Tell me about your company. When were you founded? What do you do? And where are you located?

ProShop ERP delivers powerful manufacturing software by deeply understanding our client’s challenges in order to meaningfully improve their businesses and in turn, their communities.

ProShop was started by a few great friends who graduated from Western Washington University. Our dream job was to build a car. Out of need to finance the car, we started a machine shop called Pro CNC. When we couldn’t find the paperless ERP solution we wanted for our company, we created it. After 17 years of using ProShop at Pro CNC, and being told by customers, vendors, and even auditors that ProShop was the most amazing and complete shop management software they’d ever seen, we decided ProShop needed to be out on the market. In 2014, when Pro CNC was sold to an international manufacturing company, the original founders moved on to their next adventure – bringing ProShop to the manufacturing industry.  ProShop has supported efficient and paperless job shops since 1993, helping hundreds of manufacturing businesses save costs and trees.

ProShop ERP is officially dual-headquartered in Vancouver BC, and Bellingham WA. We have a diverse team spread across North America, and we serve clients from all over the world. We have just opened an office in Australia, and we plan to continue expanding.

What is the big problem that your company is tackling?

We are helping precision manufacturers in highly regulated industries such as aerospace, medical devices, and defense thrive by meeting the increasingly complex industry requirements. We do so by organizing, securing, and managing their data in a way that is really easily accessed by the right people at the right time. This helps manufacturing companies with metrics like efficiency, on-time delivery, throughput, access to real-time data, ultimately improving their bottom line. There is no other shop management system on the market that contains all the modules that ProShop does, while also being a fully paperless system.

What are you most proud of in terms of company milestones?

All of us at the senior leadership level are intensely proud of our team. At the start of the pandemic, we were 26 people, and today we’re over 65 people. The steady growth and employee retention are in part due to the culture that we’ve built. ProShop ERP is really committed to seeing our folks, as whole people, often wearing many hats between their personal and professional lives.

We’ve also hit a significant milestone in the number of clients we’ve attracted over the last few years. Many of which come to us from current client referrals. In fact, we recently attended a manufacturing tradeshow in Chicago (IMTS), we had a Customer Ambassador program where clients volunteered to share their journey with ProShop to potential customers.

Finally, we are also committed to increasing the number of underrepresented  populations in the tech space. For example, the industry average for women in BC is roughly 18%; 35% of our team are women.

How would you describe your company culture?

ProShop ERP has always had an exceptional culture of knowledge sharing, creative problem solving and providing the highest quality product and service possible to our clients.

During the pandemic, we consciously made the decision to double-down on our people and to really put our profits back into the team in a meaningful way. We evolved our culture of listening. We also identified ways we could relieve pressure on our team, for example, offering flexible working hours – something the young parents on our team really appreciate.

We also revamped our Human Resources away from the traditional cookie-cutter approach, into something that is more high-touch. This approach led to an improved working environment that made our team feel deeply valued, heard, seen and understood. This translated into very low turnover, and helped build the social bonds required to navigate the challenges we all faced during difficult times.

 That’s my silver lining from the pandemic – it led us to put the human back in HR. I believe that shows in our company culture.

What are three words you would use to describe your company culture?

Collaboration, integrity, and kindness. These are three of our 8 core values (the others being innovation, diversity, learning, empathy, and optimism). We see powerful examples of all of these values being demonstrated on a daily basis both within the team and outwardly towards our clients, partners and vendors as well.

What is it like to work for your company, and why is it a great place to work?

Whenever we ask folks on our team this question, they always say, “The people!” This is music to my ears as the CHRO because we work really hard to bring folks together who are both kind and competent, and who we feel will align deeply with what we’re trying to do here. Working with people who are supportive and friendly makes such a difference when you’re trying to solve complex problems! We’ve focused on inclusivity as a way of really being able to see people and embracing diversity of all kinds. I think we’ve done a nice job of creating a very psychologically safe environment for people, with a culture that they can see themselves reflected back in.

In their own words, what do your employees say?

Are you hiring?

Yes, we are always looking for good people! We’re looking for people who have a quality of not only confidence in the role that they’re applying for, but also have a quality of kindness. To people who are reading this article, if you’re looking for a place where you can make a meaningful contribution professionally as well as feel like you can bring your whole self to work, we can’t wait to hear from you! Check our career page!