Large Canadian police force upgrades IT for service excellence

Veteran IT leader undertakes modernization initiatives to support strategic goals

Close neighbor to the city of Toronto, Peel is a fast-growing region of roughly 1.5 million residents who are served by the third-largest municipal police service in Canada. Peel Regional Police (PRP) also serves the Toronto International Airport, which falls within Peel’s borders and sees 50 million travelers annually.

At the helm of PRP’s IT department is Tony Ventura, an accomplished IT leader with more than 30 years of experience in police services. As he worked his way up the IT ranks, he gained expertise in areas such as project and data center management, infrastructure support, security, and digital transformation. His understanding of the technology and the business of policing makes him the ideal person to steer the organization toward modernization.

“The quality of the Info-Tech deliverables was outstanding, and they really took the time to understand our business. I’m starting to look at Info-Tech as a trusted partner.”
– Tony Ventura, Director, Information Technology Services, Peel Regional Police

Embracing a strategy of digital innovation

Like many organizations, the police force has struggled with outdated systems and technical debt. Ventura has taken on the modernization challenge to support PRP’s strategic goal of service excellence to the community and within the organization. For IT, that has meant the pursuit of a digital and mobile innovation strategy. Critical initiatives have included:

• Deploying smartphones to frontline members of the force to improve productivity.
• Replacing an aging and unstable dispatch system to improve 9-1-1 response.
• Moving toward a cloud-based approach to access new capabilities and value.

Bringing the office to the officer

Ventura noted that the value of the mobile initiative is in a plan to layer on capabilities over time: “When we first deployed the smartphones, of course it allowed for phone calls, messages, and email. But the main differentiator was body-worn cameras. Our officers have body-worn cameras, and now they can use a smartphone app to review video, tag it, provide metadata, and attach other details to that asset.”

He added that they will continue to add mobile business capabilities: “Initially, we built the police vehicle as the mobile office for the officer, but now we see the officer becoming the connected office through a smartphone.”

Putting people at the top of the list

As head of IT, Ventura understands that his mandate encompasses more than technology: “Although we are in the technology industry and it is very important to know technology, it’s about relationships and people more than anything else.” He added, “At the end of the day, you can have the best software and the shiniest computers, but if you haven’t got the people to do it right, it doesn’t really matter.”

To that end, Ventura undertook two critical initiatives: updating the IT organizational structure and IT compensation. For expert insight, he engaged the assistance of IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group. He hoped for better outcomes with Info-Tech than he had in his previous experiences with consulting firms: “We’ve had different engagements with different agencies over time, and we didn’t get the results we were hoping for. We decided to give Info-Tech an opportunity.”

“Our first Info-Tech Consulting Services engagement went very well. I was really impressed by the quality of the people doing the engagement. They were top notch and very easy to work with. I had been worried – based on my past experience with certain other consulting firms, you get a boilerplate product. But that’s not what we got from Info-Tech. We got something that was very bespoke and specific to us. I really appreciated that.”
– Tony Ventura, Director, Information Technology Services, Peel Regional Police

An overdue upgrade for IT compensation

Attracting top IT talent is a significant challenge everywhere, including PRP. Ventura wanted an independent assessment of PRP’s compensation strategy to ensure that salaries were not a barrier to attracting talent. Info-Tech consultants performed a comprehensive market assessment and determined that 80% of IT roles at PRP were earning less than market standard.

Ventura described the results: “Our first Info-Tech Consulting Services engagement went very well. I was really impressed by the quality of the people doing the engagement. They were top notch and very easy to work with. I had been worried – based on my past experience with certain other consulting firms, you get a boilerplate product. But that’s not what we got from Info-Tech. We got something that was very bespoke and specific to us. I really appreciated that.”

Building an org chart to scale

The second area of focus for Ventura was the IT organizational structure. The IT department at PRP had grown threefold in recent years, yet its structure remained the same. He knew it was time to assess the structure for gaps and adjust accordingly. Info-Tech performed an independent review with recommendations to help the team develop a structure that would scale to match its growth.

Ventura noted that the recently completed engagement yielded “a great report from Info-Tech – 160 pages with a lot of fantastic detail, bespoke and custom to us, not a boilerplate template that was used for somebody else.” He also noted the value of an external, unbiased assessment: “To have an independent firm come in to say, ‘Here’s what the industry says, here’s what the best practices are, here’s what we have seen,’ is incredibly valuable to bring the credibility to the story.”

Value-based investments for public safety

Based on the outcome of their Info-Tech engagements, Ventura and his team plan to build on the relationship: “The quality of the Info-Tech deliverables were outstanding, and they really took the time to understand our business. I’m starting to look at Info-Tech as a trusted partner.”

It's important to Ventura that he spends PRP’s money wisely to get the most value: “I’m spending taxpayers’ money, but I’m also a taxpayer here myself. Public safety is very important for me and my family. So, I want to make sure that we’re spending our money in the right places and delivering the best outcomes for everybody who lives in Peel Region.”