Image credit: Nick Iwanyshyn/The Globe and Mail
Using a case study of Pasta Mercato in Hamilton, Ontario, the Globe and Mail recently demonstrated how Canadian small business are using data insights to better their business decisions and operations.
Roman Kremnev is the owner of Pasta Mercato in Hamilton, a small grocery store and takeout restaurant that opened in 2021. Using ‘My Main Street’, a Canadian federally-funded organization that produces market research reports around Hamilton, he discovered through their data that his customers were actually interested in purchasing higher-quality products.
As a result, the Kremnevs decided to invest in better coffee equipment and higher quality ingredients. As predicted, their customers were happy to spend the additional 15-20% on their purchases at Pasta Mercato. This allowed for Pasta Mercato to expand their products into the neighbouring storefront.
Utilizing data insights to foster meaningful business decisions has always been a challenge for small business who may lack access to valuable data or are restricted in their analyzation abilities. To address this issue, many non-profits and larger business organizations are trying to support SMBs and local communities by providing data to small businesses.
‘My Main Street’, the organization Roman Kremnev used, was launched by the Canadian Urban Institute and the Economic Developers Council of Ontario in 2021 as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The program had the goal of “revitalizing cities’ economies” with a $23-million investment from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario by providing small businesses with access to market research about their neighbourhoods. The program also granted these eligible small businesses with up to $10,000 each to take actions with the data they analyzed.
Similarly, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) launched the ‘Business Data Lab’ (BDL) in 2022 in partnership with Statistics Canada to provide small business with enhanced access to economic information and “democratize data”. In particular, SMBs suffered disproportionately during the Covid-19 pandemic, and do not have the means to have data scientists on their small staff teams. The BDL includes a quarterly survey of business conditions, which allows business owners to get an idea of how their competitors are dealing with economic setbacks and challenges. Most businesses are still “behind in adopting new technologies” – a reason often cited as why Canadian productivity is “lower than in many international peer countries”.
In fact data should be shared widely as a resource, and not “held tightly”. Jeff Ward, the CEO of Animikii Indigenous Technology actually refers to this idea as a “form of contemporary colonialism”. His company builds software and websites for Indigenous-focused organizations, and is currently focusing on a project called ‘Niiwin’, a software that promotes Indigenous data sovereignty. Ward also emphasizes the importance of broadening data takeaways, ensuring to include qualitative data such as “intuition and stories” in quantitative data decision-making.
Read the full article from the Globe and Mail.
