I want to thank the committee and the chair for asking me to provide my perspectives today as well—especially via this medium of video conference—on this important topic. We've done a lot of work in this area, and plan to do much more, so it's our privilege to be here today.
As a not-for-profit organization, we call ourselves a think tank, which sort of conjures up the image of us sitting behind closed doors and thinking up solutions to some of the issues and challenges facing the country. While we do some of that, a lot more of what we do is engagement with a multi-stakeholder group of leaders from across the country in academia, industry, government, and other organizations. What I'm going to try to do today is provide a holistic perspective from these different stakeholder groups. That might provide value to your group.
In looking at ICT adoption among SMEs, we really see a maturity continuum, with some important considerations. At first we see automation as the simplest form of adoption. Really, it's about automating those existing business processes. It's mainly about bringing control and efficiency to the business. Of course, examples would include things like ordering, supply chain activities, inventory control, and so forth.
The next level of maturity along that continuum is around improved decision-making. Really, it's about bringing intelligence to management in this area and helping them to make better, more informed, and more timely and relevant decisions. In effect, ICT is providing that up-to-date real-time data to allow management to get themselves above the complexity of individual transactions, to see the bigger picture, hopefully leading to improved decision-making. There are a lot of examples in this area.
I know, for example, of a sawmill in Atlantic Canada that has applied CAD systems and other management systems to how they process lumber. They have this virtual technology that shows them how to optimize their processing to get the maximum yield from each timber coming through the plant. It's an SME, a small business, but it's a great example of an organization that understands the value of adopting technology for improved decision-making.
At the further end of the continuum, we see that adopting ICT in its most mature form really is about opening new markets and opportunities. It's really about identifying and exploring new markets, whether those are domestic or global markets. Really, at this level, ICT investment moves beyond infrastructure. It moves beyond simply being a method of efficiency to becoming an integral strategic asset for the business. SMEs are able to offer, for example, e-commerce solutions—as my colleague from Coastal just talked about—to reach global markets. It's about really seeing the strategic value of ICT investments in order to take advantage of global supply chains and global markets.
What we see as businesses progress through each of these levels is that they move from looking at ICT as a means to efficiency to really using ICT to be more productive and more innovative, hopefully leading to growth and export opportunities. It really allows management to step up, to be more strategic, and to leave the more transaction-based, simplistic forms of the business to a technology step.
What we've identified as a productivity gap in Canada is about $7,000 per capita for us compared to the U.S., related again to that productivity gap. We see innovation and, within innovation, ICT adoption as important drivers to help improve this productivity gap.
We also see that government can be a good catalyst for the adoption of digital technologies for SMEs. One example is CICP, the program under Public Works that is really helping businesses to gain that first sale within government. That can help to create a vibrant ICT community within the country that will hopefully translate into growth, into more adoption among other SMEs.
Another important program we've seen recently is DTAPP, the digital technology adoption pilot program, which is an Industry Canada program, obviously in partnership with the NRC. We think it's an important step towards helping SMEs adopt digital technologies, especially when you couple a program like that with some of the services offered by BDC. Really, we see some of these programs as important steps.
The key point in driving this digital technology adoption is that these programs need to be delivered under a coordinated, effective digital adoption strategy.
Thank you very much.