Delivering during a global pandemic: Ricardo Costa – 2021 CIO of the Year – Private Sector

Ricardo Costa is no stranger to disruption and digital transformation. The Chief Information Officer for Purolator, and this year’s CIO of the Year for the private sector, he has a strong track record of modernizing operations and maximizing efficiencies.

As one example, a new delivery app that Purolator adopted with Costa’s lead has transformed parcel deliveries by removing the need to physically obtain signatures. This would have been a welcome improvement at any time; during the roughest months of the pandemic, it was an absolute necessity.

As e-commerce accelerated in the face of interrupted supply chains, Purolator went through a major change from a delivery perspective, morphing almost overnight from primarily business-to-business (B2B) to largely business-to-consumer (B2C). It may sound like an insignificant change to have people shipping things to their homes instead of their offices, but it created a dramatically different dynamic. Rather than stopping at one office with 20 packages, drivers were faced with stopping at one house with one package and doing that 20 times.

With the increasing shift from business to consumer interactions, Costa took advantage of opportunities to partner with community leaders, working with Ontario Centre of Innovation and B2B AI solution provider SalesChoice to design a unique, daily health check in app that reduces stress among Purolator’s frontline workers. Data gathered from employees at the end of the day has proved useful for modifying schedules to ensure worker health and safety, a top priority for Ricardo Costa.

When introducing Costa as the CIO of the Year for the private sector, Nicole Filiatrault, Marketing Director for UKG Canada, told attendees at ITWC’s Digital Transformation Week program that Costa has led creative IT business solutions that span key organizational priorities and processes, such as customer experience, package visibility, and employee health and safety. Also, she said, he positioned the organization to step up and meet the critical needs of Canadian healthcare, businesses, and families during the pandemic.

Accepting this prestigious award with customary humility, Costa credited his team, Purolator, and Purolator’s partners with helping Canada by pushing things forward to keep the economy moving during Covid. Thanks also went to the CIO Association of Canada for recognizing his efforts to embrace and improve the new normal.