous, high-ceilinged flagship...

John Horgan showed off his yellow Star Trek socks earlier this week, but what he really wanted to talk about was how he thinks British Columbians and their businesses can live long and prosper. Without a phaser to fall back on, the NDP premier and hard-core Trekkie also demonstrated his skill...

At Oakridge Centre in south-central Vancouver, the slow-moving lineup snakes down the hall. People keep gathering indoors on this mild Saturday afternoon in late September to catch Unwritten, local developer Westbank Corp.’s showcase for its coming transformation of a brown-brick...

1. In your view, how healthy is the Canada-U.S. relationship? What should Canada be doing to keep ties between our two countries strong? One is to urge our Congress to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. And also set a good example by instead of your prime minister raising taxes, you should be...

1. What is your role? To be a champion for innovation in B.C. That means how do we get more investment, and it’s really through three different ways. It’s developing partnerships with the federal government, encouraging international investment here and making...