Close X
Saturday, December 14, 2024
ADVT 
National

Google Canada Boss Prods 'slow' Canadian Businesses To Seize Digital Tools

The Canadian Press, 03 Jun, 2015 12:11 PM
    VANCOUVER — An American transplant leading Google Canada says Canadian businesses are moving "bad slow" in adopting digital technology.
     
    Managing director Sam Sebastian says only half of small and medium businesses in Canada have their own website, while fewer than one in three use cloud computing.
     
    "Does not compute. I don't get that. We have to fix that," he said Tuesday in a keynote speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade.
     
    Sebastian, who spent eight years with Google in Chicago, told the group there's resistance to change north of the border. 
     
    He urged Canadians to embrace virtual office infrastructure that has diminished substantially in cost over the last two decades to about $5,000 for a startup from $5 million on average.
     
    Digital leaders outperform their competitors in every industry, he said.
     
    "They have higher revenues, productivity, better market valuations. They just do better," he said. "Canadian businesses need to be embracing these tools."
     
    He noted a divide between Canadians using the Internet for their own interests versus for business, giving the example of how the general public employs YouTube, which Google owns.
     
    Every month, Canadians upload more content to the online video-sharing portal than all of the country's major national television networks and broadcasters did over the last 10 years combined.
     
    Canadians are the third-largest exporter of content on YouTube in the world, he said. Some 90 per cent of views of Canadian content are coming from outside our borders.
     
    "But this is something that Canadian businesses are only barely beginning to take advantage of."
     
    Despite the snail's pace Sebastian has encountered in the year he's lived in Canada, he's observed strong relationships, empathy, openness and tolerance for new ideas, he said.
     
    "That is the hard part. The technology just makes all this go a lot faster and a lot smoother.
     
    "In many ways I think Canada is the fastest team on the ice. We've just got to harness those skills."

    MORE National ARTICLES

    RCMP Officer Testifies In Case Of Man Accused Of Having Chemical Stockpile

    RCMP Officer Testifies In Case Of Man Accused Of Having Chemical Stockpile
    The woman's complaint in January prompted a search for Phillips and evacuations in two Halifax-area communities where chemicals were found, including what a police hazardous devices technician described as 750 bottles and other containers.

    RCMP Officer Testifies In Case Of Man Accused Of Having Chemical Stockpile

    Tie Between Two B.C. Doctors Forces Second Vote For Leader Of Professional Group

    Tie Between Two B.C. Doctors Forces Second Vote For Leader Of Professional Group
    Dr. Brian Day was declared the winner last week by just one vote, but the group's CEO Allan Seckel says there was another vote that should have been counted.

    Tie Between Two B.C. Doctors Forces Second Vote For Leader Of Professional Group

    Judge Nearly Declared Mistrial In Terror Case Over Crown's 'American' TV Closing

    The trial of a husband and wife accused of plotting to blow up the B.C. legislature came close to being declared a mistrial over the Crown's closing address, which the judge said was so inflammatory and inappropriate it took her breath away.

    Judge Nearly Declared Mistrial In Terror Case Over Crown's 'American' TV Closing

    Judge Tosses Band's Bid To Block Sale Of B.C. Rail Corridor To Local Governments

    Judge Tosses Band's Bid To Block Sale Of B.C. Rail Corridor To Local Governments
    KELOWNA, B.C. — A B.C. Supreme Court judge has dismissed a bid by the Okanagan Indian Band to block the sale of a rail corridor.

    Judge Tosses Band's Bid To Block Sale Of B.C. Rail Corridor To Local Governments

    Names Released Of 2 Whistler Cyclists, 1 Passenger Killed In Weekend Sea-To-Sky Highway Crash

    Names Released Of 2 Whistler Cyclists, 1 Passenger Killed In Weekend Sea-To-Sky Highway Crash
    Fifty-three-year-old Kelly Blunden and 50-year-old Ross Chafe were riding with a group along the Sea-to-Sky Highway when they were hit around noon on Sunday.

    Names Released Of 2 Whistler Cyclists, 1 Passenger Killed In Weekend Sea-To-Sky Highway Crash

    First Nation Chiefs Wants Investigation Into Aboriginal Teen's Death In Vancouver Downtown Eastside

    First Nation Chiefs Wants Investigation Into Aboriginal Teen's Death In Vancouver Downtown Eastside
    VANCOUVER — The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs is demanding police investigate the government agencies whose alleged inaction led to the overdose death of an aboriginal teenager in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

    First Nation Chiefs Wants Investigation Into Aboriginal Teen's Death In Vancouver Downtown Eastside