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Net Impact Studies

The Net Impact Study in Canada was conducted under the auspices of the Canadian e-Business Initiative (CEBI). The CEBI is a private-public sector partnership between the Industry Canada branch of the Canadian Federal Government; and business leaders nationwide. Pierre Paul Allard, General Manger Cisco Systems Canada Co is co-chair of CEBI with Nancy Hughes Anthony, President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

The mandate of this group is to drive adoption of e-business practices in the SMB population in order to stimulate overall economic productivity. Canadian productivity and OECD rankings have been consistently declining over the past ten years. There is a strong momentum within government and business to drive national productivity in order to ensure Canada's economic strength and global competitiveness. As such, the CEBI is viewed as a key body to address the productivity issue within SMB.

The SMB population in Canada delivers 60 per cent of total economic output, and yet we fall behind the US in terms of overall internet adoption. While Canada has reached an important milestone in small business connectivity of about 50%, we continue to lag well behind the U.S., where 77% of small businesses are online. Also, StatsCanada findings indicate that the SMB group tends to be more reluctant to embrace e-commerce for sophisticated applications such as supply chain management, order processing and online fulfillment.

CEBI will play a key role in addressing the barriers to internet adoption in SMB. Net Impact will be a critical starting point for CEBI in identifying the value and potential of Internet Based Solutions and their ability to drive productivity within enterprise.

Update: Net Impact Canada

This report is the fifth in a series of Cisco sponsored Net Impact studies in Canada. Net Impact Canada 2006 focuses entirely on the small and medium enterprise and primarily on the small enterprise with fewer than 100 employees. Net Impact SME is based on a research model developed by Cisco Systems and Illuminas (formerly Momentum Research Group). Illuminas conducted the research in partnership with Cisco Canada and infoCanda, a premier provider of business and consumer data. infoCanada carried out the phone-based data collection, while the data analysis and interpretation was conducted by Illuminas, who also authored the report.

This report focuses primarily on the results from interviews conducted with 200 Canadian SMEs in June and July of 2006. Throughout the report, comparisons are made to previous Net Impact Canada studies to provide some understanding of how the Canadian SME’s approach to using ICT has changed over time. Further, the report also draws on additional Net Impact studies conducted in the U.S. to provide a comparison to large enterprises (those with more than 1,000 employees) and how they leverage ICT for business advantage.

Key Findings

• Canadian SMEs interviewed are taking a “big business” approach to their ICT investments and becoming more sophisticated, mirroring some of the ICT investments made by large enterprises, albeit at a level more realistic for the SME



• Three quarters of the SMEs interviewed are using networking hardware and software and network security solutions to automate, enhance or improve business processes



• Approximately 50% of SMEs interviewed report that their ICT strategy is aligned with business strategy



• More than one third of SMEs interviewed (38%) are early adopters, exploring various technologies and/or implementing them as soon as possible to gain competitive advantage



• One area for improvement is measurement – only 28% have metrics in place to monitor the performance of their ICT investments



• SMEs rank customer relationships as most critical to their success



• 79% report that ICT has had a positive impact on their customer service and support processes



• Half report that technology is enabling them to find new customer prospects



• 75% improved customer service, increased speed in information processing and improved communications with customers



• Technology is a key factor in enabling Canadian small businesses to achieve greater efficiency and growth



• Canadian small businesses are optimistic about anticipated future growth



• 59% report an increase in revenue over last year; 67% expect revenue to increase again in upcoming year



• 80% report increased speed in information processing and nearly 75% report increased availability of information to support decision-making processes



• Having a large number of direct competitors — most respondents report having more than 20 — drives increased adoption in ICT

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