Growing by leaps and bounds: Gahnic Services & Consulting, a Montreal-based innovative HR services provider, lives up to its expectations, continues to gain traction

“Supported by a dynamic team that is the backbone of the company, we provide our clients with a high level of service.”

Gahnic Services & Consulting (GS&C) is an innovative HR services provider focused on an emergency or temporary benefits management. It operates across North America.

Gahnic was founded in 2020.

In 2022, GS&C was awarded ‘Most Innovative Benefits Management Firm - North America’ in Wealth & Finance International Awards.

The Silicon Review reached out to GC&S’s Montreal headquarters and spoke with Danielle Varela, founder, who serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Here’s what she said.

Interview Highlights

Q. What groundbreaking and proactive methodology does Gahnic Services & Consulting implement to meet its clients’ expectations?

Danielle: Our philosophy is simple: be timely and offer a service based on a culture of responsiveness and agility. Our office is a true high-end multifunction tool; we always try to look at the big picture, even when the job requires focusing on the details. Clients have immediate needs and they also always have broader goals to achieve. We develop strategies to meet both. We learn about the challenges faced by our customers, then analyze and solve them, without neglecting any aspect. This is how we exceed customer expectations.

Q. What makes Gahnic different? And how does it help organizations optimize their policies, tools, and processes?

Danielle: Gahnic Services & Consulting offers a strategic and client-oriented service that supports the development of the company at all times. As a benefits consulting firm, we are first and foremost strategists. To be a strategist is to be visionary while integrating the hindsight of experience by crossing it with the theoretical analysis of the parameters that apply to the situation. Whether it's for the consulting or operational side of our business, we often see clients come in with a specific project or need, thinking that it's not worth the effort to link it to the other challenges of their business. To achieve a specific goal, we must coordinate all actions to ensure that our intervention remains consistent and relevant to our clients' overall needs. We dare to seek new and operate outside of our comfort zone.

Q. What new endeavors is Gahnic currently undertaking?

Danielle: Strengthening its position, Gahnic is preparing for strategic growth to diversify beyond the services it offers and intensify its efforts in an IT (platform and software) consulting. One of our key strengths is the knowledge, experience, and fundamental understanding of the different platforms and/or software of our various partners.

We intervene in diverse contexts and the IT environment in our industry; this gives us a unique position and makes us a key stakeholder in the benefits and software sector.

We are expanding our horizons by offering consulting services to companies that seek to better understand benefits administration software. Furthermore, we continue our expansion in North America.

Q. Given how frequently circumstances change, what plans for transformation are you pursuing to remain relevant now and in the future?

Danielle: Clients especially appreciate that our experience and knowledge are available on-demand and tailored for their unique needs. This allows them to ensure benefits compliance and meet their commitments to their employees without constraint; which no company can currently offer since we have a unique position in the North American market. Put simply, we are a benefits management firm by nature, but it’s our no fuss approach focused on maximizing the use of remote desk makes us the most stand out from the crowd. We are doing business with clients who before the Covid-19 event would never have used our services. Today, they all appreciate the flexibility we provide.

We are growing exponentially. Our most effective advertising is recommendations from satisfied clients. At the same time, we must ensure that the benefits policy can continue to be delivered remotely and securely by limiting the pathways through which our clients' and their employees' data can be accessed. Therefore, to remain relevant today and in the future, needless to say, we must stay focused on what has made us successful: offering unparalleled flexibility without geographical limitations, by leveraging the potential of technology, affordable rates suitable for companies of all levels, and making the most of the opportunities we have.

Q. How do you plan to counter challenges that you think Gahnic might face in the next five years?

Danielle: Gahnic is in tune with the world of tomorrow—the sum and variety of our mandates constitute our know-how and operational excellence. What large companies experience as challenges is just a logical extension of our evolution — because the very essence of Gahnic is to continually adapt to new realities and new technologies in the workplace. This makes us more curious and resilient in an unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous environment. No doubt, GS&C is a game-changer in this new reality. Supported by a dynamic team that is the backbone of the company, we provide our clients with a high level of service.

Q. What is your final message to The Silicon Review readers; your current and future clients and partners?

Danielle: Providing a dynamic solution in the highly standardized industry is already a differentiator. The innovation is never in the idea but always in the execution and we, at Gahnic Services & Consulting, use this know-how and experience to help clients reach their goals remotely. We accomplish this with the help of cutting-edge technology, of course.

In today's dynamic market, we are proving that companies can innovate by boldly using the existing state-of-the-art technologies to deliver their services in new dynamic ways. As a company, we must stop being victims of the lack of skills of the employees and candidates who should be at the origin of our innovation, performance, and growth and embrace new ways of working.

Danielle Varela | Founder & CEO

Danielle Varela is a fan of ‘doing things differently.' She’s rigorous and resolutely operational and advocates a flexible, secure, and personalized approach to meeting the needs of each client. Her vision, proven to be the ideal solution to combat the pandemic uncertainty, removes unnecessary complexity and leverages the full potential of any company’s cutting-edge technologies.

Danielle has over fifteen years of experience in employee benefit programs with insurance companies and actuarial consulting firms. She is graduated of HEC Montreal.

“Gahnic is in tune with the world of tomorrow—the sum and variety of our mandates constitute our know-how and operational excellence.”