Bob Courteau knows, and loves, competition.

It comes from growing up in a household of five children in Montreal that was just big enough to form a ball hockey team. But it's also a trait he's carried into adulthood as the president and managing director of Toronto-based information technology services firm SAP Canada.

The company's fastest-growing business is the nation's small- and medium-sized companies that have dreams and plans to become global competitors. And Courteau is just the type to show them how to be winners, all the while keeping his own eye on the ball.

1.What was it like growing up in Montreal?

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Bob Courteau, president and managing director of SAP Canada, says changing market conditions are prompting businesses to look for solutions.

"I had three brothers, and there were four of us in five years and a sister that came along a little bit later. We had just a great time growing up in Montreal, because growing up in a family with three brothers of similar age made for a lot of great times in terms of all the sports that we played. (It was) a lot of fun being able to compete virtually for everything that we did. There was a ton of kids on our street, so that was a lot of fun."

2. What did your parents do?

"My father worked for Canadair, which became Bombardier, and was very involved in all of the testing and design around aircraft. My mother was a homemaker."

3. How did you end up moving to California?

"My dad was responsible for something called the (U.S.) Federal Aviation Authority approval for the Challenger (space shuttle). When they had to do the testing, he went down to the U.S. to lead the work around getting those approvals. He was there for about 10 years. I was down there for about a year and then came back to Montreal to finish college, where I took business administration. Then I went out to Banff."

4. Why did you go west?

"I basically decided that before I went to university, I would take a year off. That turned into a couple years. I was a pretty active skier and I thought it would be a good idea to ski in one of the best places in the world before I went to university. I ended up going to Banff with some friends and essentially met my wife there."

5. Did you work while you were in Banff?

"I was a night cleaner at the Banff Springs Hotel. I actually worked in the laundry department at one point."

6. Did your bilingualism help you at all?

"Not really. I didn't see a lot of the (guests) because I was mostly in the backroom."

7. What were some of your memorable experiences later at Concordia?

"I took marketing as my undergraduate degree. I was really interested in businesses. You worked on case studies and had to present what you would do if you were running certain businesses. You worked with teams and it was a lot of fun. On top of that, I continued to ski a lot while I was at university. It was a really good combination. I really enjoyed the studies and also got to ski three days a week. While I was at university, I continued to go back out west to Alberta and worked in places like Drayton Valley and Medicine Hat. I did some work outside of Red Deer for a couple of summers on construction and pipeline-type work.

8. What were those experiences like for you?

"Because I lived in Calgary, Banff and some of these smaller towns in Alberta, I really got a chance to see different parts of the province and really enjoyed it. Working in these smaller towns, we made pretty good money, which helped when you went back to university as well."

9. Did you go to any rodeos or get a chance to sample the Western lifestyle?

"Well, I went to the Calgary Stampede every year, for sure. There were also a few local rodeos in some of those towns. We got a chance to really meet a whole cross-section of people from Alberta. It was really a great experience. I still to this day enjoy Alberta."

10. How did you decide on a career in technology?

"I took a couple of courses in technology when I was in university. Back then, that was a (sector) that was moving from hiring people who had engineering or computer science degrees to people that had more of a business background. Because of that, I found some interesting opportunities and was quite interested in it. So it was just a natural fit."

11. What was your first job after university?

"I started my career with Hewlett-Packard. I was in their management-development program and I started my career in sales in Calgary."

12. How did you end up getting that position?

"When I finished university, we drove out to Calgary. I started calling around to see who was hiring. In a pretty short period of time, I had two or three different opportunities and this is the one that I picked. It was an interesting, high-growth company and one that offered a significant development opportunity where we got to learn, in the first year, the computer industry first-hand, from the perspective of somebody that had taken a business degree. That was at a time when (the computer industry) was really taking off. After HP, I worked for Xerox for a long time in a number of roles, but mostly in their industry marketing group. I helped them start up their software division. I ran the Eastern Canada region, which included the federal government, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. I also worked in the U.S., both in Chicago and in Rochester. In my last job at Xerox, I ran their colour (copier) business for North America. I was there for about 10 years."

13. What was it like being in a fairly advanced executive role in a company of that size?

"Xerox is a company that really taught you the benefits of operational focus. They did that from a perspective of using quality as a competitive differentiator. When you operate at a senior level in a company like that, you get an opportunity to get involved in all aspects of the business, virtually from development - which products to bring into the marketplace - right through to the operational responsibility for meeting the quarterly goals and quarterly performance. The exciting thing was being able to have a view of all of the assets that make a business run, right from product development to design to marketing to sales operations. That was a very good experience. That was something I gained a lot of benefit from doing."

14. How did you end up joining Centerra Venture Capital?

"When I came back to Canada from the U.S., I wanted to get involved in a small company that was absolutely in startup mode. I had a lot of different choices. I picked a security company called Texar that was part of the Centerra Group, because it was a company that had a huge amount of promise. When I joined the company, it was just a product that didn't have many customers.

"We were able to find application opportunities at places like NASA, the Canadian security establishment and one of the major banks. So we took this product that was virtually on the drawing table and turned it into a product that was solving security problems in a number of areas, like fraud, breach and detection. In the end, we had an opportunity to sell the company a couple of years later, and we took the opportunity. So I got the benefit of being involved in starting that company up, (learning) what it's like being involved in a small private company and seeing how you take that into the marketplace."

15. What was your initial connection with SAP Canada?

"Bill McDermott and I both worked at Xerox together. Bill was very involved in the Xerox business services area, and we had a chance, a number of years ago, to work together on projects. He is now SAP's president and CEO for the Americas and Asia-Pacific. He encouraged me to take a look at SAP. Once I had a chance to come in four years ago and understand what they were up to and how they were planning to go to the market, I saw it as a great fit and it has really turned out that way. The company is doing extremely well. It's a company that really helps other companies achieve what we call best-run-business status, or best-run-business success, and we've had a great run for the past four years."

16. How does SAP compare to some of the other companies that you've worked for?

"SAP is very much a customer-focused operation. We literally get involved in every aspect of a customer's business operations. Because of the wide products that we have, we actually have an impact on virtually every part of the company's organization."

17. Can you give me an idea of how your eastern and western operations compare with each other?

"We're doing very well across Canada in virtually every one of the markets. Western Canada, because of the success that the energy companies are enjoying, has been very aggressive in further deploying SAP applications. For that reason, we've had a very large amount of growth in Western Canada. But we can honestly say that we've had a fair amount of success in Eastern Canada as well. Part of the reason for that is, there's many reasons to consider a SAP solution.

If you're in manufacturing and you've found yourself losing some benefits of competition because the Canadian dollar has risen by 20 cents over the past four or five years, you've got to change your business model - and many of the manufacturing companies or distribution companies in the East are finding ways of making sure that they compete differently. In Western Canada, it's a little bit different, because what they're trying to do is keep up with the growth and the potential that's available in the market."

18. How do the technologies you provide compare, between East and West?

"There's a more prominent manufacturing economy in Eastern Canada, so quite often we'll find ourselves offering solutions to those clients that are about driving manufacturing shop-floor controls. Obviously, both share a need for improvements, but in Eastern Canada there's a fair amount of movement going on - in terms of sourcing materials from new markets, manufacturing at a lower cost and actually finding new customers outside of Canada. These are changing the way they work (and) the kind of tools they need to be successful in their business. In Western Canada, it's about productivity."

19. How does Alberta figure into your growth strategy?

"Alberta, as a community, has always been advanced in the use of (information technology.) We do very well in the oil and gas, and the utilities business there. It's because the business community in Alberta truly understands the importance of technology. They continue to gain competitive advantage and productivity. Also, we've done some very interesting work in Alberta where that's benefited us in the energy sector - by working with some of the local companies in Calgary."

20. If you couldn't be president and CEO of SAP Canada anymore, what would you do?

"I was a very active skier. I still have many friends that are in the ski industry. I could easily see myself combining work with something that I still have a passion for - and that's skiing."

Bob Courteau

* Title: President and managing director, SAP Canada.

Bob Courteau

* Born/raised/age: Montreal, lived in Los Angeles area for a while in teen years/51.

* Education: Bachelor of commerce in marketing from Concordia University.

* Family: Married, four daughters, Caitlin, Campbell, and twins Jennifer and Jillian.

* Career: After graduating from Concordia, Courteau moved to Calgary and joined Hewlett-Packard. From there, he advanced to executive posts with several information technology companies, including Xerox Corp., where he served as a North American divisional vice-president, as well as Centara Venture Capital Corp. Before joining SAP Canada in 2004, Courteau served as executive vice-president of Canadian sales and consulting services for EDS Corp. He has also served as a North American divisional vice-president.

* Moonlighting: Vice-chairman of Information Technology Association of Canada, sits on Junior Achievement board of governors. Board member with Imris and First National Financial Income Fund. Advisory board member for McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business.

* Sporting Passions: Hockey, skiing, golf, tennis.

SAP Canada Inc.

* Brass: Bob Courteau, president and managing partner; Randy Broda, senior VP of retail; Richard Campitelli, VP of services and sales; Paul Carreiro, senior VP of national sales.

* Profile: SAP Canada Inc. is a Toronto-based subsidiary of Walldorf, Germany-based SAP AG, which describes itself as the world's leading provider of business software and supplies software for specific industries along with hosting, IT consulting and educational services. SAP also operates Montreal-based SAP Labs Canada, which tests the design and functionality of software products used in customer relations management, retail and mobile-device sectors. The firm also operates Toronto-based Triversity, which makes software for the retail industry.

* Stats: SAP Canada has 900 employees based in five offices, in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa, and serves 720 of the global giant's 39,400 business-based customers. Its lab firm has more than 320 on staff, while Triversity has 143. Last year, SAP Canada generated $307 million of its parent company's $9.4 billion in total revenues.

* Recent Stock Price (Nasdaq:SAP): US$47.21 (52-week range, US$46.95-$47.49.

* Website: www.sap.com/canada

* HQ: 4120 Yonge St., Suite 600, Toronto, M2P 2B8

* Phone/Fax: (416) 229-0574 or toll-free 1-800-263-1337/ (416) 229-0575.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)