Lake Country OS is a valuable part of the Fibernetics Family, having partnered with NEWT over ten years ago. We chatted with Adam Borutski, Lake Country’s Telecommunications Director, to learn more about Lake Country’s history and the forward-thinking mindset that keeps their customers happy, even during challenging times.
Lake Country’s History of Welcoming Change
Peter Borutski has a knack for seeing challenge and change as an opportunity to serve his customers better.
It started in 2002 when Peter decided to launch his own company. Up until that point in his career, Peter had been an equipment technician and photocopier salesperson, but he wanted more control over his business and the ability to offer his clients more products. Peter launched Lake Country Office Solutions; an office equipment company to serve businesses in the greater Orillia area. It was just Peter, one other salesperson, and a service technician.
Lake Country OS was already experiencing steady growth when the owner of Hamilton & Co., an office furniture company with a 25-year history, approached Peter in 2006, and asked if Peter would be interested in purchasing his business. Peter knew little about the world of office furniture, but he decided to take the risk on the condition that he acquire all Hamilton & Company’s employees as part of the deal. Now able to offer customers both office equipment and furniture, Lake Country OS experienced massive growth that year.
In 2009, Peter was again approached, this time by a business associate, asking if Lake Country would be interested in selling NEWT’s business phone and business internet systems. Since Peter had some previous experience already in the telecom industry, working for CN Telecommunications, he was willing to take on the challenge to expand his line of products and services. This time though, Peter turned to his son, Adam.
Lake Country expanded their product offering with NEWT business phone and internet systems
Lake Country is a Family Business
Adam had just returned from teacher’s college in Australia, and he joined the family business, working part-time delivering and setting up office furniture while searching for a teaching job. He was intrigued by his dad’s suggestion that he learn this new branch of business and he quickly mastered sales, project management, and the setup and training of NEWT’s business phone and internet systems. Adam grew Lake Country’s telecom division, hiring a phone technician and partnering with other ISPs along the way to offer his customers an even broader range of products and services.
“Every client’s needs are different, so we approach each customer with an eye to seeing what they need. We have a lot of diversity in what we can offer, from cell phones to office chairs, and we’re able to serve our customers better by continually increasing that diversity.” Adam Borutski, Lake Country OS Telecommunications Director
Adam Borutski tests some of Lake Country’s office furniture offerings
Serving an area from Newmarket to North Bay means Lake Country has a lot of potential customers to offer their wide range of services to. Adam works hard to make sure his customers are informed about what Lake Country offers and to make sure they get what they need, when they need it.
“A customer may originally come to us looking for office furniture and not need a phone system until a few years later. It’s part of my job to make our customers aware of all our services, so they remember us when they need something new. That’s why we value the relationships we have with our customers. Having trusted relationships with our customers and offering a lot of different products and services means we don’t need to spend a lot of time and money going after new customers. We can focus our efforts on servicing our existing customers and keeping them happy.”
Looking back twenty years at what his dad, Peter, originally built, Adam agrees that Peter’s flexible approach of seeing challenges as opportunities is a mindset that has served Lake Country well. As Adam says, “I went to school for kinesiology. I was planning on being a gym teacher. But things happen, you roll with the punches, and you take opportunity when it presents itself.” That’s certainly a sentiment which helped them continue to grow during the pandemic.
COVID19: Another Challenge for Growth
When the pandemic hit, Adam says their office equipment division slowed down, but their telecom sales increased. “The pandemic definitely changed how people view their telecom needs, the deficiencies in their existing systems, and the solutions we can offer. There were a lot of “How do I work from home?” questions. A lot of companies realized that their business phone systems were out of date; they couldn’t handle the new remote workforce and subsequently were looking to buy remote phone systems.”
Adam says he also noticed a “change in how people think about the internet with respect to phone calls. Here up north, where strong internet options have not traditionally been as widely available as in the GTA, people looked at VoIP as being a bit scary. They wondered what happens if their internet goes down and we had to work harder at that part of the conversation, explaining why the business phone systems we offer have advantages over other products in the field and why our customers don’t need to be as worried about that possibility. But when everyone shifted to working at home, kids started attending school online, and everyone was streaming all day, people got used to a bit of a delay in call and video. Now they accept that as part of the new medium and the call-quality concern doesn’t come up like it did before. Instead, people are more interested in the extra phone features they weren’t using before, and they even call us asking for a ‘VoIP or Internet Phone system’. So, it’s good to know we can provide what they’re looking for feature-wise, while still holding the advantage over other market offerings of maintaining strong consistent voice quality & overall support.”
Adam says that his customers are using more NEWT features like Find Me/Follow Me and Voicemail to Email. Working from home means his customers are acquiring more remote phone licences, cell phones, and remote PBXs, and learning about technologies which support their new working reality. We can’t help thinking that sounds an awful lot like what Peter Borutski has been doing all these years. Clearly Lake Country and their customers are of one mind when it comes to staying open to new products and technologies that can improve the way they do business.
“It’s been such a pleasure working with Lake Country OS for over a decade. They have been an essential part of our NEWT family and have had exponential success helping businesses move to NEWT. Lake Country OS services a wide variety of industries, from hospitals to real estate to car dealerships and more. Together we’ve saved businesses in the greater Orillia area hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it’s been tremendous to see the commitment Lake Country OS has to supporting their clients and empowering them for success.” Mike Brown, NEWT Sales & Marketing Officer
If you’re in the greater Orillia area and are looking for office furniture, office equipment, or business phone and internet, contact Adam at Lake Country OS, he’d love to hear from you. Learn more about becoming a NEWT Partner and contact Mike Brown for more details on how you can become part of the Fibernetics Family.
