Town of Cochrane Strategic Plan – Final Report October 2014
Figure 1: Locations of Cochrane’s Website Development in the BEAM program.
3.4 Job Creation
It is difficult to determine whether investing in E-business adoption will lead to job creation in
Cochrane. The picture is blurred because so much of E-business applies directly to productivity,
efficiency, and profitability, that job creation can be considered a secondary objective to SME
investment therein.
What can be said is that by strengthening the capacity of Cochrane’s SMEs to operate both locally
and beyond, the overall net benefit will reinforce the sector of Cochrane’s economy most readily
poised to create jobs. It has been observed that, not only does investment in E-business operations
increase profitability and produce operational efficiencies, it also enhances the sustainability of
SMEs’ own competitive advantage.185 When coupled with the fact that SMEs account for 98% of all
firms in Canada and generate 77.7% of all private job creation,186 it is clear that a community’s small
business community will be the prime job creators.
4. Feasibility of ICT Adoption
The following section addresses a number of considerations with respect to feasibility. Namely, it
considers several possible funding sources available for SME E-business adoption – both current and
emerging – as well as potential partners well suited to help Cochrane move forward.
4.1 Funding Sources
Several organisations offer financial support to small businesses for either E-business or ICT
investment. These are listed in Table 5.
185
Canadian e-Business Initiative. (2004). Net Impact Study: Strategies for Increasing SME Engagement in the eEconomy. Available at: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ecic-ceac.nsf/vwapj/NetImpact4.pdf/$file/NetImpact4.pdf
186
Statistics Canada (2013). Key Small Business Statistics – August 2013. Available at:
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/02806.html
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