The Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable was formed with the mandate to accelerate Canada's leadership in the digital economy. As part of this initiative, the Roundtable, working in partnership with industry Canada, has focused a significant part of its effort on driving the uptake and use of e-business among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
It became apparent during consultations across the country that this important sector of Canadian businesses was lagging in the adoption of e-business. SMEs, the backbone of the Canadian economy, were experiencing similar challenges in all regions of the country – they needed help in adopting e-business.
In an attempt to address these challenges the Roundtable identified the top-level barriers that inhibit SME e-business adoption, assessed available resources and material, and created an information toolkit, tailored to the information needs of SMEs. The toolkit was designed to provide Canadian SMEs with the necessary information to overcome the barriers to e-business adoption that they were facing
The toolkit was developed by a group led by Nancy Hughes Anthony, President & CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Gerry Pond, Executive Vice President, Aliant Telecommunications and President, Aliant Emerging Business.
Three Major Components of the Toolkit
The toolkit consisted of three main sections, each now incorporated into the relevant section of ebiz.enable:
- Determining the Value of e-business for SMEs: Identifying the Return on Investment, Securing Management Commitment & Devising a Solid E-Business Strategy. (See the section in ebiz.enable called: The Value of E-Business.)
- Credible Sources of e-business Suppliers for SMEs. (See Service Providers, in ebiz.enable's Implementing E-Business section.)
- Internet Security: An Exercise in Risk Management (See Security, also in ebiz.enable's Implementing E-Business section.)
The Canadian E-business Opportunities Roundtable
The Roundtable's work is documented in the following documents: (in PDF format)
- Analysis of Barriers Impeding e-business Adoption Among Canadian SMEs [PDF Format, 92KB]
- Inventory of the Information and Materials Available to SMEs [PDF Format, 89KB]
- Fast Forward 2.0: Taking Canada to the Next Level released in February 2001. [PDF Format, 289KB]
- The Roundtable's final report, Fast Forward 3.0: Maintaining the Momentum was released in March 2002. [PDF Format, 257KB]
The work of the Roundtable is being continued under the banner of the Canadian E-Business Initiative.
Note : to read the PDF document you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7.0 (free) to your system. If the accessibility of PDF is a concern, you can learn how to configure Adobe Reader 7.0 to work with your assistive technology using the information Read PDF Content provided by Adobe.
