Time to push coordinated ICT strategy: BCE’s Sabia to Canadian Club

Michael Sabia, president and CEO of BCE Inc., told a group at the Canadian Club of Montreal that it’s time for the establishment of a coordinated national policy promoting the adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) by small and medium businesses. Below is edited excerpt of his September 18 speech. The engine of growth is the human mind for building products, offering services and creating industries on the strength of an idea. Research and development is more critical than ever to pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge and transforming that knowledge into new products, services and technologies. In such a world, we have to improve our productivity and competitiveness. But on many of the key metrics of productivity and competitiveness, Canada is falling behind and losing ground in the very areas that will drive productivity. We need to do better at moving knowledge from researchers in universities to innovators in industry, transforming ideas in our heads into products in the market. Far too many ideas developed in Montreal or Vancouver are being commercialized by people in Boston or Raleigh, depriving our economy of the benefits of innovation, denying our businesses the rewards of their own R&D, and making Canada less competitive. In the critical area of ICT, we simply have to do better. Economists Melvyn Fuss and Leonard Waverman estimate that almost 60% of today’s productivity gap between Canada and the US can be attributed to greater use of ICT in the US. Yet Canadian companies are only investing in ICT at about two-thirds the rate of American firms. Canada faces an additional challenge in that SMBs make up a greater proportion of our economy than that of the US, and that’s particularly true here in Quebec. These smaller enterprises are dynamic, quick to seize opportunities, powerful job creators, and the engines of economic growth in this country. But these engines aren’t firing on all cylinders, not adopting ICT as quickly as they could be.And that’s a problem, because failing to adopt ICT isn’t just hurting their performance, it’s hurting our economy as a whole. To ensure that ICT plays the critical role it must in the knowledge economy, we need a coordinated strategy, bringing the benefits of ICT to every Canadian business, in every sector. It’s time for a national policy on ICT. At a minimum, that means policies that will drive education in computer literacy and engineering. And that make technology diffusion a priority – especially among small and medium-size businesses. If Canada is going to meet its competitive challenges, we all have to play our part. At BCE, we’ve led North America in the roll-out of DSL broadband connections. It now reaches more than 85% of all households passed in our territory, extending the power of high-speed internet solutions into more homes and businesses. And to help SMBs become even more productive, we’re developing a whole range of new products and services. Joining with Microsoft to deliver hosted e-mail and messaging services and acting as their virtual CIO are just a couple of examples of a broader strategy to encourage the adoption of ICT. Extend its benefits. The question is no longer "what worked in the past and how do we repeat it?" But "what is necessary for the future and how do we create it?"

Time to push coordinated ICT strategy: BCE’s Sabia to Canadian Club

News | 09/28/2006 4:00 am EDT

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