BIS Safety Software is a local company with a global reach. Launched in 2006, the company offers a wide variety of solutions that support health and safety professionals across all sectors. Based on continuous industry feedback, the products continually evolve to exceed health and safety standards while offering tools that are right-sized for the organizations they serve. From automated administration to digital forms and folders, from equipment asset management to safety software, BIS makes it easy to maintain compliance and efficiency in the most demanding sectors.
Dan MacDonald, current CEO, and Carmen Delisle, recently retired, founded the company over 20 years ago.
“We started in 2006 by providing leadership, management and sales training for organizations, including Sobeys, NAIT, Hagen Group, Cash Store, ENTREC Alberta and many more,” explains MacDonald. We grew into online learning to keep up with the demand and then expanded into safety as a side business to help a few clients. After the crash in 2009, it became clear that leadership training was a volatile business and safety was considered mission-critical for high-risk business. At this time, we moved away from leadership to focus exclusively on safety and compliance for high risk industries.”
What started 20 years ago as a team of three is now celebrating more than 160 team members proudly offering more than 1,900 safety courses to more than 1,900 active clients while supporting a robust network of 700 partners.
MacDonald says, “We provide online courses to our network and customers, successfully delivering around 45,000 courses to individuals each week. More than 50,000 people complete their online forms each week. That’s a significant impact.”
Before adopting BIS, many organizations face the same core challenges: fragmented training records, manual compliance processes, limited visibility into workforce qualifications and an increasing administrative burden as their operations grow.
“Training and competency records are often spread across spreadsheets, paper files and multiple systems, making it difficult to know who is qualified, who is compliant and where gaps exist,” MacDonald adds. “This creates challenges not only for day-to-day workforce management, but also for audit readiness, contractor onboarding and meeting regulatory or client requirements.
“For many companies, the administrative effort becomes overwhelming. Teams spend significant time entering data, building reports, tracking down paperwork and verifying that employees and contractors have completed the required training before arriving on site. As organizations add locations, expand their workforce or bring on more contractors, these manual processes become increasingly difficult to scale.”
He continues, “Another major challenge is system adoption. If a platform is too complex, employees and contractors are less likely to use it consistently, which leads to incomplete records and lower participation.”
With BIS Safety Software, clients feel the pressure relieved throughs streamlined processes and greater adherence to compliance. This empowers the organization to focus on its core mandates instead of getting slowed down in a fragmented system.
For example, the Safety Software platform gets workers trained and compliant quickly; reduces administrative time spent on safety paperwork; identifies and addresses safety risks sooner; improves visibility into safety performance across the organization; standardizes safety processes and procedures; onboards employees, contractors and visitors faster; make better safety decisions using real-time data and reporting and reduces incidents by ensuring the right people have the right training and certifications at the right time.
Now, these impacts are also being further enhanced by AI.
MacDonald explains, “AI is becoming an important part of how we think about product development, but in the safety and compliance space, it has to be approached very carefully. There is a tremendous opportunity to use AI to reduce administrative work, surface insights faster, improve reporting and help organizations better understand where their workforce risks and training gaps may exist. For us, the balance is moving quickly where AI can create value while still maintaining strong oversight, transparency and human accountability.”
He continues, “Our approach is to build AI into our products in ways that are practical, controlled and aligned with compliance integrity. We believe AI can help customers move faster, work smarter and identify issues more efficiently, but it should not replace human judgment. In compliance, there still needs to be a human in the loop with field experts applying their knowledge and experience to evaluate the information, interpret the context and determine what actions are required. AI can support better decision-making, but trust, accuracy, accountability and expert oversight must remain at the center of the process.”
For those seeking BIS solutions, MacDonald speaks to a smooth onboarding experience.
“Onboarding to BIS is designed to be a guided, collaborative and positive experience from the very beginning. Each new customer is assigned a dedicated implementation and onboarding specialist who works closely with them to understand their goals, provide system recommendations, answer questions and support them through each stage.
“A key part of the process is making sure administrators feel comfortable and prepared to manage the platform. They receive in-depth training on the features they will be using, along with support in setting up employee accounts, migrating historical training records and configuring the system to align with their internal processes.”
The existing information is migrated to the platform with care.
“For companies moving from paper-based processes or spreadsheets, there can be a significant amount of work involved in compiling, reviewing and preparing past training records for migration into the system. That step is important because clean, accurate data helps create a strong foundation for long-term success,” says MacDonald. “User adoption is also a key consideration. Even when a new system will make things easier, change can be difficult if employees, contractors or administrators are used to existing processes. That is why communication, training and leadership support are so important during implementation.”
Once onboarding is complete, clients continue to receive support.
“We want every customer to know they have a knowledgeable team behind them, not only during onboarding, but throughout their entire experience with BIS,” says MacDonald. “Ultimately, our goal is to reduce the pressure on our customers, help them navigate the change successfully and make sure they are set up with a system that is practical, organized and sustainable for the long term. We have a dedicated team here seven days a week to answer customer calls.”
As he looks back on 20 years, MacDonald thanks the team, clients and vendors who have helped make the journey possible. He also thanks Techversant software in India for their ongoing support.
“What’s next for BIS is continued growth, both in the markets we serve and in the value we deliver to our customers,” says MacDonald. “We have a clear vision for scaling the business from $25 million in sales to $50 million and eventually building BIS into a $100 million company with offices around the world. That growth will come from continuing to invest in our people, our products and our customer experience. We want to expand our reach while staying focused on what has made BIS successful: practical technology, great team members and strong client relationships.”
MacDonald concludes, “As we grow sustainably, we will be continuing to innovate and ensure that the culture, care, customer service and core values that have brought BIS to where we are today remain at the centre of everything we do.”