Too Few Entrepreneurs Able to Scale Up Their Business
Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce Report Identifies Six Barriers to Growth
Greater Sudbury, April 21, 2016: Today, the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC), released the report, Breaking Barriers: Ontario’s Scale Up Challenge, which identifies the major roadblocks preventing Ontario businesses from expanding and presents recommendations to best support business owners in taking their ventures to the next stage of growth. According to the report, based on interviews with nearly two dozen business owners, sector associations, and other organizations, as well as a survey of over 350 Ontario business owners, too few entrepreneurs are continuing to build their business, or “scale up”, in the province.
The report adds to a recent chorus of voices calling for governments, the business community, and other actors to build on the province’s entrepreneurial spirit by creating the conditions to enable our most promising firms to scale.
To position Ontario for long-term success, the report proposes recommendations to address six specific barriers preventing businesses from growing, which includes a lack of access to talent with scale up experience, gaps in the right kinds of financing, and lower incentives to growth offered through public programs.
Chief among the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce’s recommendations are for governments to improve businesses’ access to talent in the short-term by creating a scale-up visa to quicken access to essential international managerial talent. According to an OCC survey, 63 percent of businesses that are looking to grow face a talent shortage. The Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce also encourages governments to gain a better understanding of where current gaps exist in the Canadian financing landscape.
Other recommendations of the report include:
- Realign public programs and incentives to focus supports on high-growth firms
- Encourage greater international trade activity by linking more business support programs to trade
- Improve access to public and private anchor customers by leveraging procurement to strategically invest in growing businesses
- Enable accurate measurement and monitoring of the scale up challenge by ensuring collaboration between Statistics Canada and industry groups to collect and publicize relevant data
The OCC’s survey also revealed that the cost of doing business remains a top issue for Ontario employers as 69 percent of business owners looking to grow identified this as a barrier. Through its advocacy efforts on other key policy issues, the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce continues to highlight the cost of doing business as a major challenge facing Ontario’s business community.
Read our report here.
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Quotes:
- Karen Hourtovenko, Chair of the Board, Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce: “We often hear of common barriers facing our business community in scaling-up such as difficulty finding the right talent, access to financing and breaking into new markets. This report is all about what we can do to address these challenges and help businesses grow and succeed on the global stage.”
- Allan O’Dette, President & CEO of Ontario Chamber of Commerce: “The release of Breaking Barriers coincides with initiatives currently underway by the governments of Canada and Ontario to help our most promising firms scale up. We have an incredible opportunity to leverage this alignment across government and the business community to tackle this challenge.”
- Sean Mullin, Executive Director of the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship: “Supporting the work of innovators and entrepreneurs across the country is integral to Canada’s future productivity and economic prosperity. Canada and Ontario stand to benefit from focusing efforts on supporting our most promising new firms and helping them succeed on a global stage.”
- Jérôme Nycz, Executive Vice President of BDC Capital: “BDC’s sole purpose is to help Canadian entrepreneurs succeed and grow. While our Growth and Transition Capital Team already supports many entrepreneurs with flexible, patient “scale-up” financing, we see the need for more. That is why we are already exploring additional ways we can help more entrepreneurs find the specialized financing they need to bring their business to the next level. Last year, BDC provided nearly $1.2-billion in lending to Ontario’s small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, $100-million of which was allocated to high-growth, high-potential entrepreneurs in the province.”
Survey conducted online between March 3 and April 11, 2016. N=359.
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For more information, please contact:
Joyce Mankarios
Policy and Public Relations Manager
Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce
705-673-7133 ext. 224
joyce(at)sudburychamber.ca