A lack of political recognition and big business backing
threatens to stunt the growth of Toronto's $35 billion information
and communication technology (ICT) sector, according to a report
released Wednesday.
Toronto's ICT industry "lacks political recognition and is
flying below the radar screen," according to Ron Freedman,
principal of Toronto-based consulting firm Impact Group. Toronto
can't be competitive if it remains in Chicken Little mode or stays
in a Pollyanna state of mind.David TicollChief executive officer of
technical and strategic consulting firm Convergent
StrategiesText
Financing problems in the early stages of development plague ICT
start-ups, said Freedman, one of the speakers at the presentation
of the report, called An Information and Communications Technology
Strategy for the Toronto Region.
The report was developed by ICT Toronto, an organization of
technology-based businesses in the area that is acting as an
advisory group for the city, and was financed by the federal
International Trade Canada, the provincial Ministry of Economic
Development and Trade, and the City of Toronto.
The report ranked the city's ICT sector third in North America,
behind San Francisco and New York in terms of numbers of workers
employed.
Toronto's ICT industry employed over 92,500 workers in 2003,
compared with New York's 120,000 and San Francisco's 191,000 tech
workforce. A Statistics Canada survey in 2004 placed the number of
ICT employees in Toronto at 148,000.
With a core of some 3,300 firms, Toronto's ICT sector generates
$30 to $35 billion in annual sales and exports about $6 billion,
the report said.
But Toronto could lose this edge due to a lack of an aggressive
and focused strategy involving all three government levels and the
business sector, according to the report.
The city is facing competition from a number of global
competitors who offer knowledge-based workers at lower costs,
according to David Ticoll, chief executive officer of technical and
strategic consulting firm Convergent Strategies.
Ticoll said that Canada, which ranked sixth in exporting
information communication business services in 1995, has dropped to
13th place in 2002.
Toronto "can't be competitive if it remains on Chicken Little
mode or stays in a Pollyanna state of mind."
"We need big industry to pitch in. They need to put money in
this thing," Ticoll said. Frank Maw, head of Alexander Consultants
and former president of Motorola Canada, said India, China and some
developing Eastern European nations threaten to overtake Toronto in
this sector.
"Because of their low labour costs and aggressively focused
national policies, India, China and some countries in Europe will
increasingly capture knowledge-based jobs," he said. "Many emerging
countries have realized that the best way to improve their economy
is to invest in education. China now graduates more engineers that
the rest of world."
The ICT Toronto five-year plan, calls for a 15 per cent increase
in industry-university research and 25 per cent increase in ICT
research by 2011.
The plan advocates a more vigorous effort to pitch Toronto as a
leading technology hub and putting mechanisms in place to ensure
that businesses get equal access to government support.
A more robust wireless infrastructure and an assessment of
future bandwidth needs are also essential to attract new investors,
according to the report.
ICT Toronto hopes the strategy will place the city among the
five top locations in the world for communications technology
research, education and business by 2011.
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