What does it mean to be the first Ops in Canada at Alan Health? 🍁

The Best of Both Worlds: Startup Agility Meets Global Expertise 

Working in Ops for Alan Canada is the perfect recipe for any entrepreneurial spirit. On one hand, we're a startup — small team, scrappy, nimble, and flexible. On the other hand, we're a global world-class scale-up — delightful, experienced, and operationally excellent. 

This unique positioning allows us to move faster and more accurately than any healthcare company in Canada. It also shapes the experiences that I’ve been fortunate to have as the first Ops Builder in a non-European market. 

Every month, there’s a new opportunity to dive deeper into a segment of the healthcare industry in Canada. 

In a short 6 months, we have rolled out our MVP and learned how to operate the core components of a healthcare challenger in Canada. Did we do this alone? Absolutely not, our local team had a strong global team helping point us in the right direction and refining our learnings to make them more actionable. 

Having a small team forces us to prioritize carefully and build only what’s necessary. Our approach is to keep things simple now and add complexity later as needed.

For instance, two months ago we decided to use our internal automation tools to create a lightweight version of the global billing system. This automation relies on the same backend data and cost calculation logic as the main platform.

In the short term, this tradeoff works well for us because our billing needs are less complex than those of the global team. Looking ahead, we know we’ll need to update the platform and invest in making it more robust as our needs grow. As Ops, my job was to figure out which parts of the billing process we could replicate right away and what compromises we could accept. After that, it was straightforward to build the automation, thanks to our excellent tools.

Being a member of a small Canadian team means that you're going to need to wear multiple hats. As the 1st Ops hire, I am both building our processes (so an Ops builder) and for now operating them (so an Ops coordinator) as we are in the learning phase. But I’m also simultaneously Care expert fielding urgent member inquiries, product manager helping to scope new features for the Canadian market, data analyst building dashboards to track our progress, or even tax experts navigating provincial billing rules. 

The variety keeps every day exciting, but it also means you need to context-switch rapidly and become comfortable being a beginner in new domains regularly. It's the perfect role for someone who gets energized by the diversity of challenges rather than overwhelmed by it.

Every new startup or entrant into a space knows the importance of delighting your members off the jump. You want to make their experience so good that they go brag to all their friends about it (and yes, even for Insurance). Optimisation will come at a later stage.

As Ops, we have huge customer facing exposure, meaning we need to always find ways to do things that others won’t. Members direct billing cards don’t work? We pick up the phone and make it work the next time. Members need information to share with their secondary insurer? We create a custom template with their required information. 

What makes it worth it? Reading the amazing comments that our members make about Alan: “I am beyond impressed with the customer service and assistance you provide! It has been the easiest benefits program I have ever worked with and I have worked with many of the major ones who are a nightmare in comparison!”

The advantages of working at a global scale-up like Alan far outweigh the challenges, though some do exist.

1️⃣ First, there’s a temptation to add complexity too quickly, given our access to a fully featured global product. This can lead to skipping necessary steps and implementing overly complex solutions prematurely. 

➡️ To avoid this, we have deliberate discussions about the right level of complexity at each stage, making sure we always move the product forward without the need to backtrack and remove features.

2️⃣ While local autonomy enables teams to respond quickly to market needs and make decisions tailored to Canadian customers, it’s essential to stay aligned with the company’s broader global vision and standards. Too much independence can lead to fragmented processes or divergent priorities, while rigid alignment can stifle innovation and slow execution. 

➡️ Striking the right balance means maintaining open communication, sharing feedback across regions, and ensuring that local initiatives both support and benefit from the company’s overall strategy.

3️⃣ Thirdly, and expectedly, operating across different time zones can slow our speed to market. 

➡️ We address this by embracing Alan’s strong asynchronous culture: everything is documented and accessible. While this may seem daunting at first, it unlocks enormous benefits for a global business.

By recognizing these drawbacks and turning them into strengths, we can make them our superpower.

As we continue to grow and evolve in the Canadian market, the opportunities for Ops are endless. We're building the foundation for a healthcare system that puts members first, and every operational decision we make today shapes that future.

The combination of global support and local autonomy creates an environment where ambitious operators can make a real impact on healthcare while developing skills that span from startup operations to enterprise-level strategy. It's not just a job—it's an opportunity to be part of something transformative in Canada 🇨🇦