The Challenge of Change: Building the 21st Century Economy
Conference Background Paper
e-Commerce to e-Economy: Strategies for the 21st Century
Ottawa, September 27 - 28, 2004
The e-economy will happen to Canada, whether or not we do anything about it. Our challenge and opportunity is to make it happen for Canada.
PDF Version (570 KB - 30 pages)
Information on Downloading a PDF Reader
To access the Portable Document Format (PDF) version you must have a PDF reader installed. If you do not already have such a reader, there are numerous PDF readers available for free download or for purchase on the Internet:
Contents
Executive Summary
Introduction
The Rise of the e-Economy
Transforming Organizations
Creating an Enabling Environment
Building an Intelligent Infrastructure
Ensuring Success
Executive Summary
Over the past quarter of a century, the increasing use of computers in all aspects of life, combined with the widespread deployment of the Internet, has fundamentally changed society and radically altered the dynamics of economic growth. For every country and community, the management and flow of information – and its translation into knowledge – are dramatically redefining the pace and direction of social progress and economic development. In advanced economies, wealth creation depends more and more on the capacity to use information and knowledge effectively, both in the production of goods and in the increasingly important realm of services and other forms of "intangible" economic activity. Moreover, using knowledge to innovate – in effect, finding smarter ways of doing work or conducting business, often by means of information technology – is the key to improving productivity and to maintaining competitiveness.
An economy dependent upon knowledge must necessarily rely on a strong networked base of advanced information and communications technologies (ICTs), as well as the capacity – the skills, know-how and entrepreneurship – to exploit them for economic and commercial advantage. This reliance on ICTs now extends far beyond the few industries like telecommunications, software and computer services that are traditionally associated with the technology. In fact, the use of ICTs, like electricity, has infiltrated virtually the entire economy. This has created an e-economy, in which firms, organizations and governments make effective use of ICTs to spur on product and process innovation across all sectors of the economy.
In today's global economy, competition can come from anywhere, at any time and in any industry sector. Traditional sources of comparative advantage no longer guarantee national prosperity. New strategies are needed to build an economy that generates wealth by capitalizing on the potential of ICTs to enhance innovation and productivity in every industry sector. This is the challenge of the e-economy.
Six years ago, the federal government set a goal for Canada – to become a world leader in e-commerce. We have largely reached this goal and are poised for a new challenge – to be the first country to build an e-economy for the 21st century.
To reach this new national goal, Canadians will need to develop strategies that:
- transform business models and organizational structures in the private and public sectors to generate continuous streams of productivity gains and product innovations, through the application and use of ICTs;
- create a climate of trust among consumers and businesses that fosters the growth of the e economy in Canada and internationally and creates global markets for electronic goods and services; and
- build an intelligent infrastructure to serve as the backbone of the e-economy – by encouraging investment, strengthening research, enhancing commercialization and ensuring that all Canadians have access to this infrastructure and know how to use it.
Developing and implementing these strategies will require partnership and collaboration among the private, public and academic sectors as well as other agencies and organizations that strive to link these together. It will also require the active involvement of Canadian consumers and citizens.
This fall, leaders from Canada's private, public, academic, and not-for-profit sectors will meet in the national conference e-Commerce to e-Economy: Strategies for the 21st Century. This conference will begin the process of developing strategies for promoting national prosperity in the digital world of the twenty-first century. The purpose of this paper is to provide background information on the rise of the e-economy, to outline the major strategic challenges facing Canada, and to pose the following series of "challenge questions" for discussion at the fall conference, as well as in the broader public debate about the e-economy.
Challenge Questions
Transforming Organizations
1. What kinds of organizational changes are needed to increase productivity in the public and private sectors?
- What kinds of new business models can private sector firms, including SMEs, adopt to improve their productivity and competitiveness?
- How can large or leading firms champion the adoption of IT and e-business throughout the sector?
- How can governments cooperate in designing and implementing citizen-centric services on a cross-jurisdictional basis?
- How can health care and educational services be transformed to improve quality and contain costs?
2. What adjustments are needed to transform the workplace for the e-economy?
- What adjustments are needed in education and skills development systems to prepare Canadians for the work requirements and managerial responsibilities of the e-economy?
- What adjustments are needed to employee benefit systems and social safety nets to help individuals and communities cope with the effects of rapid technological change, global competition, outsourcing and the flexible employment practices that are the hallmarks of the e-economy?
- What adjustments are needed to labour codes and management practices to help employees and their families maintain a good quality of life in an online, real-time, 24/7 world?
Creating an Enabling Environment
3. What more needs to be done in Canada to build an environment of trust in the e-economy for businesses and citizens?
- What additional measures are needed to support privacy, information integrity and network security?
- What further steps are needed to protect the interests of consumers and businesses and provide means to resolve disputes?
- How can protection of intellectual property rights be balanced with access to information and knowledge?
- What additional measures are needed to build trust in the e-economy internationally?
- What measures are required to deal more effectively with spam, viruses and other threats to Internet use?
- How can the use of authentication be accelerated?
4. How can Canada help build an enabling environment internationally?
- What new international arrangements are needed to facilitate trade in electronic goods and services using ICT networks?
- How can Canada help build e-economy capacities in developing countries?
Building an Intelligent Infrastructure
5. How does Canada foster investment in the deployment and use of intelligent infrastructure in the short- to medium-term?
- What frameworks are needed to govern ubiquitous, broadband, IP-based multimedia networks at the national and international levels?
- How can universal, affordable access to the intelligent infrastructure be ensured?
- What is government's regulatory and oversight role?
6. What strategies are needed to stimulate the commercialization of research on intelligent infrastructure, services and applications?
- What measures are needed to promote and encourage understanding and use of intelligent infrastructure services and applications by consumers and businesses?
- What should be the research priorities in transforming business models, organizational structures, and production processes?
- What is the role of public-private partnerships in stimulating commercialization and research?
- Does government have a more direct, interventionist role and if so, what is it?
Ensuring Success
7. What overall strategies are needed to catalyze actions that respond successfully to the opportunities and challenges presented by the e-economy?
- How can the different stakeholder groups build on the partnership model that was developed as part of the Canadian Electronic Commerce Strategy?
- What additional measures are needed to address the broader challenges of the e-economy?